I type with fingers filled with the joy of a week well lived. The emotional highlight came on stage at our sold-out show in Houston on Wednesday night, celebrating the city that has given the world Beyoncé, Fabian Hürzeler, and the Friedkins, at the beautiful Rice University Opera House with my friend JJ Watt, and hundreds of delirious football fans. JJ was in incredible form, holding court on his footballing journey, how to fix VAR, and where the best restaurants are, cuisine by cuisine. When JJ leaned back and went off for 20 minutes on his favorite restaurants, taking suggestions from an amped audience, I have not laughed as hard in a long, long time. I needed that, to be honest. JJ is a food influencer now.

I love JJ and am so inspired by his footballing journey. If we football fans can count that gridiron-dominating son of Wisconsin in our number, the game has truly reached the tipping point in this nation. I also found it truly emotional to welcome Hakeem Olajuwon onto the stage. The crowd were profoundly moved by his presence. Count me among them. He starred in the NBA at a really formative time for me, having just arrived in this nation. To be alongside Hakeem now, and hear him speak about how the world needs more kindness, was, to use his nickname, a true dream. To listen to him talk about how his dominance lay in the footwork football taught him was chef’s kiss. 

Watch our Houston live show filled with joy HERE. 🚀

ii. My book, “We Are the World (Cup): A Personal History of the World's Greatest Sporting Event,” was released this week. It has been such a joy to see it out in the world and in your hands. I am so grateful to all of you who have supported it. Buy your copy here right now. 

We had a beautiful book party on Monday night in Manhattan. I told myself not to cry. I teared up a ton. It is such a mad thing to write a book. An ordeal where you are lost inside your head for years. The relief I felt—and I think my family felt—was palpable. But it was also lovely to be surrounded by so many truly great people: family, friends, GFOPs, all part of this MiB community. Let’s keep putting joy out into the world together. 

Here are some of the appearances I loved the most this week:

I taped “Pardon My Take” in Chicago yesterday. That is coming imminently. Tonight I head to Boston for the Sloan Sports Data Conference. If you are there tomorrow, come and see me interview Matthew Benham, the incredible owner of Brentford, about how his analytics obsession has turned the tiny team into a true micro-power. I can’t wait to see you. 

If you know which pub I should watch Wrexham beat Chelsea in tomorrow in Boston, I would be indebted. Email me here. 🍻

iii. Congratulations to Pellegrino Matarazzo. The New Jersey coach who just led Real Sociedad into the Copa del Rey final. This piece is already wondering if he is the most successful American coach of all-time. 🇺🇸

iv. If you’re looking for an incredible goal to guide you into the weekend, please take a moment to watch this perfect angle of Morgan Gibbs-White’s recent back-heel against Manchester City. It is absolute cinema.👌

Courage,
ROG

PS - This statistic is remarkable. 🤯

Wolves - Liverpool 2: Electric Boogaloo (TODAY, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+)

After Tuesday night’s ecstatic 94th‑minute winner, Wolves are back to life like Han Seoul-Oh. Cue “Great Escape” dreams, and the most severe of Liverpool post-mortems. Virgil Van Dijk admitted, “We were slow. We were predictable, sloppy in possession and wrong in decision making.” Damning words from the captain aimed at his fellow players, but also the big idea of Arne Slot’s sophomore campaign, which is becoming the worst Season 2 since that “Friday Night Lights” murder-story arc made us all scream, “What were they thinking?“

This is who Liverpool are right now: a slow-footed, pace-less side who lack control and are shorn of excitement. Slot’s team have scored just 11 times in the first half all season, and leak late, late goals. They have become like a footballing version of an NBA team, worth tuning in for the last seconds.

Quick word on Wolves: The wins against Aston Villa and Liverpool were so powerful to witness from a human perspective. This club is relegated. The Championship beckons, yet they are still laughing, celebrating and making memories. Reveling in the emotional wonder and collective ecstasy that football—that life—can give. And bring watching Led Zep icon Robert Plant—a man who has seen everything—to tears. In a disastrous season, they are still experiencing the best of football. 

