I type with fingers psyched for both kinds of football. The Super Bowl is the weekend’s nightcap to Liverpool and Manchester City’s battle to prove themselves to themselves, and Manchester United and Tottenham’s “Celebrity Rehab”-esque football clash. Quadruple-hunting Arsenal welcome Sunderland for their latest psychodrama: The Granit Xhaka Memorial derby. Can you imagine the hubbub right now if Old Grany was not injured…? 🏟️

ii. I write from the San Francisco airport waiting for a delayed red-eye home after two delirious days spent in the Super-Bowl buzzing Bay Area. I have delighted in meeting so many GFOPs on the streets of the city. Arsenal fans in particular are crawling all over the place in magical fashion. 

The undoubted highlight was Wednesday night’s sold-out live show. To take the stage with Leeds United/49ers President Paraag Marathe, my old friend and human wonder Andrew Luck, and the light in the darkness that is Mina Kimes was to revel in this moment of sporting wonder in which the Super Bowl and the World Cup are about to descend upon the Bay Area.

Not going to lie: To sit there with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, a punk rock pioneer who has become a national institution, was to live life at its finest. I honestly almost fell off my chair listening to the depth of his football fandom. The man who crafted “Jesus of Suburbia” lives to travel to Stockport County and Millwall games. His comparison of home crowds to punk shows and mosh pits was compelling. As was his articulation of how sports convey a sense of memory-making across the generations. These are special days we are living in. And to be part of such a positive, joyous, uplifting night is really why we have built this community. Watch the entire show here. 📺

Also: This Mina Kimes story was the most beautiful part of the night. Must-watch.

iii. HOUSTON, you are next! The Soccer’s Coming Home Countdown Tour will be rocketing straight for H-Town on March 4, where we’ll be joined by the one and only J.J. Watt for 99 Days Out LIVE from the gorgeous Rice University Brockman Hall for Opera. Come be with us as we preview a momentous summer in Texas. Tickets available here. 🤠

iv. I don’t know if you heard, I WROTE A BOOOOOOOKKKKKK… 

I would love it if you would read this chapter and gain a sense of it. It tells the story of how England literally made me shit my pants, destroying both my England kit and my England fandom, aged 11. Here’s the link to chapter two of “We Are the World (Cup).” 💩

I finally got my hands on the finished copy this week. I gave the first one to Billie Joe. It is very humbling to hold that object in your hands, knowing just how insane an experience it was to create it, and how many people have had to help to nudge it over the line. Grab your pre-order and I will send you a ton of signed goodies in return. We have had GFOPs write in from Australia, Chile, and Colombia this week telling me they had pre-ordered the book. I can’t wait for them to wing their way to you. 📚

v. The best midweek goal you might’ve missed: Behold the sweetest angle of this extremely satisfying free kick from Argentina. Simply superb. 💫

Also: Former Villa striker Jhon Durán is slowly becoming a traveling folk hero... all before the age of 23. These are wild football times we’re living in. 🗺️

vi. I have to head to Atlanta next week. Tell me where I should eat. I am ready to branch out from J.R. Crickets. 🍑

Courage,
ROG

PS - A bird got on the ice at a recent NHL game and the mic’d-up player’s response to it was just so perfectly human. Enjoy. 🐦‍⬛

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

A game which has felt like a title decider between the clubs who have won the last eight campaigns, suddenly seems like a fraught existential gut-check between two erratic heavies. Sixth-placed Liverpool arrive with a faux-swagger born of netting 10 goals in their last two home games. Yet Arne Slot’s press conferences still bear the stench of bleeding confidence. This week, he pontificated about the lesser value of winning football versus “playing the nicest football to watch,” which carried shades of a defeated Brendan Rodgers crowing, “We won the possession.” 

Pep meanwhile has been muttering about his team’s lack of net spend, which feels like a piece of misdirection to mask City’s dank second-half record, in which they have ceded leads and gleaned just one win in their last six Premier League games. Opta calculated this week that if Premier League tussles ended at half-time this season, Man City would be 12 points clear at the top of the table (see the full chart here). City’s backline has been vulnerable on the counter. 

