I will never not love Mick Foley youtu.be/7ssDFzesdn4?... 🤼

Wow. A CAF appeals board have stripped Senegal of its Africa Cup of Nations final victory over Morocco and awarded Morocco a 3-0 win. This is incredible. Comes after Morocco, hugely influential in African football circles, appealed an original decision. www.cafonline.com/news/caf-app...

Enjoying this article if only because SN have forgotten to take out the editor's notes on the article at the end of it... www.jutarnji.hr/sportske/nog...

I mean, Buffy cancelled and Firefly resurrected wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card in January, was it?

Ahead of the Liverpool game later, my best guess as to what has actually happened to Spurs this season

Red Bull mechanics around Verstappen’s rear wing rn

Whatever the reality about the decision, killing it the day before the pilot director might pick up their second Academy Award is odd timing.

On the bright side, don’t have to support England later…

Ireland? Like it. Irish people? Like them. Irish rugby team? Can f**k all the way off.

Maevskiy is gone and the new Celje manager is Vitor Campelos, formerly of Chaves and various Portuguese and Asian clubs. His website is full of this sort of thing. Spectacular stuff.

How well was the war planned? Er, they dismantled the US minesweepers and the replacements don’t really work in the Strait of Hormuz.

Riera…. ….Maevskiy Proof positive Celje might find this season getting very uncomfortable

“We don’t want transgender people” I mean, there’s no dancing around that. That’s prelude to nasty things.

If the US can’t (or, more likely, is unwilling to) guarantee the safety of one nation qualified on merit, they can’t guarantee it for any nation.

Madrid 8 England 2

English coefficient in absolute shambles this week

A reminder of my long form take on this from last week. Even taking out the politics, it’s hard to imagine how Iran at war can support a team at a World Cup hosted by, let’s be honest, its aggressors. open.substack.com/pub/hyfprw/p...

Igor might be a worse Tudor than Mary.

New Writing You've heard of Vasilije Kostov, but there's another Vasilije you should get to know - IMT's Vasilije Novicic...

Intriguing listen today to the debut by Solya, ‘Queen of Texas’. While it didn’t blow me away (IMO, good but could have done with a little more upbeat stuff), there’s a feeling you’re in on the ground floor or someone about to be massive. Certainly an artist to buy stocks in.

While fire is scarring the centre of Glasgow, important to remember that the conditions the fire service work under are terrible even before they go putting their bodies on the line. Funding must be better. www.fbu.org.uk/news/2026/01...

Hard not to like Araujo - a player just always on the edge of something to get a reaction. At some point, that’ll show itself negatively in a ridiculous tackle, but while it’s good, he’s the most endearing character in a rotten side.

Hajduk Manager Gonzalo Garcia with perhaps the oddest quote of the season:

Done and dusted. Dinamo almost certain to reclaim the title now.

The chance of at least one of Celtic/Rangers not getting out of European qualifiers while Falkirk are in a European group stage feels pretty high for next season…

Production wise, that was a messy af end to Q1

If you’ve not read my conjecture, then you can below but the non-conjecture footnote bears a wider audience - that the Croatian FA are telling the press (under anonymity) that they believe US action (ICE, Iran) has made fans choose not to go to the World Cup through “fear”.

New Writing Something a bit more serious this time, looking at the US action in Iran and how that impacts the World Cup open.substack.com/pub/hyfprw/p...

This weekend saw the fastest goal in the history of the Montenegrin top flight - Jezero’s Milivoje Raicevic becoming a record setter - and I doubt there’s a better “fastest goal ever” than this

While Millenarianism is nothing new in US politics (see: the 1840s), if it’s military policy now then that’s astonishingly dangerous and, on top of that, utterly heretical.

Serbia will host a intra-squad national team 2x30m friendly next week. Some may end up in the squad for the potential March friendlies but those games are in doubt given they were both to be held in Qatar. Novicic the big name to remember from this list.

Tactically, this changes things a little because Diego Garcia can support heavy bombing runs. Domestically? People want disentanglement from Trump and this acquiescence doesn’t look good.

Nemanja Motika with the mother of all botched panenkas vs Primorje this weekend… (Per the rules, double touch = indirect free kick to the defending team)

FT Rangers 2 Celtic 2 Game of two halves, etc. Hearts and Motherwell the winners.

2-2! Penalty for handball, Butland saved from Hatate, saved the follow up but it’s third time lucky and we’re about to have a crazy injury time

Ten to go and remains 2-1 Rangers but this game is just the opposite of the first half now. Celtic have had the chances already to tie this up.

2-1 - Tierney header. If this ends as a mirror of the New Year derby, I will be astonished.

HT Rangers 2 Celtic 0 Almost the entire game has been played within 40 yards of the Celtic goal. Pressing non-existent, attack non-existent. Rangers have been competent, Celtic have been pathetic.

2-0 Rangers and really, no less than they deserve. Tidy finish from Chermiti but this is swiftly degenerating into a paddling for Celtic.

Sometimes, you just have to say “fair play”. Chermiti McTominaying Rangers into the lead.

Hard not to get the feeling Rangers and Celtic are playing not just for second but for who avoids fourth because really hard to see the negative momentum from a loss today not seeing the loser overtaken by Motherwell.

Very quickly this Spring, competitive leagues have been rendered into one horse races. In Croatia, Hajduk's stuttering Spring has let Dinamo pull clear and, while there are questions about Dinamo - big ones - it's clear that they have enough in the tank now barring an implosion.

You could make that argument in, say, Runcorn and Helsby where the majority was 6 votes, but it’s absolutely not credible when you just lost by 4.5k votes. Not that the argument here isn’t just nakedly racist anyway.

The thing is that, no matter your opinion of the ethics behind US intervention under Trump in Iran last year, in Venezuela and, if fully confirmed, in taking out the regime in Iran here, the execution of the military interventions has been more or less flawless.

F1 is in Bahrain in six weeks and Saudi the week after. I think it’s fair to expect at least one of those not to be happening.

Genuinely, this is a terrible article…

It's hard to justify attacks on Iran about nuclear ambitions when you claimed you destroyed their capabilities a few months ago. The argument of stopping long range missile capabilities isn't a very good one as they've shown they may have propulsion but they don't have the targetting.

And here we go… If anything, slightly later than my last night prediction that I’d wake up to it as opposed to an hour after I woke up.

Starmer isn’t likely to survive a locals/Senedd bodying in May as his “things are turning around” story just doesn’t play vs me having to swerve around a pothole because it’s big enough that it had been occupied by a swimming duck. Neglect is visible. Rejuvenation isn’t.

The two bits of big news are: a) Reform were never in it because the anti-Reform vote was too big to split b) the turnout was more or less the same as a GE so Labour can’t sit and go “well, by-elections are weird so no surprises, really”