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You’ll Never Walk Alone. It’s an anthem for Borussia Dortmund as well, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most terrace-friendly ditty is currently ringing around Wembley. Up in the posh seats, the aforementioned Kloppo sings and sways in the emotional style. A pfenning for all of the conflicting thoughts running through the head of the former Liverpool boss right now. He looks healthy and happy and about ten years younger. Premier League management is a job of work all right.

Dortmund have Jurgen Klopp, so Real need a celebrity fan of their own in attendance. Step forward Jay-Z, who is at Wembley to support his Roc Nation Sports client Vinicius Júnior. In other news, the Wembley turf is looking lush, so while Jay-Z has 99 problems … no, you deserve better than that. I’m sorry for even thinking about it.

More teams, more games, a single league structure: this is how Europe’s top men’s club competition will look in 2024-25

When Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid conclude this season’s Champions League at Wembley on Saturday, the continent will wave goodbye to the current format. In 2024-25 a new system will be put in place that will bring more teams, more games and more money to be made.

Borussia Dortmund are reaping the rewards of renewing relationship with their big-name loanee by reaching the Champions League final

Borussia Dortmund’s legends team made a trip to Glasgow last Sunday to play their Celtic counterparts, raising funds for the Scottish champions’ foundation. Maybe Dortmund fans do not need any prodding towards nostalgic sentiments at the moment, as their team prepare to return to Wembley for a Champions League final 11 years on from their last one. Same stage, same place.

Nevertheless, there was plenty to comfort those wanting to relive the Jürgen Klopp glory years. Six of the players involved at Wembley in 2013 – Roman Weidenfeller, Lukasz Piszczek, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Marcel Schmelzer, Kevin Grosskreutz, and Oliver Kirch – played at Celtic Park, a welcome chime of past glories before the push to create a new landmark against Real Madrid, going one better than back then.

• Ex-Barça star’s company allegedly received illegal payments
• Agreement for €40m bonus according to court documents

A Spanish judge has placed former Barcelona player Gerard Piqué under official investigation for his alleged involvement in illegal payments in the relocation of Spain’s Super Cup to Saudi Arabia.

Judge Delia Rodrigo concluded there were indications of wrongdoing in the deal between Piqué’s company Kosmos and the Spanish soccer federation (RFEF), according to a court document.

Champions League final will be midfielder’s last in all white before he bows out at Euro 2024

Carlo Ancelotti: His decision to go is the decision of a great, a decision of character. We are saying farewell to a footballing great who we have been lucky to have here. He is a great midfielder with huge quality and fantastic character, with little ego, who always played for the team; very altruistic. We have been lucky to have him for 10 years. Toni could close his career with a Champions League and at an individual level he deserves it. But his career doesn’t need another Champions League. He has been a fantastic player for 10 years, he had made history with Real Madrid and in world football.

Eduardo Camavinga: Toni doesn’t say much but when he does, he kills you. I like that about him.

• Former Bayern Munich manager signs two-year contract
• Xavi walks away with about €12m less than he could have done

Hansi Flick has been confirmed as the new coach of Barcelona, after the sacking of Xavi Hernández. The former Bayern Munich manager joins on a two-year deal, worth about €3.5m (£3m) a year plus incentives, which was closed during meetings with the club and his agent, Pini Zahavi, in the city on Tuesday. The 59-year-old had been out of work since his sacking as Germany’s coach in September last year.

In a statement, Barcelona described Flick as a manager “known for his intense, ambitious high press” and cited a “wide experience at club and international level, in which he has won practically every title that can be won in world football”.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nicky Bandini, Archie Rhind-Tutt and Sid Lowe for the final Europod of the season

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On the Europod today: we start in Germany by asking if Champions League finalists Dortmund are ready for Wembley, and whether Bayern Munich are ready for Vincent Kompany. Also, what’s next for Bayer Leverkusen after their undefeated league and Cup double?

Wembley is everywhere, and everywhere is Wembley. But the more bases it tries to cover, the less special it becomes

The Wembley Stadium lasagne had one major design flaw, and it’s not the one you think. You may remember – right at the start of the pandemic – the Football Association being forced to deny a viral WhatsApp story that the stadium was being used to bake a giant lasagne to feed a hungry nation. And no, if you gave it even a moment’s consideration, the undersoil pitch heating probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to recreate oven conditions. That’s before you even get to the issue of the roof not being fully retractable.

But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we could surmount these technical obstacles and get the thing cooked. Let’s imagine our national stadium is now a delicious, bubbling mess of layered pasta sheets, ragu, bechamel and melted cheese. Now to divide the thing up and get it to those who need it most. And this – hypothetically speaking – is where the problems begin.

