Hail GFOP!

I type with fingers still quivering after the Champions League let off all of its fireworks in its final Big Gulp Opening Round match day. 18 games all kicking off at the same time in a style that can only be described as Cocaine Bear-meets-Scott Hanson. I broke down the aftermath with my friend John Green. We both found the experience to be sensory overload. So many games, so many goals. It just became a helter-skelter whiplashing mush of noise. A made-for-television spectacle akin to a home-run derby stripped of the intrigue and form of the game itself. I would love to know what you thought of it all?

More: Why the much hyped Champions League finale did not work.

The highlight of my week was time spent Monday morning with Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim. Poor bloke had to spend part of this 40th birthday with me. I found Amorim to be charming and polished. I really enjoyed hearing how his brain works – and wished we could have delved deeper into his Peaky Blinders obsession. His message was to repeat variations of “I am in the right place and the right man for the job,” which is a familiar trope for a challenged Premier League manager. He came across as determined, but a man who is aware he must prove himself to himself – as well as the fans – in this moment. A gent in the bargaining stage, grappling to cope.

This Week at MiB HQ 🍻

Bournemouth’s American owner Bill Foley returned to guest on our latest edition of Running the Game, our new show designed to give first hand accounts of how the game of football operates behind the scenes in the corridors of power.  Bill is a remarkable human being. A billionaire who was a captain in the US Air Force before making a fortune in financial services, and then chasing his eclectic passions for wine-making, the burger-industry, and sports ownerships. I revere Foley because he is a disruptor, arriving at Bournemouth, declaring he would take the unfashionable club into Europe, being scoffed at by the English media, then doing just that. The conversation we had was fascinating as he set out his leadership style, vision, and learnings. “We’re small fry,” he said. “So we’ve got to figure out how we can recruit players and drive the transfer market so that we end up paying ourselves as opposed to paying a third party.” Give this conversation a listen. I learned so much and hope you will too. 

PS. Chris Wood conversation drops on Monday. Top Gent.

ii. “Big Balls” Diego Luna joins Herc Gomez on the latest episode of VAMOS to talk that busted nose, turning down an Olympic call up, and taking a job as a part-time barista to improve his social skills (for real). Listen here.

iii. It has been a wild and historic week in the world of women’s football. Our good friend Sam Mewis is here to break down why the NWSL shouldn't panic about losing talent…yet. Also: Good Vibes FC returns next Tuesday with Sam, Lynn Williams, and Becky Sauerbrunn going through everything you need to know about what’s happening in The Women’s Game. While you’re at it, sign up for The Women’s Game newsletter too.

To the Football 🙌🏻

Arsenal vs. Manchester City (Sunday, 11:30 a.m. ET, Peacock)

“Stay Humble, Eh 2: Electric Boogaloo.” Buckle up, for an epic clash of aspiration, anger, fear, and revenge after September’s 2-2 draw. Two tribes going to war, seeking vengeance for a ball stupidly thrown at the back of a defender’s cranium. City enter having just avoided Champions League humiliation, for now at least. Pep’s boys were heading out of the competition after going behind just before the interval against lowland overachievers Brugges. Pep emerged at half-time, face scratched, and claims his team “refound their soul” as they rebounded. That soul now faces 15-time European Cup winners Real Madrid in the first playoff round. Mikel Arteta, once Pep’s assistant, has his team on a four-game unbeaten run against City, and are six points clear of Pep’s re-loaded squad. How both teams ache for a win, stability, and the boon of a drama-free weekend.

More: This game is the Premier League’s most bitter rivalry.

Rogstradamus 🔮: Am feeling you Arsenal fans. Heavyweight punches landed. Two teams holding on at the end. Arsenal land the killer punch 3-2.

Bournemouth vs. Liverpool (Saturday, 10:00 a.m. ET, USA)

Who is the one true Fat, Juicy, and Red? League leading Liverpool, unbeaten in their last 18, descend upon the tiny cauldron that is the Vitality to face a Golden War Cherries who fear no one. Andoni Iraola’s speed-freak, hat trick-hungry collective are on a club record tear. Unbeaten in their last 11 PL matches. There is no team I adore watching more this season. The sheer optimism and iconoclastic hope they embody with their front foot football, which is a reflection of American owner Bill Foley’s vision – he told me he wanted a style of football that reflected his time in the US military. Bournemouth have beaten Arsenal, City, and Spurs at home this season. Could they now do Liverpool?

Interesting subplot to this game: Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes, once of Bourenmouth, hired Andoni Iraola and Arne Slot in the space of 10 months. Dude has a black belt in LinkedIn.

Rogstradamus 🔮: Bournemouth 5-0. Two weeks on the run? Incredible. Tyler Adams does the Mo Salah archer celly after his third assist.

Nottingham Forest vs. Brighton (Saturday, 7:30 a.m. ET, USA)

Tricky Trees are still third, but smarting after last week’s 5-0 Cherry-flavored humiliation, which tore apart the memory of an eight-game winning streak. To what extent are Brighton still scarred by Ndiaye’s horrifying Seagull disrespect. Won’t somebody stop the man?

