Recap: What happened in the world of football yesterday?

From Rashford’s stunning header to Madrid’s drama-filled draw, here’s what happened on the pitch on Sunday.

With the World Cup less than a month away, football teams across the world are trying to accumulate as many points before the break as possible.

Here is a quick roundup of the best of the football action on Sunday:

English Premier League

Arsenal romped to a 5-0 win against Nottingham Forest to return to the top of the Premier League.

Gabriel Martinelli opened the scoring for the Gunners in the fifth minute, ghosting ahead of Forest defender Steve Cook to head home Bukayo Saka’s cross.

The Englishman went off early in the first half through injury and was replaced by Reiss Nelson, who marked his first Premier League appearance since November 2020 with two goals.

Thomas Partey scored the pick of the goals for Arsenal, spectacularly curling in from the edge of the box, much as he did for his goal against Tottenham at the start of the month. Captain Martin Odegaard scored Arsenal’s fifth of the afternoon to achieve their highest margin of victory in more than four years.

Manchester United continued their ascent up the table after a gritty 1-0 win over West Ham.

Marcus Rashford scored his 100th goal for the club with a powerful header off a Christian Eriksen cross. The Englishman is United’s top scorer this season with seven goals in all competitions.

Cristiano Ronaldo started a league game for the first time since being dropped from the squad for the previous league game against Chelsea. But the Portuguese was largely ineffective, and the headlines belonged to David de Gea, who made a string of spectacular saves in the second half to keep West Ham at bay.

La Liga

Real Madrid’s game against Girona in La Liga was fraught with drama.

Madrid broke the deadlock in the 70th minute after Vincius Jr tapped in from a low Fede Valverde cross. But the European champions were ahead for only 10 minutes when Girona equalised through a penalty.

Rodyrgo thought he had scored Madrid’s winner in the 88th-minute, but the goal did not stand after the referee ruled the Brazilian had kicked the ball out of the keeper’s hands.

A sense of injustice among the players and fans was palpable, and frustrations boiled over in injury time when Toni Kroos was sent off for the first time in his career after receiving a second yellow card.

Bundesliga

A remarkable new chapter was added to Union Berlin’s fairy tale after a 97th-minute winner against Borussia Monchengladbach saw them return to the top of the Bundesliga after being temporarily displaced by Bayern Munich.

After falling behind in the first half, Union clawed their way back into the game with a 79th-minute equaliser through Kevin Behrens before Danihlo Doekhi’s header deep in injury time sparked scenes of unbridled joy at the Stadion An der Alten Försterei.

Unioner, that was spectacular. There’s tears of joy, there’s lumps in throats, there’s animals in the forest who are wondering what took the apocalypse so long to come. We are shaking here. There’ not enough love, there’s so much Eisern. I’m in pieces. pic.twitter.com/nsQO498UQq

— 1. FC Union Berlin (@fcunion_en) October 30, 2022

Serie A

Meanwhile, in Italy, it was a day of upsets.

AC Milan were beaten 2-1 by Torino, and Lazio were defeated at home by Salernitana, who came back from a goal down to win 3-1.