Here, Flashscore's global editorial team each pick out their favourite moment across the calendar year.
Ovechkin breaks NHL scoring record
On April 6th, 2025, Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin scored goal number 895 to become the National Hockey League’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing the legendary Wayne Gretzky. A record once deemed unbreakable by the entire sports world, even by Ovechkin himself, had become the stuff of legend.
Despite breaking his leg during the 2024-2025 season, Ovechkin not only became the greatest goal-scorer in history, but he also finished the campaign with an astonishing 44 goals in 65 games.
Washington Capitals play-by-play man Joe Beninati - who’d been the Capitals broadcaster since 1994 - being on the call alongside colour commentator Craig Laughlin, who some feared might have missed the moment due to heart surgery that season, made the moment all the more special.
In all of his 21 years, Ovechkin has only finished below 30 goals in a season once - the COVID season of 2020-2021 (24 goals in 45 games). He’s finished nine seasons with at least 50 goals, 14 seasons with at least 40, and all 21 years with at least 20.
Now, sitting at 911 goals total during the 2025-2026 season, the greatest goalscorer in history continues to extend a legacy that will live on throughout the future generations of hockey fans everywhere.
Eric Himmelheber
Rory McIlroy finally ends Augusta curse
Rory McIlroy's breathless, emotional, rollercoaster Masters triumph back in April was a seismic sporting moment as he finally completed the career Grand Slam after years of trying and failing.
In 2014, the Irishman won the PGA Championship to go with the US Open and the Open titles. McIlroy was just a Masters triumph away from winning all four major crowns. But after a meteoric collapse in 2011 and several other near misses, it looked like the moment may never arrive.
Outside of the Masters, he also failed to clinch any other major title for more than a decade, going through a serious slump. However, this year, he produced some awe-inspiring shot-making to stand on the cusp of history.
But after missing a relatively straightforward putt on the final hole to seal the win, many thought he had missed his chance again. It felt like deja vu.
So it had to be settled in a playoff, and he took on good friend Justin Rose, who had far more momentum than he did. Yet after a stunning approach shot, he nailed the putt the second time around, dropping to the floor and letting out a flood of tears.
He became just the sixth player to win the Grand Slam, 25 years after Tiger Woods did, etching his name into the sport's history books.
Tolga Akdeniz
Women's football takes a leap forward
Women’s football went to new heights in 2025, with Arsenal claiming their second-ever UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL), while England followed that up with UEFA Women’s Euro glory over Spain.
It truly feels like the women’s game is taking off more than ever. The UWCL expanded to include two more teams, with a league phase introduced. It did not let us down, as all 18 sides managed to earn at least one point across their six matches.
That was not all. This year also saw the introduction of the UEFA Women’s Europa Cup, a second-tier club competition, which has allowed more teams to play meaningful football across the continent. Now at the quarter-final stage, the eight sides hail from seven different countries. It has been an exciting watch, and already shows the potential to become a mainstay in continental women’s football.
Of course, we cannot forget about the Euros. The 16-team tournament, staged in Switzerland, was the highlight of the international calendar. All of the sides scored at least twice in the group stage, with just three games being decided by more than three goals. Hosts Switzerland made it to the last eight, their best-ever performance in the competition.
All-in-all, women’s football thrived in 2025. Transfer records were being broken, attendance figures increased, and the game is slowly but surely becoming more competitive. It was a year to remember, and hopefully a sign of even more great things to come.
David Parkes
PSG dominate Champions League final
The Champions League final between PSG and Inter on May 31st was undoubtedly my highlight of 2025. Not because it was the most dramatic game of the season (that came in Inter’s semi-final classic against Barcelona), but because I felt like we were witnessing one of the great Champions League final performances.
Luis Enrique had somehow managed to turn an exciting young side with promise into a team in a league of their own, and he did it all in the space of one season.
At the start of the 2024/25 campaign, there were big questions on how PSG would live without Paris-born talisman Kylian Mbappe. They had to become accustomed to working as a unit and buy into Enrique’s philosophy after years of individual stars and big egos running the show.
The tides of change were in the air by the end of the year, and by the time the season reached the business end, PSG were a force to be reckoned with.
I could barely believe my eyes watching the final with my friends in the beautiful backdrop of the Algarve. PSG were producing a clinic on the grandest of stages and were in no mood to rest on their laurels after storming into a 2-0 half-time lead.
The box-office teenage sensation Desire Doue showcased why he was in the same conversation as wonderkid Lamine Yamal in Munich. After setting up the first goal, Doue would go on to score a sensational brace as PSG thrashed Inter 5-0.
It was an emphatic performance from Enrique’s men and the best in a Champions League final that I can remember.
Harry Dunnett
Alcaraz and Sinner serve up clay classic
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner faced off in three consecutive Grand Slam finals in 2025, the first of which was an all-time classic at the French Open.
Amplified by an electrifying atmosphere on Court Philippe Chatrier, Alcaraz mounted a comeback for the ages, rallying from two sets down - saving three Championship points along the way - to stun the Italian in a five-and-a-half hour epic.
It was a clash that propelled the pair’s rivalry into a different stratosphere, drawing comparisons to other memorable major finals such as Nadal vs Federer at Wimbledon 2008 and Djokovic vs Nadal at the 2012 Australian Open.
