2025 NFL predictions revisited: Seahawks blindsided us, but we were right about Jets

We didn’t see Super Bowl LX coming, but some of us were early believers in Ben Johnson’s Bears, Trevor Lawrence’s Jaguars and the fallibility of the Chiefs

It doesn’t take long for the egg the start dripping from our faces. The early September headline accompanying our 2025 NFL predictions – Will it be Mahomes, Jackson or Allen in the Super Bowl? – was the ultimate hedge. After all, what were the odds that one of them wouldn’t emerge from the AFC?

Then there was the reality. Mike Vrabel’s dramatic turnaround of New England. The Bears transforming from worst-to-first in the NFC North under Ben Johnson. The first-half magic of Daniel Jones. The successful pairing of Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Sam Darnold.

Published: February 15, 2026, 11:00 am

Winter Olympics 2026: GB glory in mixed team snowboard cross final, Brignone wins women’s giant slalom – live

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing

• Follow us over on Bluesky | Get in touch: email Daniel

Brignone smashed her leg at the end of last season, fought her way back, and now look!

Goodness me, she’s almost perfect as she nears the end, and 1:03.23 is her time! That puts her 0.74 up on Colturi, Hector and Stjernesund, plus a whole 1.02 on Shiffrin!

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:42 pm

Two races, two golds: Jordan Stolz smashes another Olympic record in 500m

• US speed skating star’s four-gold pursuit continues

• 500m considered toughest of Stolz’s individual events

• Entire podium finishes below previous Olympic record

The men’s 500m is speed skating distilled to its most unforgiving form: one and a quarter laps of the oval, no pacing, no recovery window, no margin for technical compromise. On Saturday afternoon in Milan’s western suburbs, Jordan Stolz mastered the sport’s fastest and most unpredictable race and pushed his Olympic campaign toward historic territory.

The 21-year-old American won the 500m in an Olympic-record 33.77 seconds, securing his second gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics and adding pace behind what is rapidly becoming one of the defining individual campaigns of these Winter Games.

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:35 pm

Eden Hazard: ‘I’m more of a taxi driver than a football player now, but it’s OK’

Former Chelsea and Real Madrid idol wants merely to be remembered as ‘a good player and a funny guy’ after a career of multiple titles – and spats with Mourinho

If Italy is a boot, Lecce sits right on the heel. It is here, deep in the countryside a few kilometres outside the baroque city, that the noise of the Bernabéu and the intensity of Stamford Bridge feel like a lifetime ago. The setting is rustic, quiet and slow-paced: a stark contrast to the frenetic energy that defined Eden Hazard’s career on the pitch.

It has been almost three years since he stopped playing, and the silence since his retirement at 32 has been notable. After an injury-hit spell at Real Madrid brought a premature end to a dazzling career, Hazard did not seek the spotlight. Surrounded by vineyards rather than defenders, slumped in an armchair, he seems entirely at peace, remarkably comfortable with his life after football.

Published: February 15, 2026, 8:00 am

Birmingham City 1-1 Leeds United (aet; 2-4 on penalties): FA Cup fourth round – live

⚽ FA Cup news from the 12pm GMT kick-off at St Andrew’s
⚽ Live scoreboard | Follow us on Bluesky | And mail Emillia

The teams are out. The atmosphere at St. Andrew’s is incredible. Kick-off is just a few moments away!

Elsewhere in the FA Cup today

Grimsby Town v Wolves

Stoke City v Fulham

Oxford United v Sunderland

Arsenal v Wigan

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:46 pm

Anatomy of an upset: how Ilia Malinin lost Olympic figure skating gold

Ilia Malinin entered the Olympic free skate as the runaway favorite. Early mistakes triggered a meltdown that laid bare the brutal math of modern figure skating

What made Ilia Malinin’s Olympic defeat so shocking was not simply his years-long dominance entering Friday night. It was how completely the competition had tilted in his favor before he even stepped on the ice.

For nearly three years, Malinin had been men’s skating’s guiding light: unbeaten since late 2023, winner of back-to-back world titles, the skater who recalibrated the sport’s technical ceiling and then made winning look procedural. He arrived at the Milano Ice Skating Arena leading by more than five points after the short program and carrying the most difficult planned program in the field. Under almost any normal competitive logic, that combination should have been decisive.