• Carlo Ancelotti is preparing for his sixth UCL final as a coach
• Real face Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on Saturday

Carlo Ancelotti has described Real Madrid as being in “Champions League mode” as they begin a week that is there to be enjoyed, at least until Saturday when the cold sweats will start.

The Italian and his team have been here before – the match against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley will be his sixth European Cup final as a coach, Real’s sixth in 10 years, and the 1,324th game Ancelotti has taken charge of in his career – and he says the nerves are normal, his routine ready to see him through. “I like to eat,” Ancelotti said.

Artem Dovbyk netted a hat-trick to pip Alexander Sørloth and become La Liga’s top scorer but this is a story of the collective

Sometimes the least important things matter most, small moments that make sense of it all. A last-minute penalty in a 7-0 win on the final day, scored against the worst team around – long since relegated, reduced to 10 men, with a reserve keeper in goal and coach that’s leaving – elevated Artem Dovbyk above everyone. The last shot of the final Friday of the season took the Girona striker to the top of the Pichichi charts.

Dovbyk’s 77th shot of the season, more than anyone, was simple enough. Left footed from the spot, it sent Marc Martínez – the Granada goalkeeper playing his third top flight game aged 34 – the wrong way; it also took the Ukrainian to 24 goals, one above Villarreal striker Alexander Sørloth in the only thing still in play on the final weekend. The following day as the final Saturday kicked off Girona’s players met for lunch, still nursing a hangover and watched together as Sørloth took his last shot, pulling up injured to leave Dovbyk as top scorer, their teammate marking a historic season for all of them.

Die Werkself lost the Europa League final but ended season with two trophies and belief things will only get better

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They had shown they could fall with the finishing line in sight - and how - to Zinedine Zidane’s famous, thunderous left-footer at Hampden Park, or to a rampant Bayern Munich in the mid-Covid DFB Pokal final in Berlin. For a more modern twist you could even throw in last year’s Europa League semi-final under Xabi Alonso’s command, in which José Mourinho and Roma miraculously survived a barrage in the BayArena (23 Leverkusen shots to Roma’s one). Not this season, though.

The greatest testament to Bayer Leverkusen’s extraordinary season is that losing Wednesday’s Europa League final in Dublin (and comprehensively at that) to Atalanta felt like the shock, rather than Die Werkself getting there in the first place to fluff their lines. Fifty-one games unbeaten up until that point doesn’t quite do it justice. Alonso’s side have been a juggernaut, trampling all in their way and, on the occasions they have found themselves behind, eventually reeling in their opponents with increasing inevitability. The later-than-late equalisers and winners against Stuttgart, Borussia Dortmund, Qarabag, Roma – the list goes on on – had the feel of one of the giants of Europe making gravity count, rather than an upstart, first-time champion, as they were in this season’s Bundesliga.

Knives finally came out for coach who signed new deal in September, resigned in January and made U-turn in April

Parco on Passeig de Gràcia does the best sushi in Catalonia, or at least the most famous. If the Vatican has white smoke, FC Barcelona had a delivery boy in a white helmet getting off his motorbike and pressing the buzzer at Joan Laporta’s penthouse flat near the top end of Diagonal. It was just before 11pm on 24 April and he held in his hand an embossed brown paper bag containing the takeaway which in that instant became a symbol of celebration and agreement, the scene excitedly broadcast live. The restaurant had free publicity and Barcelona had a new coach, same as the old one.

For a couple of hours the crowd outside had seen people arrive, a show played out in public the way they wanted it. It had started at San Joan Despí, the outcome uncertain, but they had decamped to the president’s place. Outside, journalists watched Xavi turn up, reverse into a parking space too small, pull out again and go in search of another. They had seen Deco, the sporting director; Rafa Yuste, the vice-president; and Alejandro Echevarría, who doesn’t have a post but does have a lot of weight. They had seen Bojan Krkic by the intercom. There had been the occasional false alarm too. But now they knew.

• Club announce Xavi’s last game will be at Sevilla on Sunday
• Xavi was due to stay until at least 2025 after U-turn in April

Barcelona intend to make Hansi Flick their new coach after announcing that Xavi Hernández will leave after the season’s final game on Sunday. The president, Joan Laporta, informed Xavi of his fate in a meeting at the training ground on Friday.

Barcelona have been talking to Flick for months and although the German’s camp denied there had been a meeting in London this week with the coach, his agent Pini Zahavi and the club’s sporting director Deco, an agreement has been put in place for the former Bayern Munich and Germany manager to take over. The B team coach, Rafa Márquez, has been suggested as an alternative.