Not only did Alcaraz and Sinner trade blows in a high-quality opening four sets, but they also managed to find their very best tennis at the same time in an absorbing decider, with the Spaniard racing into a 5-3 lead before being pegged back to 6-6.
Undeterred, Alcaraz - even by his own lofty standards - raised his game to a frankly ludicrous level, winning the first seven points of the match tiebreak before sealing his fifth Grand Slam title via a stunning on-the-run passing shot.
It was a fitting finale to the best match of the year, proving men’s tennis is in safe hands for the next decade.
Relive the match with Flashscore here.
Danny Clark
Dodgers go back-to-back
For European fans of baseball, like myself, the playoffs are all about the alarm. Rising at 3am to sit in a dark living room, wondering whether the TV is too loud to wake up your significant other, only to sit in full tension for four hours, hoping for success.
Staying awake was not a problem during the 2025 MLB postseason. There were some incredible moments throughout. Seattle’s Jorge Polanco sending his team to the American League Championship Series, walking off Game Five against the Detroit Tigers in the 15th inning - a game I witnessed live - and then a round later, George Springer’s home run to dash Seattle's hopes and take the Toronto Blue Jays to the World Series.
Their seven-game thrill ride against the favoured LA Dodgers lived up to the billing. They slugged away from coast to coast, winning three each - including that unforgettable 18-inning war in Los Angeles - which sent it back to Toronto for the most mythical of things, 'Game Seven'.
It didn’t disappoint, going down to the wire, where an unlikely hero stood up for LA. Miguel Rojas, the second baseman, who had barely played in the series, walked up and hit the biggest homer of his career, saving his side late.
What followed was chaos. The Blue Jays were milimetres from victory when Isiah Kiner-Falefa was out sliding into home plate, Ernie Clement nearly won it only to see a diving Andy Pages thwart his walk-off attempt, before the Dodgers prevailed, winning back-to-back titles and creating more history for the franchise.
Josh Donaldson
World Cup qualifiers thrill football fans
I love an international break, but many people see them as an uninteresting inconvenience that gets in the way of club football. However, even they would have found it difficult not to enjoy the final one of 2025, one that was absolutely full of drama.
In Europe, Scotland secured a spot at the World Cup in stunning fashion, scoring two stoppage-time goals - including one of the best of the year from Kenny McLean - to leapfrog Denmark. What's more, one of the few goals of 2025 better than McLean's came earlier in the same match, when Scott McTominay scored an unbelievable bicycle kick.
There were famous scenes in Budapest too, where Troy Parrott kept Ireland's hopes of a first World Cup in over 20 years alive with a playoff-clinching last-gasp winner against Hungary, days after his brace saw them prevail in a must-win clash with Portugal.
Over in the Caribbean, Curacao qualified for the first time in their history and thus became the smallest nation ever to reach the tournament, while Haiti secured qualification for the first time since 1974 despite not being able to play any matches on home turf due to the ongoing conflict there.
In the Middle East meanwhile, Iraq scored a penalty in the 17th minute of stoppage time through Amir Al Ammari to beat the UAE and move into the playoffs.
All of the above were some of the most emotional scenes to play out on a football pitch in 2025, and made me feel like I was watching a purer form of the beautiful game, where teams can't just throw obscene amounts of money at problems to fix them.
It all provided a tantalising taste of what's to come in 2026.
Finley Crebolder
The Ashes
Cricket fans from Australia and England, and even further afield, always have Ashes Series circled in their calendars because they are always some of the biggest, and often most defining, meetings in each two-year cycle of international Test cricket.
The 2025/26 Ashes, which is still going at the time of writing, had extra layers of intrigue added to its build-up, primarily due to the narrrative surrounding the England side, and their much-vaunted ‘Bazball’ style.
Much of Ben Stokes’ side’s ethos, selection, and strategy was geared towards this tour, and an attempt to reclaim the urn for the first time in a decade, and the first time down under since 2011. For the ageing Australian side, this series was about silencing their noisy critics and the growing concerns that the team was well past its best, by making a statement on home soil.
As it turned out, the hosts were dealt huge pre-series blows by losing captain Pat Cummins and fellow seam star Josh Hazlewood to injuries that ruled the former out for all but the third Test, and the latter for all five.What's more, by the end of the first day of the first Test, it looked like the stars had aligned for England in Perth. They had Australia on the ropes, and their fearsome pace attack looked fit and firing on all cylinders. But that proved to be the high point for the tourists…
Travis Head almost single-handedly won the first Test on the second day with a blistering fourth-innings century that belied the entire rhythm of the match. Australia took that momentum into the day-night Test that followed in Brisbane as England, increasingly looking overawed by the challenge, struggled to get to grips with the foreign conditions.
In Adelaide, England showed fight but ultimately fell to a 3-0 deficit, after being set a record total to win the match across days four and five. With that, the series was won, and the Ashes were retained by Australia until 2027 at least.
However, the enthralling madness of the series only carried on in Melbourne, with an incredible 20 wickets falling on Boxing Day. The series has largely been a tough watch for England fans, but undeniably entertaining and unforgettable!
Pat Dempsey