Published: February 14, 2026, 4:16 pm

Klæbo leads Norway to relay win and claims record ninth Winter Olympics gold

• Norwegian on course for six potential golds at Games

• France take cross-country skiing relay silver, Italy bronze

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo led Norway to victory in the men’s 4 x 7.5km cross-country relay at the Milano Cortina Games on Sunday to win a record ninth career gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

The 29-year-old has won four gold medals at these Games and is widely expected to take another two in the men’s team sprint on Wednesday and 50km classic race on Saturday.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:33 pm

‘We are Europeans’: fans fly Greenland flag during Olympic US-Denmark ice hockey game

• Greenland flag raised in crowd after Danes’ opening goal

• Fans say gesture is sign of support amid Trump rhetoric

• Americans pull away after slow start for 6-3 win

Two fans who raised a flag of Greenland as the United States played Denmark in men’s ice hockey at the Winter Olympics on Saturday say they did so as a gesture of European support for the island and for Denmark.

Vita Kalniņa and her husband, Alexander Kalniņš, fans of the Latvian hockey team who live in Germany, held up a large Greenland flag during warmups and again when the Danish team scored the opening goal against the US at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:49 pm

Reality TV pushed USA’s Erin Jackson out of comfort zone and into Olympic title defense

The US flag bearer and first Black woman to win Winter Olympic individual gold carries the lessons of Special Forces into Sunday’s 500m speed skating final

On the ice, Erin Jackson is the picture of control – metronomic in her balance, rhythmic in her stride, a woman whose margins for error are blade thin. But all that control melted away when the speed skater glided on to Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test reality TV series in fall 2023 for a taste of the grueling training that elite US troops endure.

She was part of a motley cast that included former Dallas Cowboys star Dez Bryant, NBA clutch shooter Robert Horry and skier Bode Miller, a fellow Winter Olympic champion. But Jackson was less concerned with outshining her athletic peers than with confronting her own fears. To test her anxiety around swimming, Jackson was strapped into a mock helicopter, submerged in icy water and told to hold her breath for at least 15 seconds before freeing herself, grabbing a lifejacket, and paddling to safety.

Published: February 14, 2026, 10:00 am

Love is in the big air for Ukrainian skier after reaching Winter Olympics final

• Kateryna Kotsar gets engaged at end of qualifying run

• ‘It was so cute … it’s two really huge things for me’

For most athletes, qualifying for your first Olympic final would be more than enough excitement for one night. But the Ukrainian freeskier Kateryna Kotsar’s evening was just getting started.

Having made the big air final, Kotsar then wrote “freedom of memory” on her glove to protest against the ban of her compatriot Vladyslav Heraskevych for wearing images of slain athletes on his helmet. And a Valentine’s Day she will never forget took another surprise turn when her boyfriend, Bohdan Fashtryha, then dropped to one knee and proposed.

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:09 am

Canada’s curling war of words with Sweden escalates after warning over ‘F-bomb’

• Kennedy insists he is innocent of any wrongdoing

• World Curling says officials will clamp down on violations

The Canadian curler at the centre of a cheating row at the Winter Olympics has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the Swedish team of deliberately trying to “catch us in the act”.

On Saturday, World Curling confirmed that Canada had escaped punishment despite being accused of breaking the rules in the 8-6 victory over Sweden on Friday night. However, the sport’s governing body did warn Canada about their abusive langugage and introduced emergency spot checks on Saturday afternoon to make sure teams were not cheating when releasing the stone.

Published: February 14, 2026, 5:54 pm

Mohamed Salah recaptures scintillating form as Liverpool see off Brighton

There was rancour and recrimination when Mohamed Salah last faced Brighton, at Anfield in December, along with doubt over whether he would be seen in a Liverpool shirt again. Fast forward two months and the Egyptian great is starting, scoring and shaping games for Arne Slot again. Appeasement between the pair is for the greater good.

