GENEVA (AP) — José Mourinho’s quest to be a champion again.
Europe’s top goal-scorer on a title hunt before a big move.
A young coach reviving a European giant.
Look outside the top five leagues in Europe and the season run-in promises the kind of title race drama the English Premier League lacks as Liverpool dominates.
Galatasaray is still just ahead of Mourinho’s Fenerbahce in Turkey.
Sporting Lisbon is being fired by Viktor Gyökeres goals to hold off Benfica in Portugal.
Ajax is back on top in the Netherlands in 35-year-old coach Francesco Farioli’s first season.
Young Boys is close to going last-to-first to retain the Swiss title, and unbeaten Red Star Belgrade is making a procession of the Serbian league.
Here’s a look at how the business end of the soccer season is playing out across Europe:
Mourinho was hired by Fenerbahce last June to end the Istanbul club’s wait for a first league title since 2014, and a first Champions League place for 17 seasons.
It’s now a decade since he last lifted a league trophy — the 2015 Premier League with Chelsea, his third in England after two in Portugal with Porto, two in Italy with Inter Milan and one in Spain with Real Madrid.
Turkey would be the fifth country Mourinho conquers and he has been typically outspoken, making provocative news in his new home as city rival Galatasaray has led the league almost all season. Mourinho reacted badly on Wednesday to being ousted from the Turkish Cup in another Istanbul derby, grabbing the nose of Gala coach Okan Buruk after the game.
In the league, Fenerbahce sits six points behind defending champion Gala, which has played a game more. The gap closed last weekend when Gala’s unbeaten record ended after a 2-1 derby loss at Besiktas. Fenerbahce has lost just twice, also at Besiktas and at home to Gala in September.
Simply extending a four-month unbeaten run through the last nine rounds might not be enough for Mourinho, who has strikers Youssef En-Nesyri and Edin Džeko combining for more than a goal per game.
The season ends on June 1, one day after the Champions League final in Munich. Only the title winner goes direct into the next Champions League where Fenerbahce last played in 2009.
In a season of three coaches — one left, one fired, one hired in December — Viktor Gyökeres has been the bedrock of Sporting’s title defense.
The Sweden striker’s tally of 30 league goals is the most in Europe, three more than Mohamed Salah at Liverpool. Gyökeres also got six in the Champions League, including three against Manchester City.
That 4-1 rout of Man City in November was a farewell home game for coach Ruben Amorim, who formally joined Manchester United days later.
Through the turmoil, Sporting has stayed on top and unbeaten since a 1-0 win over Benfica on Dec. 29, which was a first game under current coach Rui Borges. That result is keeping Sporting ahead on head-to-head record as it is tied on points after Benfica beat Farense 3-2 on Wednesday.
With seven rounds left, Benfica hosting Sporting on May 10 could be decisive. An extra incentive is only the title winner goes directly into the next Champions League because the Netherlands passed Portugal as the nation ranked sixth by UEFA.
Ajax’s 2023-24 season was chaotic. Turnover in the dugout and front office, failure to contend for any trophy, beatings from its biggest rivals, and a fifth-place finish in the league 35 points behind champion PSV Eindhoven.
Enter Italian coach Farioli, a protégé of Roberto De Zerbi, who joined after one season at Nice. As the Ajax fans sing: “Don’t worry, about a thing.”
A 2-0 win at second-placed PSV last weekend lifted Farioli’s team nine points clear with seven rounds left.
At age 19, Jorrel Hato looks the next big talent from the storied Ajax academy in a defense that has given up just 20 league goals after conceding 61 last season.
While Paris Saint-Germain is heading for an unbeaten Ligue 1 title, Red Star Belgrade could be the most dominant team.
The 1991 European Cup winner has won 27 games and drawn two, scoring more than 100 with a goal difference of +82. Red Star completes the 30-game regular season on Sunday at third-placed OFK Belgrade, before an eight-team championship round.
Swiss champion Young Boys was last in the 12-team league in mid-October, and now is in the heart of a six-team title race after winning on Tuesday at leader Servette. It is not a vintage season and no team is close to averaging two points per game.
In Belgium, Genk topped the regular season standings by nine points and leads the championship playoff group by four from Club Brugge. They meet twice more, starting on April 13.