After a surprise run to the German Cup final, fallen giants need a miracle against Xabi Alonso’s champions – but still have hope

The task facing Kaiserslautern could not be more gargantuan. As they walk out to the monumental backdrop of the Olympiastadion in Berlin on Saturday, they will know they are expected to lose by everyone other than their diehard supporters and, perhaps, secretly, some of them too.

The first 2. Bundesliga side to reach the DFB-Pokal final in more than a decade, they must aim to become the first team to beat Bayer Leverkusen in domestic competition this season. Xabi Alonso’s side are champions of Germany and, before their off night against Atalanta in the Europa League final, had gone a record 51 games without defeat; Kaiserslautern spent much of the campaign trying to avoid relegation to the third tier. They do not so much have a mountain to climb as two Everests stacked on top of one another, teetering ominously.

• Bologna have qualified for the Champions League for first time
• ‘The club wishes him the best of luck for the rest of his career’

Thiago Motta has opted not to renew his contract at Bologna, the Serie A club said on Thursday, with the former Italy international set to move to Juventus, according to Italian media reports.

Motta, 41, led Bologna to Champions League qualification for the first time in their history in his second season at the club, and those exploits have put him on the radar of many of Europe’s top teams.

American billionaires and investment firms now control teams across Europe. Their stewardship varies wildly in quality

It might have taken the USA generations to take soccer seriously as a sport, but the country’s reach across the English and European game continues to grow, particularly when it comes to club ownership. Indeed, American entrepreneurs, moguls and general wealth-hoarders are now commonplace in boardrooms across world soccer.

No fewer than nine Premier League clubs are majority owned by Americans – and that’s without even mentioning clubs lower down the pyramid such as Birmingham City and Wrexham (although Canada could claim that one too). Across continental Europe, too, there is a current of American ownership gathering pace – Serie A has proved particularly attractive recently.

Nothing, not the Roman Empire, not the Zhou dynasty, not even Last of the Summer Wine, lasts for ever, and neither did Bayer Leverkusen’s unbeaten run. After 51 games, their pursuit of a flawless season came to an end at the penultimate hurdle as an ­Ademola Lookman hat-trick, the first in a one‑legged European final since Pierino Prati in 1969, gave ­Atalanta a surprisingly compre­hensive victory and their first trophy in 61 years.

After all the talk of the emergence of Xabi Alonso as one of Europe’s most promising young coaches, it was an experienced old hand who took the laurels. At 66, Gian Piero ­Gasperini has his first silverware, a moment of tangible success in a career that has been spent per­forming a highly impressive job out of the limelight. They beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield, then Marseille 3-0 in the home leg of the semi-final; nobody can say this was not deserved.

• Europa League final news from Dublin, 8pm BST kick-off
• Read the latest Football Daily | And send Scott an email

Our pre-match postbag is positively teeming with an email. Just as well it’s a good one. “Genuinely excited by this one,” begins Russell Yong. “One often sees people expressing disdain by wishing both teams could lose; this, for a change, is a game I dearly wish both could win. I don’t want to see Leverkusen’s unbeaten run end, but Bergamo, beautiful, lovely Bergamo, so dearly deserves a win. Dare I say it, I think Atalanta will edge it. They will be hungrier for their cup loss and their bench seems to have marginally more depth: Pasalic, de Roon, Hateboer, Toure and Miranchuk are all extremely handy players. A word too for their backup goalkeeper Carnesecchi which, I take it, translates to ‘dried meat’, which I like to think means he’s descended from a long line of jerky makers.”

Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso speaks to TNT Sports: “In the Bundesliga we didn’t want to talk to early but we made it great … it’s for the history books now … now we want to keep going, keep doing history … we have a great chance … it’s going to be great but tough also … we have been focused … the supporters had to celebrate … but we had this final and another in Germany … this is the big one … the guys are ready and looking forward to it … the way we stick together as a team will be fundamental … it’s a final, but it’s a game … we have played so many games this year … it’s been a dream season for all of us … especially for our fans … we try to enjoy it with them, but our job is to perform on the pitch.”

St Pauli striker on his long road, the club’s political role and being the only English forward to win a title in Germany this term

“Everyone thought it would be Harry Kane winning a league but instead it is me,” Dapo Afolayan says of being the only English striker to win a title in Germany this season, which in turn has earned him the opportunity to test himself against the England captain next season in the Bundesliga.

The former Bolton player was an influential member of St Pauli’s promotion-winning side after swapping Greater Manchester for Hamburg 18 months ago. It has been a long journey for the 26-year-old, one in which Afolayan left Chelsea’s academy aged 14 in order to get the education he wanted, leading to a degree in civil engineering while playing part-time at Loughborough University and with Solihull Moors before being plucked from the bottom of the fifth tier by West Ham. Next season he will come up against some of the continent’s best. It is a long way from playing in the ninth tier in a team of students.