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Wolves Manager Rob Edwards was fully aware he and his players may have poked the bear. “We’ve probably made them quite angry now, so we’ll see,” he said. 1-2 to the Unconvincing Reds.

Mansfield Town vs. Arsenal (Saturday, 7:15 a.m. ET, ESPN2)

The Premier League leaders go to the 16th-placed third-tier darlings, Mansfield, a proud midlands town outside of Nottingham that in 2022 was named one of Britain’s most "miserable" places to live in a government wellbeing study. They will expect the League One side to congest the midfield and stuff up the works. This should be a rare chance for Mikel Arteta to rest his shattered, trusted starters. Expect the lesser-spotted Dane Christian Nørgaard to be in the starting XI, giving Declan Rice a breather. His influence will be crucial. 

This has been a week in which Arsenal’s relentless style has come under a Fabian Hürzeler-inspired microscope. We are in “Win By All Means Necessary” territory. I honestly think the debate about the quality of football, and whether it was better in the past, is ridiculous shorn of the related question of quantity. A quadruple-chasing season could be 65 games long; a pursuit of glory that is an unprecedented, nipple-rubbing ultra marathon of football. 

Irrespective, this will be a day of joy for the town of Mansfield, and its football team who are a fantastic story. They will receive a lifeline of $700,000 for play at their One Call Stadium – the oldest ground in the Football League, having hosted games since 1861.

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: The Stags, managed by Nigel Clough, son of the legend Brian, shocked Burnley in the last round. That was their last win. This one is not going to be pretty, Arsenal fans, but it will be effective. Hathaway’s Boys 2-0.

Wrexham vs. Chelsea (Saturday, 12:45 p.m. ET, ESPN+)

What a moment for this Wrexham journey: a first FA Cup fifth-round game in 29 years. Enter Chelsea, who will take the field at the STōK Cae Ras in what the big-dreaming Wrexham fans pray will be a taste of things to come. This game reminds me of a conversation I had with one of the Chelsea owners after his team played a pre-season game against Wrexham in 2023. He was shocked that 40% of the sold-out crowd were wearing Wrexham shirts. I said to him, the truth is, Wrexham are only just getting started in terms of their fan growth and asked him to think about what percentage he imagines it could be in 10 years time… 

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: I loved what Wrexham captain Dominic Hyam said this week, that the game is just an "amazing distraction" from the team’s real goal: the promotion charge. That should soften the blow. Garnacho scores. Chelsea grind then win 3-1. And most miraculously of all, finish with 11 men on the field. 

Newcastle vs. Manchester City (Saturday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+)

Other nations empower their Champions League clubs by giving them convenient weekend kickoff times. England makes Newcastle and City rumble at 8 p.m. Saturday before one hosts Barcelona on Tuesday night, and the other travels to Real Madrid on Wednesday night. What. A. Grind.  

City wobble in after blinking in the league. Despite the British media’s desperate effort to conjure the image of them being relentless title hunters, they are a vulnerable squad in transition. This clearance off the line at the very death by Murillo was amazing. If Arsenal win the league by two points, or Forest stay up by one, remember this as living proof that football is a game of the finest margins. 😅

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Bellies out. Tough night for full bottles of beer in Newcastle. Toon win deliriously 2-1.

📺 Full FA Cup TV schedule here.

The aftermath of the 3-1 loss at home to Palace was the moment in which I started to really fear for you Spurs fans. Watching your team go 11 games without a victory in the Premier League for the first time ever. This statistic is TERRIFYING. I always believe Spurs are the Everton of the South. I feel a real empathy for them as the second club in a fiercely-felt local rivalry. (One Arsenal-supporting friend texted me last night to say, “Us winning the league and Spurs going down has been my dream since I was sentient. We’re gonna need a new word. Schadenfreude just does not capture it.”)

What I fear is Igor Tudor seems like Arsenal fans were allowed to do the Spurs job interview. He is lost. The players have no fight. And the fans have suffered to such an extent that unlike Everton fans, who got behind the team in our club’s recent dark relegation edges, the Spurs fans appear to have given up on their toxic culture club. 

More: We are at the “cost of relegation piece” stage of Spurs trauma.

