scored

There were 43 goals scored, five red cards handed out and six penalties awarded – of which five were converted.

It was a relentless evening of Champions League football on Tuesday.

Last season’s winners Paris St-Germain hit seven past Leverkusen, with both teams having a player sent off and the German side’s Alejandro Grimaldo missing a spot-kick.

PSV Eindhoven fought back from a goal down before running riot in a 6-2 win against Italian champions Napoli.

Arsenal, Newcastle and Manchester City all claimed convincing victories, with City’s Erling Haaland scoring for a 12th consecutive game.

There were goals and drama aplenty, so BBC Sport has dived into the stats behind an entertaining night in Europe’s most prestigious club tournament.

Madonna’s “MDNA.” Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising.” Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.”

According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, none of these albums — each the 12th studio LP by its respective maker — has sold 4 million copies in the United States in the decade or more since it was released.

Yet that’s what Taylor Swift just did in a single week with her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which Billboard reported Monday had moved 4.002 million copies in the seven days between Oct. 3 and 9.

That figure, which combines sales and streaming numbers, represents the biggest opening week for an album in modern history, breaking the record set by Adele 10 years ago when her “25” moved 3.482 million units in its first week.

Swift marked the achievement on Instagram on Monday with a note to her 281 million followers.

“I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” she wrote. “I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it. Since then I’ve tried to meet and thank as many people as I could who have given me the chance to chase this insane dream. Here we are all these years later and a hundred times that many people showed up for me this week.

“I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans,” she added, “and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was.”

The speed with which Swift hit the 4-million mark is undeniably impressive. Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” the biggest album of 2025 so far, has sold and streamed the equivalent of 4.2 million copies, according to the trade journal Hits. But “I’m the Problem” has been out since mid-May; “Showgirl” will almost certainly have surpassed Wallen’s LP by the end of this week (if it hasn’t already).

What’s more remarkable is where “Showgirl’s” blockbuster success comes in the arc of Swift’s career.

Madonna and Springsteen were both in their early 50s when they released their 12th LPs; Carey was 40 when “Imperfect Angel” came out. Swift, in contrast, is only 35 — one advantage of starting out professionally as a teenager.

Still, Swift has been a star for nearly two decades, a point at which many pop musicians have shifted the focus of their work to touring even as they continue to make new records generally ignored by all but their most devoted fans. In 2024, according to Pollstar, Madonna’s and Springsteen’s latest road shows — each drawn from a catalog packed with hit songs — were among the year’s 10 highest-grossing tours.

And indeed Swift has been amply rewarded on the road: At No. 1 on Pollstar’s list was her Eras tour, which sold more than $2 billion in tickets across 149 dates on five continents.

Yet unlike virtually every other veteran act in music, Swift’s recording business is growing along with her live business.

“Everything that’s happening here is historic and unprecedented,” said Hits’ editor in chief, Lenny Beer. “Maybe if the Beatles had stayed together, we’d have seen something like it.”

Also worth considering: Nobody seems to think “The Life of a Showgirl” is Swift’s best album. Reviews have been mixed, and even some fans have expressed disappointment with the record on social media — a once-unthinkable development among the fiercely loyal Swifties.

So how did the singer pull off such a feat?

First, a little math: Of “Showgirl’s” 4 million units, approximately 3.5 million were sales of either digital or physical versions of the album (including CDs, cassettes and vinyl LPs); the remaining half-million came from streams of the album’s songs on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, which the data firm Luminate counts toward what it calls streaming equivalent albums.

“Showgirl’s” 12 songs racked up 681 million streams in all, Billboard said — the fourth-biggest streaming week of all time, behind Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” and Drake’s “Scorpion” and “Certified Lover Boy.” But the album’s sales number is the largest ever recorded since Luminate started tracking sales electronically in 1991.

Among Swift’s strategies to get to that number was selling more than three dozen editions of the album, each with its own artwork and bonus material designed to lure collectors. On vinyl alone, “Showgirl” came out in eight so-called variants, which helped drive the album’s first-week vinyl sales to a modern record of 1.3 million copies.