• Suning’s loan was guaranteed by stake in Italian club
• Inter become seventh Serie A club with US owners

The United States-based investment fund Oaktree Capital Management said on Wednesday it has become the new owner of Serie A champions Inter after a missed $428m (£336m) payment from the club’s Chinese holding company, Suning.

Granted in 2021 to the Luxembourg-based vehicle through which the Chinese conglomerate Suning controlled Inter, the loan was guaranteed by the firm’s stake in the club. Under the scheme, Oaktree had the right to take control of the club in the event of a default.

Morocco international on the togetherness, tenacity and smart management that has powered German champions’ record season

Life in the Bayer Leverkusen changing room is never boring when Jeremie Frimpong is around. Just ask Amine Adli. “It’s a lot of fun,” smirks the Morocco international. “Every day something is happening. Every player is funny in his own way and when you have a guy like Jeremie, he is always making everyone laugh. Even the coach sometimes … ”

There have been plenty of other reasons for Xabi Alonso to smile during the record-breaking campaign in which Leverkusen have become the first team to go through a Bundesliga season unbeaten. The Spaniard clambered into the stands at the Bay Arena after Saturday’s final-day defeat of Augsburg to celebrate with supporters at the club once referred to as “Neverkusen”. He will round off the campaign with a historic treble if they win Wednesday’s Europa League final against Atalanta in Dublin and Saturday’s German Cup final against second-tier Kaiserslautern.

• Slot joins from Feyenoord, where he won two trophies
• He is understood to be keen to work with Darwin Núñez

Liverpool have confirmed the appointment of Arne Slot as their head coach 24 hours after Jürgen Klopp bade farewell to Anfield.

Liverpool have had an agreement in place with the former Feyenoord coach for more than three weeks but wanted to delay the announcement until after Klopp’s departure. Slot has been announced as the head coach, not manager, and has signed a three-year contract.

The sun went silently down on the team from the carnival city to leave everything settled in La Liga with one week still to play

La Liga packed up for the summer a week early, nothing left to do. With seven days still remaining, it’s all decided: the title, second, third and fourth; who goes to the Super Cup and who goes to the Club World Cup; Champions League, Europa League and Conference League; that other league too, the three teams disappearing silently into segunda. Even the Pichichi is probably done after a Sunday evening in which Alexander Sørloth got four of the 31 goals scored, leading Villarreal’s comeback from 4-1 to 4-4 against Real Madrid, and Cádiz got none of them. It was the story of their season, four years in primera coming to a premature and predictable end, curtain closed on 2023-24.

Up on the east coast, Madrid’s top scorer Jude Bellingham sat on the bench rested, little to do but laugh as Sørloth began his escape, moving on to 20, then 21, 22 and 23, four ahead of the Englishman in the scoring charts and two above Girona’s Artem Dovbyk. At the same time, 849km away down on the south-west, Cádiz’s top scorer, Chris Ramos, a fan who grew up next door to the ground and became the first gaditano to score in the first division for 30 years, sat on the bench exhausted, staring into space, broken. Cádiz had two strikers out there, sent in search of a miracle: between them, Sergi Guardiola and Maxi Gómez have scored one this season. Sørloth had just got four times that in 17 minutes, one less than Ramos in 2,694 across 37 games.

Stuttgart share Leverkusen’s growth of having finished this campaign with a barely believable 40 points more than last

From start to finish the afternoon that confirmed Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen as unbeaten Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen was what has come to be typical of them. The voracious feasting on opponents’ mistakes, as Amine Adli did to provide Victor Boniface with the opener. The evidence that Xabi Alonso has drawn things from these players they never dared believe were there, when midfield destroyer Robert Andrich tucked in an artful rabona. The false tension, when Augbsurg teenager Mert Kömür scored a goal worthy of the style of Alonso’s team to bring the deficit back to just one, but we knew Leverkusen were never going to blow it.

Yet the moment that really captured Die Werkself’s imperious manner wasn’t a moment on the field. It came after, in the celebrations, when captain Lukas Hradecky ascended to the capo’s podium at the front of the Kurve, taking the Meisterschale with him. The Finland goalkeeper handed the trophy over to fans at the front of the throng, so they too could raise the Bundesliga among their peers. It was a beautiful gesture and a very trusting one. Hradecky didn’t guide it around and had no worries that it would come back in one piece. That trademark Alonso calm that has given them clarity in crucial moments was even endemic at party time.