Toure scores ANOTHER banger!

“I was sitting in my room one night and was just Googling for female teams, having a look at what was out there across the world.”

So began a journey for Stephen Neligan that reached a crescendo with him having a barbecue with Frank Lampard.

Confused? Let’s get you up to speed.

Neligan is 43 years old and, in his 20s, reached the peak of his playing career in the NPL.

He had a thirst for coaching and so, while holding down jobs that saw him working in factories and sewage treatment plans, he also started dipping his toe into coaching local junior teams and at holiday camps.

His trajectory accelerated rapidly when he started doing private coaching with professional players, with Matildas superstar Caitlin Foord one of his earliest clients.

The aforementioned late night Google search saw him land a job in Europe, and the rest, as they say, is his story.

Suffice to say Neligan now has a CV that very few Aussie coaches could match, including roles at multiple clubs in Denmark and eventually, working as an assistant coach with Everton’s women’s side.

Reading the interview that he did with Football360’s Jake Rosengarten, you got the sense that Neligan himself still can’t quite believe what he’s been able to achieve from that random Google search all those years ago.

“Where I’ve come from here in Western Sydney… the whole thing’s been a blur and just doesn’t seem real,” he told Jake.

This is a story most football fans in Australia would be completely unaware of, but we reckon that’s about to change.

Australian striker Mohamed Toure has extended his incredible goal-scoring streak for Norwich City in the English Championship.

Over the weekend, the 22-year-old notched a hat-trick for Norwich to take his goals tally to seven in eight league games since heading to England in the January transfer window after leaving Danish club Randers.

Well, that tally now stands at eight goals in nine league games, after Toure scored against Derby County on Wednesday morning with a thunderous strike that nearly broke the roof of the net.

Incredible Norwich now sit ninth on the Championship ladder, just three points outside the promotion playoff places. When Toure joined at the end of the January transfer window, they were 19th, just four points above the relegation spots. What a turnaround he has helped engineer!

Elsewhere in the Championship this morning, Nestory Irankunda was subbed off at half-time as Watford suffered a deflating 3-0 loss to West Brom, while Cam Burgess played the full 90 minutes as usual in Swansea’s 2-1 win over QPR.

Harry Souttar continued his comeback from injury by taking his place on the bench for Leicester in their 2-2 draw with Hull, which, quite incredibly, confirmed Leicester’s relegation to League One. It’s almost 10 years to the day since the Foxes won the Premier League.

Former Socceroos hopeful Adrian Segecic found the back of the net for Portsmouth but it was to little avail as they lost 5-1 to Coventry.

Meanwhile, Australia will have a player in the final of the Asian Champions League Elite after Tete Yengi helped Japanese club Machida Zelvia beat Shabab Al Ahli in their semi-final this morning.

Yengi has become a key figure for Machida since joining mid-season, and he played 68 minutes as they won 1-0, with the game most notable for a disallowed goal for Al Ahli in stoppage time. The referee was Australia’s own Shaun Evans.

Yengi and his teammates will now face Saudi side Al-Ahli in the decider on Sunday morning AEST.

And speaking of the Asian Champions League…

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It looks like there’s some very good news coming for Australian clubs chasing glory - and dollars - in Asia.

The AFC Champions League Elite is set to expand from 24 teams to 32 from next season, and a report from The Asian Game suggests Australia could be handed another indirect qualification spot as part of the changes.

In simple terms: there may soon be an extra pathway for an A-League club to reach Asia’s top club competition.

That is a pretty big deal when you consider Australia currently only has one spot in the AFC Champions League Elite, plus another in the second-tier AFC Champions League Two. Japan and Saudi Arabia are expected to get the biggest boost from the new format, but Australia also appears set to benefit.

The change adds another layer of intrigue to the A-League run home. Newcastle Jets have already secured one Asian spot, while Victorian NPL club Heidelberg United’s Australia Cup heroics mean they will play in the Champions League Two if they can meet the AFC’s licensing requirements. If Heidelberg cannot qualify, the place could instead go to the next-best Australian side in the A-League.

The news adds another dimension to the A-League finals race, which will reach its climax this weekend.

With every place from second to sixth yet to be decided, the clubs in those positions - namely Auckland, Adelaide, Sydney and the two Melbourne clubs - could have even more to play for.

Check out the full story here.

Tensions are high at storied NPL club Sydney Olympic.

Yesterday the club posted a legal letter on its social media pages from lawyers Vincent Young on behalf of former club president Damon Hanlin, issuing a defamation concerns notice.

The letter concerns comments published on a Sydney Olympic supporters page, which the legal letter claimed raise “false and highly defamatory” imputations about Mr Hanlin, who is currently a ‘benefactor member’ of the club.

Hanlin resigned as president in November and then was reported to be close to taking over Central Coast Mariner’s A-League license, before the Australian Professional Leagues announced in January that they had taken over the club to run a new sales process.

Despite his resignation, Hanlin’s association with the club clearly still looms large given the letter was shared in advance of the club’s Annual General Meeting, which was held last night.

We will bring you the latest on this intriguing situation when it comes to hand.

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Chelsea’s Premier League losing streak now stands at five games after they were humbled 3-0 by Brighton this morning.

Things are looking pretty bleak for manager Liam Rosenior, who only took over in January. A slight lift in form has been replaced by a worrying dip that now sees Chelsea sitting in seventh spot, one place below Brighton.

Meanwhile over in Italy, Inter Milan engineered a sensational comeback in their Coppa Italia semi-final against Como, coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2.

Inter scored goals in the 86th and 89th minutes to snatch victory, and they’ll now face either Lazio or Atalanta in the final.

Socceroos fans should take note that Turkiye captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu scored two of the goals for Inter - between him and Real Madrid’s Arda Guler, Australia’s first opponents at the World Cup are going to be an absolute handful.