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: This fixture has been testy for City, who have won just once in the last five meetings with Liverpool. Wirtz hype goes to 11 after he and Ekitike probe the space in front of City’s backline and Liverpool win 2-1.

Manchester United vs. Tottenham (Saturday, 7:30 a.m. ET, USA)

This is not a drill: Manchester United have won three games in a row under Michael Carrick. Spurs have drawn their last two league games. Old Trafford will be rocking with renewed belief. Spurs – whose back-from-the-dead point ripped from Manchester City last week felt like both a season low and a season high – will need to attack with the vigor captain Cristian Romero uses to attack his own front office if they are to survive unscathed.

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Haircut appointments will be booked as United attack! Attack! Attack! 3-1.

Arsenal vs. Sunderland (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Quadruple is STILL ON! Step One: Qualify for the Carabao Cup final midweek –their first in six long years – by clipping Chelsea amidst Kai Havertz’s Arsenal badge-pointing delight. Can they do it? The quadruple is so unprecedented that it feels almost like a footballing myth or march of folly. It takes an almost inhuman degree of relentlessness, energy, and a little luck. The fact they are still doing it whilst fighting one off-the-field bric-a-brac after another is even more impressive. This week’s ridiculousness: Arteta having to defend Paul Scholes’s accusation that the Gunners would be “the most boring team to win the Premier League.” Put some respect on Hathaway’s boys’ name. 

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Sunderland are a powerhouse at home. They remain the Premier League’s last unbeaten host. On the road, they have won just twice all season. Gooners 3-1. 

More: Listen to Martin Ødegaard talk to me about the occasional nervous energy at the Emirates and whether it impacts the players.

Bournemouth vs. Aston Villa (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Aston Villa flip-flop between being “in” the title race and “out of it” on a weekly basis. This is theoretically a week on, and will need to be, as the chasing pack of Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool are all summoning upticks in form and collective confidence. Bournemouth have experienced their own renaissance. Villa will pray the return of Tammy Abraham and recalled loanee Leon Bailey can give them a potency they have been lacking. Peak Bournemouth stat here.

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Up the Chez 3-2.

Wolves vs. Chelsea (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Many Chelsea fans have spurned Liam Rosenior like a donor organ rejected by a host body. The young manager’s lack of a CV and affection for new age psychobabble are in stark contrast to his league record: An impressive three straight wins in the Premier League, and six victories in his first eight games all comps (Dude only loses to teams that start with “Arse-” and end in “hell”). But the urge to drag him was reflected in the eagerness to mock his failed Hollywood first-touch midweek. A hint of the pile-on avalanche of criticism which will greet his first footballing stumble. Amazing stat here about the number of “Gomeses” currently in Wolves’ squad.

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Rubberneckers go home. Liam wins again 1-0.

Fulham vs. Everton (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Peacock)

Battle of the mid. Marco Silva, Alex Iwobi, and Antonee Robinson Avenger Assemble to face the team which let them go. Everton fans harbor no ill will. We are all ready to watch our new attacker, 20-year-old Tyrique George, who has arrived from Chelsea, where players nicknamed him “'Evil Saka”' in training. Nothing can stop us now…

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Wobs does us 2-1.

Brighton vs. Crystal Palace (Sunday, 9 a.m. ET, Peacock)

The M23 derby featuring two clubs who have been case studies in modern over-achievement, colliding at a time when both are flailing woefully. Brighton match their one-win-in-nine form against Palace’s zero wins in nine. Jørgen Strand Larsen has just joined Palace. I am still revering the newspaper writers who marked his arrival with the quite brilliant headline, “Strand Larseny.” 

More: 24 years after making his debut, James Milner will equal the record for most Premier League games played if he comes on. English Tim Ream.

Rog-Stradamus 🔮: Memories of winning one… actual winning zero. Ends 1-1.

And this afternoon: Leeds vs. Nottingham Forest, AKA The Cusp of the Relegation Zone Clásico (3 p.m. ET, USA).

🗓️ Full Premier League schedule here.

