Dembele takes charge of Winchester

Amid France’s preparations for their semi-final showdown against Belgium in St Petersburg, it emerged that Ousmane Dembele had been passing the time playing computer game Football Manager.

His choice of team? Winchester FC. Quite why a 21-year-old from Normandy might have chosen the pleasant Hampshire city as the setting for his football fantasies is anyone’s guess, but the result is that the real-life, eighth-tier Winchester City FC have been inundated with merchandise requests from around the world.