Offering something for sale doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will buy it, of course. Yet Swift was positioning “The Life of a Showgirl” as a juggernaut from the moment she announced it. Appearing with her fiancé, the NFL player Travis Kelce, on his “New Heights” podcast in August, the singer described the album as a return to the hit-making ways of albums like “Red” and “1989” after the relatively experimental “Folklore” and “Tortured Poets Department.”

To make “Showgirl,” she reteamed with the Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, with whom she’d collaborated on some of her biggest singles, including “Blank Space,” “Bad Blood” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” On “New Heights” she and Kelce talked about the new album as a “180” from the moody confessions of “Tortured Poets,” whetting appetites for the kind of crisply hooky Taylor Swift songs that blanketed Top 40 radio in the mid-2010s.

Promised the football star: “12 bangers.”

Fans visit an activation for Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” at the Westfield Century City mall on Oct. 4.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Once “Showgirl” was out, Swift jumped into the promotional fray with more gusto than she’d summoned in years, sitting for numerous radio interviews and putting in appearances on Graham Norton’s, Jimmy Fallon’s and Seth Meyers’ late-night shows; the weekend after the album’s release, a glorified sizzle reel called “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” played in AMC movie theaters across the country.

On Monday, Swift kept the conversation going with the announcement that two Eras-related projects are headed to Disney+ in December: a six-part behind-the-scenes docuseries and a concert film of the tour’s finale in Vancouver.

“One of the hardest parts of ensuring you have a record-setting first week is making sure that everyone who could possibly be interested in your album knows about it,” said Bill Werde, director of the Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University. “I’m not sure anyone has ever covered that need the way Taylor did with this album cycle.”

Yet “The Life of a Showgirl” has not been greeted as enthusiastically as some of Swift’s earlier work.

Pitchfork said “her music’s never been less compelling,” while The Guardian called the album “dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled.” Fans on TikTok have complained that Swift’s lyrics — which take up her romance with Kelce, the burdens of fame and an apparent beef with Charli XCX — are unusually shallow; some have even formulated a kind of tradwife critique of “Showgirl” in which Swift is seen as upholding regressive ideas about marriage and domesticity.

The album has also attracted criticism from people who say Swift’s songs recycle familiar elements from other pop tunes without giving credit: the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in “Wood,” for instance, and the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool” in the LP’s closing title track.

“When every song is a derivative of another song, that’s an issue,” said one hit songwriter who asked not to be named in order to speak freely. “That one song is the Jonas Brothers song — the exact same melody. And here’s how lazy that is: It’s the same key and the same tempo.”

In Werde’s view, Swift’s place atop the pop hierarchy makes such carping inevitable. “Anytime an artist gets this big, there’s going to be backlash,” he said — a take with which Swift would likely agree.

“I welcome the chaos,” she said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The rule of show business is: If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”

Even so, the polarized reaction to “Showgirl” — Swift’s 15th album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — raises questions about the breadth of Swift’s popularity as compared to its depth. Should the album’s gargantuan numbers be taken as a sign that she appeals to a wide spectrum of pop music lovers or to a committed group of hardcore Swifties willing to spend untold amounts of money to demonstrate their loyalty?

“Showgirl’s” second-week stats should provide the beginnings of an answer, given that they won’t be shaped by one-time sales of all those limited-edition variants.

Then again, another unprecedented chart achievement from the album’s first week is already shedding some light on the matter: “The Fate of Ophelia,” the album’s lead single, is the first song ever to debut inside the top 10 of Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart — an indication of the heavy Top 40 radio play it’s getting along with the millions of daily streams that have kept it atop Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 tally since the song came out.

That’s one banger certified, with more perhaps to come.

Ella Marie Gill documented her holiday on social media after paying just £99 for mystery holiday package via Wowcher, who allocate destinations to customers at random

A woman who snapped up a £99 mystery holiday voucher from Wowcher has taken to social media to share her experience. Wowcher, known for its daily deals and discounts on a range of experiences, products and services, was something traveller Ella Marie Gill was eager to try out.