No Premier League, no prob! Coventry stay top thanks in part to a Haji Wright goal against Stoke last weekend. They have a slightly more challenging matchup this weekend as they take on 10th-placed Bristol City (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Paramount+), while nearest rivals Middlesbrough line up against 15th-placed QPR (Sunday, 12:30 p.m. ET, Paramount+).

This week’s phrase is: “If Wolves escape relegation, it will be like watching ______”

Email us your submissions to be in contention to win a coveted MiB patch.

There were LOADS of excellent entries last week, but there can only be one winner:

Jonathan Chopper: “Tottenham Hotspur won’t get relegated because everybody is expecting them to.”

Big Jon, I love your logic. And I pray you are right. Send us your postal and we will send you a patch.

🇮🇹 AC Milan vs. Inter Milan (Sunday, 3:45 p.m. ET, Paramount+)

With the brutalist spaceship San Siro as the setting, Milan’s Derby della Madonnina is guaranteed theater, and Sunday’s clash between Serie A’s top two decides whether Inter have a Scudetto sprint or stroll ahead.

🇪🇸 Celta Vigo vs. Real Madrid (Friday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+)

Real Madrid haven’t lost three consecutive La Liga games since 2018, and if Álvaro Arbeloa is to escape Celta Vigo without breaking that record and with a job, he’ll have to do it without Kylian Mbappé, who’s in Paris for consultations on his knee strain.

 🇪🇸 Athletic Club vs. Barcelona (Saturday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+)

While Athletic Club’s Nico Williams is “indefinitely injured,” Hansi Flick will be salivating at the rare prospect of Marcus Rashford, Lamine Yamal, and Raphinha all being concurrently fit for a trip to Bilbao’s San Mamés Stadium, where he’s never lost or conceded a goal as Barcelona manager.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Rangers vs. Celtic (Sunday, 9 a.m. ET, ESPN+)

Glasgow’s Old Firm titans return for the second time in seven days for a place in the Scottish cup semi-final in a sequel that, like “The Empire Strikes Back,” promises to be darker and more vitriolic. Bring it on.

Walker Orner from Pittsburgh, Pa. writes: “My girlfriend and I are three weeks into six months of backpacking, starting in South America and working our way over to Europe. While making dinner in our austere Patagonian hostel kitchen, we met an older British man who was traveling alone. Our new acquaintance grumbled around the kitchen, finding it lacking in almost every way—broken plastic spatulas, no microwave, etc. My girlfriend and I were very taken by his charming yet blunt, puddleglum attitude and we tried not to laugh at his dry comments about every little flaw he found.

When I asked him who his football team was, as I have with every Brit we’ve come across, he professed his loyalty to York City, where he also called home. As a Liverpool fan who only watches the Premier League, I made the mistake of asking if York was in the Championship. His eyes lit up as he got the chance to educate me, not only about the fifth-tier National League and how his team would never dream of the dizzying heights of the Premiership, but also how anyone from York who liked to watch good football were Leeds fans.

We chatted the rest of the evening and though I know I didn’t help American football fans’ reputation, I do hope I brought a somewhat lonely British man some joy by getting to school me on his humble football team in somewhere as far away from home as Patagonia, Argentina. Thank you both for giving me the confidence to speak and connect to strangers about a subject I have only just become a fan of, even if I don’t always know what I’m talking about. Appreciate your positivity always! Courage!”

Walker, this is the good stuff. Why I love football—why I adore the World Cup in particular—is the electric sense of positive global connectivity it provides. You just lived that. We need it in our world more than ever right now. To more. 

Keep sending your stories and questions to [email protected].

To better days ahead for all.

Let’s not take a moment watching football together for granted and make great memories.

Big love.

Courage,
ROG

🙌 We’ll see you on Monday. If you’re enjoying The Raven, we’d love an assist. Forward this email or share this URL with a friend.

📧 First time with us? Sign up here to get the next edition sent straight to your inbox, and be sure to check out our other newsletters too.

Be the smartest person in the room. 1440 navigates 100+ sources to deliver a comprehensive, unbiased news roundup — politics, business, culture, and more — in a quick, 5-minute read. Completely free, completely factual.

Sign up now!