The Vikings and Green Bay renew their rivalry, while the Bengals will aim to go 2-0 at the Steelers. Plus, take part in our tipping contestNeither Super Bowls, nor frivolous NFL prediction games are won in September. Veteran participants in our Pick Six contest will know that one strong week can easily melt away into a midseason mess of analysis paralysis and unjustifiable faith in Chip Kelly. But there is a certain special kind of glory that comes with calling all six games correctly on the opening weekend. And it is only made better by knowing that nobody else achieved the same. So step forward, stephentheaardvark, take a bow and give the little people a wave. And then get back...
Almost 157,000 people flocked to Bristol Motor Speedway last weekend – but it was to watch college football, not cars. Can Nascar rediscover its glory days?For the first time this year, the big bowl of silver grandstands at the race track that hugs the Tennessee-Virginia state line was packed. Last weekend, nearly 157,000 people flocked to Bristol Motor Speedway, just like the old days – a spectacle, for sure. The big difference was that they were not there to watch a stock-car race, but a college football game. Tennessee raced past Virginia Tech on a field that had been built in the infield of the oval race track. Bristol is so enormous that some fans said that the players were...
Chelsea v Liverpool could be a Friday night thriller, Leicester and Tottenham both need a routine home win, and Mark Hughes is feeling the heat at StokeLiverpool are in rampant attacking form, Eden Hazard seems to be on song again, Diego Costa is back to his magnificent and provocative best and David Luiz is set for his second Chelsea debut: everything points to the most entertaining Premier League match of the season so far and another momentous match between two clubs who have built up a rich back catalogue of classics together. Given the wonderful maelstrom that is likely to be unleashed, it will be a big and surprising vote of confidence from the respective managers if Daniel Sturridge and...
The podders look back on the opening round of games in the Champions League. Plus, previews of Liverpool v Chelsea, the rest of the big games in the Premier League, and the secret behind Huddersfield’s successSubscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, AcastToday’s Football Weekly Extraaaa sees AC Jimbo, Raf Honigstein, James Horncastle and Barry Glendenning chew over the first round of Champions League fixtures. There were big wins for Leicester at Brugge and Manchester City, and even bigger ones for Barcelona over hapless Celtic, and Bayern Munich and Dortmund. No such joy though for Arsenal, who were lucky to draw in Paris, and Spurs, who lost 2-1 to Monaco in front of 85,011 fans. Ouch! Continue reading...
The desire to keep the ball in play for longer – and get rid of numerous scrum resets – has led to more officiating inconsistencyTo see or not to see. That is the question after the opening two rounds of the new Premiership season when the emphasis seems to be on increasing the time the ball is in play by ignoring certain law infractions. Crooked feeds into the scrum have long been connived at, but now forward passes are being tolerated and not straight in the lineout has become a relative concept. Related: New Zealand and Saracens have taken rugby to new levels of excellence | Robert Kitson Continue reading...