“We are heading to Malaga in Spain and have no idea what to expect,” she started off in a TikTok video after finding out her destination. After a three-hour flight, Ella Marie confessed she was “most nervous” about the condition of her hotel after checking out photos of it online.

“We’ve just arrived at our hotel and it’s not looking too bad,” she optimistically added, following a 10-minute Uber ride from the airport. Ella Marie highlighted it’s a four-star accommodation as she ventured inside where she was immediately taken by the hotel’s lobby.

“I do think it’s quite nice,” she admitted, sweeping her camera around the reception and seating areas. Stepping outside, she commended: “And we are literally on the beach, so 10 points for that.”

After picking up her room key, Ella Marie headed to the lift, thankful she was allowed to check-in two hours early. Upon entering the room, she exclaimed: “It’s absolutely huge. Honestly, I’m quite pleasantly surprised.”

Indeed, Ella Marie showed off her room’s sofa, king-size bed, chair, desk and even a mini-fridge that was already filled with a selection of alcoholic and soft drinks.

“The bathroom is lovely too,” Ella Marie declared, highlighting an immaculate-looking bath and shower. “It’s such a big size.”

Regarding her bed, she gushed about how comfortable it was, before escorting her viewers outside to her balcony – complete with table and chairs – which boasted views across the city. “I’m actually really impressed,” Ella Marie concluded. “Honestly, for a Wowcher holiday I am pretty impressed.”

In the comments section, one TikTok user shared their own Mystery Holiday experience, writing: “I’ve done this and got lake Garda in Italy. We paid £50 per person to upgrade our flights. We had to change our hotel as all the reviews on the hotel they had given us everyone said they all got bedbugs so we had to pay £250 for a new hotel and Wowcher wouldn’t change it for us or compensate us unless we went there and actually got bed bugs. Beautiful place though.”

A second person commented: “Stayed here too with the £99 holiday! So amazing, we upgraded to a beach view room. Would definitely go back.”

Meanwhile, a third exclaimed: “Absolutely bargain! Hope you enjoyed it! I love Malaga, it’s beautiful, and go as often as I get the chance.”

Wowcher markets its mystery breaks, which differ in cost depending on distance. The company states: “Experience the thrill of a surprise getaway! Whether it’s the vibrant streets of New York, the breathtaking beaches of Bali, or the historic charm of Rome, our Mystery Holidays take you to incredible destinations- without the hassle of planning!

“Whether this is an exciting trip for yourself, or you want to gift a mystery holiday voucher to a loved one, we’ve got you covered! Indeed, from long-haul destinations including Maldives, Barbados and Bali, to city breaks and beach holidays such as Venice, Rome and Amsterdam, Wowcher says customers could find themselves heading to one of more than 100 destinations through the Mystery Holiday package.”

As for how you’ll discover your destination, Wowcher explains: “Each customer is randomly assigned a destination tier and will receive a travel location within that tier, based on their selected travel dates. The destination will remain undisclosed at the time of purchase. Once revealed and the voucher is redeemed, the booking becomes non-refundable. Refunds will not be issued if a customer is unhappy with the allocated destination.”

BOLTON hero Nicky Hunt has started his management career in the TENTH tier of British football.

The 42-year-old spent a decade at The Reebok, before spells at Accrington Stanley, Leyton Orient and Crewe.

1

But he has dropped down into non-league to kickstart his coaching career and is now leading the dugout at his local club Daisy Hill FC in the North West Counties, Division One North.

The former defender explained: “I grew up literally five minutes’ walk down the road, and my parents still live in Daisy Hill, so for me, it’s really close to home.

“I came here to watch the team as a kid, so I’ve got an affiliation with this football club.

“It was a family club back then, and it’s even probably more of a family club now.

“The fans, the committee members and everyone involved at the club, they just love it to a point where it’s become their lives, which is what I’m all about football-wise.