Rogstradamus 🔮: 2-1 Forest. Chris Wood normal service resumed.

Brentford vs. Tottenham (Sunday, 9:00 a.m. ET, USA)

Big Ange has entered his Eeyore stage. His Tottenham feeding on the gruel of just one point in their last seven games, have plummeted from being four points off second at the beginning of December to 23 points off second at the end of January. This is not your grandfather’s home-form Brentford though. After winning eight of their first nine G-Techers, they have lost three of their last four.  Spurs enter with the slight boon of Thursday night’s Europa League buzz in which they won in Elfsborg courtesy of three goals from fledgling talents: 20-year-old Dane Scarlett netting his first for the club, 19-year-old Damola Ajayi, and Mikey Moore, who feels like a veteran but remains just 17, became the youngest ever English goalscorer in a major European competition with this moment of magic. 

Rogstradamus 🔮: Spurs. You got this 5-4. 

Manchester United vs. Crystal Palace (Sunday, 9:00 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Marcus Rashford’s Manchester United career has disintegrated into a toxic sideshow that threatens to undermine everyone in its blast radius. This will be the 13th straight game in which the fallen local hero has been airbrushed out of the squad. Can United move him and the albatross of his $391,000-a-week salary with just four days until the end of the transfer window, as reports flurry that he and his manager are no longer speaking. Incredible statistic that articulates just how mid-12th place United have been: They will attempt to win back-to-back league games for the first time this season. 

Rogstradamus 🔮: Amorim beats curse of Rog. Amad heroics again 2-1.

Everton vs. Leicester City (Saturday, 10:00 a.m. ET, Peacock)

David Moyes has changed the Feng Shui around Everton Football Club. Two wins from two against teams who smashed us at the start of the season. Enter the Dragon. AKA Leicester. OK. Not exactly the Dragon, more a relegation zone-duffer who have just beaten Spurs after losing seven straight. Everton’s threadbare squad has been shattered by injury. Stealth powerhouse Orel Mangala has knacked his ACL and is out for the season. Beautiful Dominic Calvert-Lewin is out till February with dodgy hamstrings. If Moyes can alchemize his third win in 14 days, he will match the total Dyche conjured in five months and 19 games.  

Rogstradamus 🔮: Vardy scores just to mock us. We hold on for a 1-1 draw in which not a lick of good football is played.

Chelsea vs. West Ham (Monday, 3:00 p.m. ET, USA)

Chelsea are on goalkeeper watch. Of the eight they have available, Enzo Maresca has stubbornly, unfathomably stuck with Robert Sanchez, who has rewarded that loyalty with a league-leading five goal-causing errors. Could this be Filip Jörgensen’s music? 

Rogstradamus 🔮: Graham Potter still can’t win at Stamford Bridge. 2-0 the Chels.

📺 HERE: The Full Premier League broadcast schedule.

📧 Enjoying The Raven? Check out our other Men in Blazers newsletters.

More Football, Did Ya Say? ⚽︎

• Tough story to unpack. Fallen referee David Coote’s suffering is hard to witness.

• FIFA rejects appointment of an independent body to monitor migrant deaths in construction of 2034 World Cup.

• MLS Team Valuations. Always extraordinary to read.

• England’s Women’s Super League just had a record-breaking transfer window and threw down a gauntlet to the NWSL in its ever-changing balance of power as five USWNT stars now live and play in London.

• Bayern Munich and Juventus, along with Adidas, dropped a new collection celebrating 80s terrace culture tying in the design of the third shirt from both clubs. Football leisurewear now a work of art 👌. You can shop the collection now thanks to our friends at WorldSoccerShop.

Keep the Open Cup Weird 🏆

The US Open Cup has announced it’s format for the 2025 edition. Celebrate the return of one of America’s oldest football tournaments and help us KEEP THE OPEN CUP WEIRD. Shop the full collection here.

PrizePicks: Best PP Since Parker Posey ✅

Charlie Kipp Writes: Can you feel it? The lack of eye-black, buffalo wings, and car commercials can only mean one thing: there is, for the first time since August, no gridiron football this weekend. The Premier League is the biggest show in town on the weekend sports calendar and what better time for it. PrizePicks has you covered across all of Europe’s biggest football leagues, with more statistical categories than you’d find on the back of a 1995 Randy Johnson Topps card. With so many options, it can be hard to nail down a pick - but we turn to the news cycle to guide us and land on Ollie Watkins MORE in the shots-on-target department.

Aston Villa visit local neighbors Wolves at 12:30pm ET on NBC, fresh off not only qualifying for the Champions League knockout rounds, but doing so in the elusive Top Eight; a Disney World-style fast-pass to the Round of 16. With everyone’s favorite goals-per-minute wunderkind Jhon Duran heading to the desert, Villa are set to rely evermore on 29-year-old striker Ollie Watkins. One of the more efficient scorers in the league has apparently garnered the interest of his boyhood club, Arsenal - and for a moment looked like an Arsenal player already while attempting a penalty for Villa on Wednesday. But if reports are to be believed, the Holt End hero won’t be going anywhere - and will look to continue to cement his role as a club legend by being in-and-around the goals this Saturday. To that end, join me in grabbing Ollie Watkins MORE in the shots-on-target department.

