If everything went as well for Halesowen Town as planned, their time spent in the Southern League Division One Central would have been over in a flash. After years of struggling in the division above, last season they were finally relegated. The failure prompted a complete rehauling of the team, with an entirely new set of players and a new head coach brought in. It worked. By March they sat second, one point off the top with a game in hand, well on course for promotion.
On Thursday afternoon, all those hopes and expectations dissolved. After weeks of postponements because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Football Association finally announced in conjunction with the National League System that all leagues from steps three to six were cancel…
“In years gone by I think I might have struggled to get the information I wanted over to people because they probably wouldn’t have accepted me,” Luke Tuffs says. “They would have thought: ‘Why is a gay person telling me what to do on a football pitch?’ I genuinely think that would have been a thing 20, even 10 years ago. Now, certainly not.”
Tuffs is an openly gay man who is also a football manager. This is something still so uncommon in the British game that Tuffs, whose Leatherhead team are bottom of the Isthmian Premier League in England’s seventh tier, is the most prominent example. This is not a good situation and the challenges men face to be open about their sexuality in elite football remain stubbornly difficult to o…
Some of the usual heavyweights rub shoulders with surprise packages in the quarter-finals of the 2018 World Cup, which get under when France take on Uruguay in Nizhny Novgorod on Friday.
That mouth-watering clash is followed by another packed with prime talent as Brazil face a Belgium team on the other side of their great escape against Japan.
On Saturday, with their penalty shoot-out hoodoo slain for now, England meet Sweden in Samara before hosts Russia aim to extend their dream run against perennial dark horses Croatia.
Along with the eight teams, five of our reporters remain in Russia. Here s who they think will go all the way.
Harry West – Brazil
We re at the business end of the World Cup now and I haven t seen a stronger side than Brazil. …
The FIFA Confederations Cup which kicks off this weekend in South Africa is crucial to next year s World Cup tournament, said FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Wednesday.
It s definitely time to kick off now, not only in terms of the organisation in South Africa, but in terms of making sure they can deliver and will deliver, said Blatter, a year ahead of the first African World Cup.
That s why this Confederations Cup, one year before the big event, is crucial. It s very important for FIFA but also for the participating teams. I m sure it will be a great competition.
South Africa is ready and committed for 2010, he said in a statement marking the 12 month countdown to the World Cup.
Speaking in Johannesburg, FIFA competition director Jim Brown said the Co…
Or when he was one of several England players targeted by monkey chants in Montenegro and Bulgaria in 2019, when he scored in 5-1 and 6-0 wins.
Sterling was also at the forefront of football supporting Black Lives Matter following the killing of George Floyd and received an MBE last month in recognition of his work promoting racial equality.
But there was weariness when he discussed his activism in an interview with ITV last week, one that is entirely understandable when a minority of fans boo him and his England colleagues for taking the knee before kick-off – their peaceful, dignified protest against racial injustice.
It feels even more understandable when UK government ministers who gave licence to those booing and dismissed kneeling as a gesture are now fi…
Paris Saint-Germain 2018-19: More goals and tighter at the back – the numbers behind Tuchel´s triump
Thomas Tuchel collected the first league title of his coaching career in double-quick time when Paris Saint-Germain claimed their sixth Ligue 1 crown in seven seasons on Sunday.
After failing to get over the line with a draw against Strasbourg and heavy loss to Lille followed by a shock defeat to Nantes, PSG finally took an unassailable lead at the summit with five games still to play in France s top flight.
Kylian Mbappe and the other members of a star-studded line-up can add Coupe de France glory on April 27 but this remains a season that will still probably be remembered for one crushing failure at the Parc des Princes.
Manchester United s improbable heist in the French capital dumped PSG out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage and the co-existence …
Japan have been invited to play in the 2011 Copa America in Argentina, following their maiden appearance in the 1999 edition, the Japan Football Association said Thursday.
Junji Ogura, the association s vice president, learned of the invitation in Nassau, Bahamas, where he was attending the congress of football s world governing body FIFA, a spokeswoman for the FA said.
We ll have more details when the vice president returns home, she added.
Japan competed in the South American continental championship in 1999 in Paraguay under French coach Philippe Troussier.
The Blue Samurai were knocked out at the group stage with one point, losing to Paraguay and Peru and drawing 1-1 with Bolivia.
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Fabinho is optimistic Liverpool can replicate their strong finish to the 2020-21 season to secure a top-four Premier League finish this term, declaring: We are still a big team .
Liverpool sit eighth in the table following a run of three league games without a win, 10 points adrift of Newcastle United and Manchester United in third and fourth respectively, with just 10 matches remaining this campaign.
Having gone close to winning an unprecedented quadruple last term, Liverpool are now in severe danger of missing out on Champions League football for the first time since an eighth-placed finish in 2015-16, but Jurgen Klopp s men have experience of snatching a top-four spot at the last.
Liverpool looked destined to finish outside the top four during an injury-hit 20…
The NFL season is here and so are all the glorious prop markets that come with it. We are looking into every market to uncover some of the week’s best side, team, player and derivative prop bets. We do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to.
We came out of the gates cold to begin the season but are going to hit our stride in Week 3 and are already 1-0 SU after a Davis Mills Under passing yard win. This weekend, we’re finding a WR/CB mismatch in the Sunday-nighter, hitting an RB receiving yard total, and making sense of the Colts’ offense game plan.
We bring you our favorite free prop picks and predictions for Week 3 of the 2021 NFL season.
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A rivalry so nice, they’ve got to play it thrice.
The New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills get a rubber match in the AFC Wild Card Round after these divisional foes split their regular-season series – thanks in part to the wild winds of Orchard Park in Week 13, which helped New England grind out a 14-10 win. The Bills returned serve with an impressive 33-21 victory in Foxborough 20 days later.
A grudge match this bitter calls for a complementary climate with temperatures feeling like -4 degrees in Buffalo Saturday night.
Here are our free NFL betting picks and predictions for Patriots at Bills on January 15.
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