Middlesbrough’s fifth straight victory under new manager Kim Hellberg has the club level on points with fading leaders Coventry City. Meanwhile at the bottom of the table, 10 years after shocking the football world by winning the Premier League against 5,000-to-one odds, Leicester City face the real possibility of heading down to the third tier following a six-point deduction for breaching the EFL's profit and sustainability rules. Amid fan protests and without a manager since January, the club dropped from 17th to 20th and is above the relegation zone solely on goal difference. They travel 40 miles east to meet a mid-table Birmingham side on a six-game unbeaten streak (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Paramount+). 

Wrexham vs. Millwall (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Paramount+)

Wrexham welcome Billie Joe Armstrong’s Millwall after a busy week in the transfer market. Five players left the club on deadline day, including fan favorite Elliot Lee, who went out on loan to Doncaster Rovers. In their place, three new players, including former Red Davis Keillor-Dunn, who returns to the club he made six appearances for back in the National League days, having netted 16 goals for Barnsley this season. Phil Parkinson will hope his goal scoring form continues in North Wales, as Millwall sit fifth but have the lowest goal difference in the playoff spots.

Valencia vs. Real Madrid (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+) 🇪🇸

Fallen giants Valencia are fighting for their La Liga life, so the absence of Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham, who’s out for three to four weeks with a muscle injury, offers a semblance of hope against Álvaro Arbeloa’s chaotic kings.

Juventus vs. Lazio (Sunday, 2:45 p.m. ET, Paramount+) 🇮🇹

After Juventus were callously tossed out of the Coppa Italia by Atalanta last night, the Old Lady will rely on the power of Weston McKennie and Luciano Spalletti’s budding football bromance to help reassemble them in time for the visit of smoking Maurizio Sarri’s Lazio on Sunday.

Bayern Munich vs. Hoffenheim (Sunday, 11:30 a.m. ET, ESPN+) 🇩🇪

Nothing but an assertive win will satisfy Vincent Kompany, who needs to hoist Bayern Munich out of their mini-crisis, so the Bundesliga’s most in-form side, third-placed Hoffenheim, are not ideal opponents.

Looking for more coverage of La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, and the rest of Europe’s biggest leagues? Then be sure to check out our new Thursday send called On the Continent. The first edition went out yesterday and it might be sitting in your inbox as we speak.

This week’s phrase is:

“Michael Carrick is making Manchester United _______ Again!”

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

There were a lot of brilliant entries last week, but there can only be one winner:

Paul Hallaman: Only Rowan Atkinson could be cast to portray Jose Mourinho in a film about the chosen one because only he can pull faces like Mr. Bean, strut in the coaching box like the Black Adder, parry post-match questions like Johnny English, and declare "I am winning!" like Enrico Pollini.

Paulie H. – Send us your postal and the coveted MIB patch is all yours. 📬

As the Bay Area prepares to host six 2026 World Cup matches, the SCORES Network – a national nonprofit providing 20,000+ low-income students in 13 cities free soccer, poetry, and service-learning – is reuniting 17 members of the 1994 USMNT for the World Cup Legacy Gala in May in San Jose, Calif. This isn't just a reunion, it’s a call to invest in safe fields, free play, and creative futures for the kids who need it most.

Learn more about the Legacy Gala.

John Glasgow listened to this week’s pod and wrote: “First I’d like to say that this is my favorite show. I’ve been following and listening for several years, but we have crossed a line and entered into a new territory, a new appreciation.

Every father of a son, even before they are born, wonders how they are going to broach the topic and have “The Talk” with his child as he grows towards manhood. I would like to thank you for creating a safe space for me to finally engage in a meaningful discussion with my 10-year-old son about firing ping pong balls out of one’s anus à la Rog’s preferred goal scoring celebration. Your show is not just about football. It is a show about life.”

Rog writes: Big John, you are onto me. I don't know anything about football. But I do know all about those pesky ping pong balls secreted upon your person. Everyone in life has a skill. That is mine. 

Keep sending your stories and questions to [email protected]. WE LOVE THEM SO MUCH!

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 again on Monday. If you’re enjoying The Raven, we’d love an assist. Forward this email or share this URL with a friend, family member, or fellow football fan.

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