There are three-way title races in Poland and Croatia.
In Poland’s Ekstraklasa, the first-time champions in the past two seasons, Rakow Czestochowa and Jagiellonia, lead the way from Lech Poznan.
In Croatia, Hajduk Split, coached by Gennaro Gattuso and with Ivan Rakitić anchoring midfield, leads Rijeka by one point. Dinamo Zagreb is third despite the financial advantage of playing in the Champions League.
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FILE - Sporting's Viktor Gyokeres celebrates after scoring during the UEFA Champions League opening phase soccer match between Sporting and Manchester City in Lisbon, Portugal, Tuesday, November 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, file)
Israel struck tents outside two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and wounding nine, including six journalists, Palestinian medics said. Separate strikes killed at least 15 others across the Gaza Strip, according to hospitals.
Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime — while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee Israeli bombardments and ground operations.
Israel's war in Gaza, now in its 18th month, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, and taking 251 others hostage. The group still holds 59 captives — 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
Here is the latest:
The head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon says the balance of force in the country has now “significantly changed” which may finally enable slow progress toward a more permanent ceasefire, “but this may still take a long time.”
Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz told the U.N. Security Council Monday that an internal political process could be required to deal with key issues including dealing with Hezbollah fighters and other armed groups.
Sáenz said other issues that need to be tackled are military capabilities “and a political track between Lebanon and Israel to deal with questions of sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as border demarcation.”
He said Lebanon’s consent to the deployment of the 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which faces increasing threats from disinformation and misinformation, is also key.
To counter disinformation and misinformation, Sáenz said UNIFIL must establish “a strong fact-based narrative” to avoid misperceptions, for example, that U.N. peacekeepers work at the behest of Israel, have a hidden agenda, and are an occupation force.
The leaders of the United Nations’ humanitarian agencies issued a dire joint warning about Gaza on Monday, calling for world leaders “to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld.”
The plea from humanitarian chiefs come as Israel has blocked the entrance of commercial and humanitarian supplies to Gaza for more than a month while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee once again.
“More than 2.1 million people are trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck,” directors and leaders of WHO, UNICEF, UNOPS, UNRWA, WFP and OCHA said in a statement. “Over 1,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured in just the first week after the breakdown of the ceasefire, the highest one-week death toll among children in Gaza in the past year.”
They added that “we are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said over the last 24 hours local hospitals have received the bodies of 57 people killed by Israeli strikes. Another 137 people have been wounded, it said.
Monday’s update brings the total Palestinian death toll from the 18-month Israel-Hamas war to 50,752, with more 115,475 wounded.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records, but says more than half the dead are women and children.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, shops were closed on Monday and there were few cars on the streets of Ramallah where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. The Palestinian Authority administers population centers with limited autonomy.
French President Emmanuel Macron has also urged the lifting of Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid.
Macron was in Cairo on Monday to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and later with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, close Western allies, who are also calling for a ceasefire.
Israel ended its truce with Hamas last month and cut off all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to the territory’s 2 million Palestinians to try and pressure Hamas to accept new terms in their ceasefire agreement.
Egypt and the Gulf nation of Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas.
The military said Monday that soldiers killed the teen who endangered motorists on a road in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that a Palestinian-American teen was killed in the incident and two others were injured, one in critical condition.
The violence occurred near Turmus Aya, a town with a sizable population of Palestinian-Americans.
The strike hit a media tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze, killing Yousef al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today news website and another man. Six other reporters were wounded in that strike.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant, without providing further information.
Israel also struck tents on the edge of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
Nasser Hospital also said it received 13 bodies, including six women and four children, from separate strikes overnight. Al-Aqsa Hospital said two people were killed and three wounded in a strike on a home in Deir al-Balah.
This story has been corrected to show that Palestine Today is a news website, not a TV station.
Smoke rises to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Palestinian women walk past closed shops during a general strike to protest the war in Gaza, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed by an Israeli airstrike, at the hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians retrieve a body from the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians search for survivors amid the debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians search for survivors amid the debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A Palestinian girl struggles as she and others try to get donated food at a distribution center in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians wait to get donated food at a distribution center in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A woman looks at the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
