That Sporting Week. A look back at some of the last week's top sports stories. A Week in sport that has behaved like a malfunctioning sat‑nav: confidently shouting instructions, immediately contradicting itself, and occasionally driving straight into a hedge.

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We begin with Andoni Iraola, who has taken over as Liverpool’s new head coach and immediately announced that he “understands what is expected.” This is a bold statement, because what is expected at Liverpool is: win everything, win it beautifully, win it while playing a brand of football that makes small children weep with joy, and also do it all while smiling politely at journalists who ask questions like, “Why haven’t you won the league yet, it’s been four hours?” Iraola says he’s ready for the challenge, which is exactly what every Liverpool manager says right before discovering that the challenge includes 47 matches in 19 days and a fanbase that can detect tactical flaws using only telepathy.

Meanwhile at Lord’s, Michael Vaughan has expressed sympathy for batsmen after 33 wickets fell in two days, which is the cricketing equivalent of a haunted house. The pitch behaved less like a sporting surface and more like a trapdoor operated by a bored Victorian ghost. Batsmen walked out looking hopeful and walked back in looking like they’d just seen their tax bill. Vaughan said he “felt sorry” for them, which is a polite way of saying, “This pitch should be arrested.”Despite the chaos, England actually won the first Test against New Zealand, proving once again that the national cricket team is at its most dangerous when conditions resemble a post‑apocalyptic wasteland. Bowlers were taking wickets so fast the scoreboard operator developed repetitive strain injury. Somewhere, Bazball is laughing maniacally.

Over in Paris, 17‑year‑old Mirra Andreeva won her first Grand Slam title, defeating Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska, who had been on the brink of a fairytale ending until Andreeva turned up and said, “Nope, plot twist.” Andreeva is now officially the latest teenager to make the rest of us feel like we’ve wasted our lives. At 17, she’s lifting trophies; at 17, most of us were struggling to lift a maths textbook.

In football news, historians have announced that the animals on the England badge are not lions but leopards, which means the national team has spent the last century roaring proudly under the wrong species. This is peak England: even the badge has an identity crisis. Expect at least one tabloid to run the headline “LEOPARDS CAN CHANGE THEIR SPOTS — TO SEMI‑FINAL EXITS.”

And finally, the greatest sporting miracle of the week: Rob Davis, 67, and David Lewis, 64, both made a hole‑in‑one on the same hole, in the same round, at Royal Liverpool, with odds estimated at 17 million to one. To put that in perspective, you are statistically more likely to be struck by lightning while being hugged by Elvis. The two men have been golfing partners for more than 30 years, which means they now have a story so powerful it will be told at every dinner party, funeral, and dental appointment for the rest of time. Their families may never know peace again.

And that, Sport fan's, is your week in sport: Iraola bracing for impact, Lord’s turning into a crime scene, England winning things by accident, tennis teenagers rewriting history, the national badge undergoing species reassignment, and two golfers casually bending the laws of probability.

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