“ I put everything into it, whenever I’m into the coaching or the playing side.

“The way the club is run now, with the new sponsorships they’ve got, I can only really see it going one way.”

Daisy Hill have enjoyed an upturn in fortune after appointing a Twitch streamer who ran the team on the Football Manager computer game took over.

Aaron Hunt – who regularly streams online with his pal and darts wonderkid Luke Littler – said: “Everyone at the club is really looking forward to working with Nicky.

“He’s a local lad who had a brilliant playing career at the top level.

“He holds a UEFA A-Licence, and knows the local non-league scene, too, so he’s got great experience at all levels of the game.

“We believe that he is definitely the right man for Daisy Hill, and that there are going to be some exciting times ahead for everyone who follows the club, starting on Saturday when we host Nelson.”

The stocks of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL 3.10%) (GOOG 2.98%) and Meta Platforms (META 2.04%) shot higher in Friday trading. Although most stocks rose because the Federal Reserve strongly hinted at a September cut in interest rates, another factor was likely the announcement of Meta’s cloud deal with Google, as reported by The Information.

Considering the $10 billion size of the deal, one has to assume it is critical, particularly to Alphabet. Still, considering the state of the artificial intelligence (AI) stock, it could serve as a much-needed catalyst for the company’s investors. Here’s why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Terms of the partnership

Under the terms of the deal, Meta will pay Google $10 billion over six years. In exchange, it will receive access to Google Cloud’s storage, server, and networking services, along with other products.

Meta has previously relied on Amazon‘s Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft‘s Azure for such services. The deal does not necessarily mean it will deal less with these companies. More likely, it speaks to Meta’s insatiable demand for cloud infrastructure as it seeks to become a major player in the AI space.

Additionally, Meta and Alphabet are each other’s largest competitors in the digital advertising market. And in the first half of 2025, 98% of Meta’s revenue came from digital ads. Hence, in a sense, it is remarkable that these two would become partners in a different business.

How it helps Alphabet

However, in another sense, this is a huge step forward for Alphabet’s future. In the first half of this year, Alphabet earned 74% of its revenue from the digital ad market, down from 76% in the same period in 2024. This is also by design, as Alphabet has purchased dozens of businesses unrelated to the digital ad market in its efforts to transition into a more diversified technology enterprise.

So far, Google Cloud is the only one of these enterprises to appear in Alphabet’s financials. It accounted for 14% of Alphabet’s revenue in the first two quarters of 2025, up from 12% in the same year-ago period.

Additionally, Google Cloud generated over $49 billion in revenue over the trailing 12 months, implying the $10 billion from Meta over six years will make up a relatively small portion of Google Cloud’s business.

Nonetheless, the deal serves as a vote of confidence for Alphabet’s cloud business, one that continues to lag AWS and Azure in terms of market share.

Image source: Statista. Y-o-y = year over year.

The investor perspective is also crucial. Over the last year, Alphabet stock has outpaced the total returns of the S&P 500 by a significant but not eye-popping margin. However, it may help that Alphabet’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 22 is the lowest among “Magnificent Seven” stocks. Hence, the Meta deal could prompt investors to look more favorably upon that earnings multiple.

GOOGL Total Return Level data by YCharts.

Furthermore, if the Meta deal prompts other companies to do more business with Google Cloud, it could provide a boost to its market share and, by extension, Alphabet stock.

The Meta deal and Alphabet stock

Ultimately, Meta’s deal with Google Cloud will more than likely take Alphabet stock a leg higher, but investors should expect the effects to be more indirect. Indeed, the deal is remarkable in that it serves as a boost for third-place Google Cloud and is notable since the two companies are direct competitors in each other’s largest enterprises.

Although $10 billion in added business over six years is substantial, Google Cloud generated $49 billion over the last 12 months. Thus, it is a significant but not game-changing boost to the enterprise.

However, the deal may make Google Cloud more attractive to prospective customers, and the low P/E ratio could attract more investors to Alphabet. In the end, those could become the more significant benefits of the deal.