If you haven’t joined PrizePicks, CLICK HERE and play $5 and get $50 instantly when you use code: MiB.

More Football, Beautiful Football to Watch this Weekend 🌍

Crawley Town vs. Wrexham (Saturday, 10:00 a.m. ET, Paramount+) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

A 90th-minute Max Cleworth goal was not enough for Wrexham to overcome Stevenage midweek, the 3-2 final result leaves the gap between Birmingham in 1st and Wrexham in 3rd at eight points. Manager Phil Parkinson will see this Saturday’s match as an opportunity to return to promotion-form, hosts Crawley Town sit 22nd in League One with only one win in their last eight. 

More: Can Wrexham climb the League One standings vs. Tom Brady’s Birmingham City?

Milan Derby (Sunday, 12:00 p.m. ET, Paramount+) 🇮🇹

Both teams enter the ‘Derby della Madonnina’ having qualified for the next round of the Champions League, despite AC Milan having American wonder Yunus Musah sent off in a 2-1 loss to Dinamo Zagreb (contractually-obliged Pulisic goal here). Sunday’s visitors Inter are a seismic 16 points ahead of their local rivals, and although Milan are struggling off the field, they will draw strength from their Supercoppa Final victory over Inter last month.  

WSL Man City vs. Arsenal (Sunday, 7:00 a.m. ET, ESPN+/WSL Youtube) 🏆

Third-placed City take on fourth-placed Arsenal in the week that England International (and Euros-final hero) Chloe Kelly was allowed to leave Manchester on loan to North London for the rest of the season. Arsenal will be without the suspended Katie McCabe for Sunday’s match, but could call on the talents of new signing Jenna Nighswonger, who became the latest NWSL star to leave the league this transfer window.

More: Chelsea are buying everyone: Keira Walsh set for $571,000 Chelsea move after Barcelona accept offer.

MiB Mad Libs 📝

This week’s phrase is: “Manchester City will win this year’s Champions League because ______________” 

Email me your entries at [email protected]. Winner gets a coveted MiB Patch.

Last Week’s Winner: Dina Ricciardi

We have never had more entries! Very few of them were family friendly and fit for print! You GFOPs have incredible imaginations and are more pessimistic than can be believed! 

The one thing that would make me feel more confident about the US Men’s National Team is having Win the Dog on the sideline with some Big Dog Energy.

Not Football, and All the Better for It 🔗

• Loved this Essay in Apartmento: U-Haul.

• How the Capybara won my heart, and almost everyone else's. The paywall is worth it for Gary Shteyngart.

• "My South is that austral shiver I get when I hear Dolly Parton’s “The Bridge.” It’s the field: the field as it was, and as it is." Being an Asian Southerner Means Being an Anomaly, Squared.

• They Were Looking for Endangered Tortoises. They Found Human Bones Instead. Not about an endangered turtle-turned serial killer, unfortunately. 

• He never misses: “I have lost all faith in zips.”

• Epic 1971 BBC segment on the newest American import: jogging. And of course, the BBC correspondent puts on some early 70s athleisure slacks and runs along with the MP jogging enthusiast as they take a saunter around Hyde Park. Via GFOP Mark Dolce

• Tales of the Modern Monger: Gen Cheese.

• I am reading this Book: Flesh by David Szalay. This gent is one of my favorite authors in the world. A release of one of his books is treasure of a moment. I cannot recommend this – or any of his books – highly enough.  They make you feel things and feel alive.  Which is the greatest gift in this moment in time. 

• This song helped me through the week: “Corduroy Couch” by Norwich’s finest bad Brown Horse.

Dear Rog... GFOPs Write ✍️

I loved this email from GFOP Raffaele Aversa

“Rog. I wanted to thank you all for an amazing show last Tuesday in NYC at Legends bar. I am embarrassed to say that after the show I did get a bit emotional as I normally would have attended these sort of MIB live events in the NY area with my father, who sadly passed from brain cancer on December 24, 2024.

I was emotional and holding back tears when thanking the MIB team after the show, as I know how much my dad and I enjoyed listening to countless hours of the wonderful podcasts that you guys produce week in-week out. I know you are fighting your own hidden battles since the passing of your father last year Rog and that is something I am still working on myself. Rog said to me, “to better days ahead.” And I have never experienced a Jurgen Klopp hug, but a Roger Bennett hug was just fine for me. Proof that Everton fans and Liverpool fans can coexist!”

Rog writes: Raffaele. Your letter was the highlight of our week. The fact that you took the time to write it means the world to us. We are so sorry for your loss. Every loss is different, and all of them hit hard in different times, in different moments. May you make new layers of meaning communing through football, and may your father’s memory echo through all of them.  

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