Salah produced a sublime assist, his fourth since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, and scored from the penalty spot as Liverpool moved into round five with a commanding victory over Fabian Hürzeler’s struggling team. There was no evidence of Brighton not performing for their under-pressure manager but their lack of cutting edge was glaring, as was the case when visiting here in the Premier League.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:35 pm

Six ejected after fight forces 20-minute delay in St John’s-Providence basketball game

• Police enter court amid fracas sparked by hard foul

• Coach Rick Pitino holds back players as tempers flare

Six players were ejected from Saturday’s college basketball game between No. 17 St John’s and Providence after a fracas resulting from a hard foul by Friars forward Duncan Powell on Bryce Hopkins sent the Red Storm star crashing to the ground.

St John’s coach Rick Pitino, who led Providence to the 1987 Final Four, was in the middle of it, trying to hold back his players. But several entered the fray as it drifted toward the Red Storm’s visitors’ bench.

The game was delayed by nearly 20 minutes while the referees sorted out the punishments: four St John’s players were booted and two from Providence, and by the time the Friars got the ball back they had watched a one-point lead turn into a four-point deficit.

“You’re not supposed to come off the bench, but you can’t let your players get beat up,” Pitino said after the 79-69 victory gave the Red Storm its 11th straight win. “You can’t fight. Back when I was the Kentucky coach we fought almost every SEC game, and it was not a big deal. But you can’t fight any more, so toughness has to come between the lines.”

Published: February 14, 2026, 9:34 pm

European football: Harry Kane double restores Bayern Munich’s six-point Bundesliga lead

• Inter’s late win over Juventus extends Serie A lead

• Real Madrid 4-1 Real Sociedad; Lens top of Ligue 1

Harry Kane scored twice in the first half as Bayern Munich cruised to a 3-0 win at Werder Bremen, restoring their six-point lead in the Bundesliga. Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 win over Mainz on Friday put them within three points of the league leaders but Bayern responded.

Bayern were in control from start to finish in Bremen, with Leon Goretzka joining the England captain on the scoresheet in the 70th minute. Kane now has 26 goals in 22 Bundesliga games this season and 41 in all competitions, 13 of those from the penalty spot.

Published: February 14, 2026, 11:09 pm

Chelsea 2-0 Liverpool, Aston Villa 3-7 Tottenham and more: WSL clockwatch – as it happened

Tottenham put seven past Aston Villa in 10 goal thriller while Lauren James stars as Chelsea beat Liverpool

What a devastating counter attack from Everton! They have an overload going forward and work it to Hannah Blundell. Blundell plays the ball into the path of Honoka Hayashi who taps into an empty net.

Well this is a surprise. London City Lionesses work it well down the right and deliver the ball into the box. Nikita Parris bravely meets it and heads the ball back across goal. What a start for the away side.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:44 pm

Nottingham Forest confirm Vítor Pereira as fourth head coach of season

• Sean Dyche was sacked after 25 games in the role

• Pereira starts with Europa League tie at Fenerbahce

Nottingham Forest have confirmed the appointment of Vítor Pereira as their fourth head coach of the season. The former Wolves manager takes over from Sean Dyche, who was sacked on Thursday, on a contract until June 2027.

Pereira inherits a team one place and three points above the relegation zone. Dyche lasted 25 matches after replacing Ange Postecoglou, who was given eight games as the successor to Nuno Espírito Santo.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:01 pm

European football: Serie A referees’ chief apologises after controversial Kalulu red card

• Juventus lost 3-2 in dramatic fashion away at Inter

• Spalletti and Chiellini confronted referee La Penna

Serie A’s referee designator Gianluca Rocchi said match official Federico La Penna was “clearly wrong” in showing Juventus defender Pierre Kalulu a second yellow card during Saturday’s loss at Inter, and apologised over the incident.

Kalulu was sent off after Inter’s Alessandro Bastoni tumbled to the ground and immediately gestured towards the referee demanding a card, indicating that Kalulu had grabbed his shirt to bring him down. Television footage suggested there was no contact between the players. Juventus, down to 10 men after the sending off, lost 3-2, meaning Inter are now eight points clear at the top.

This story will be updated

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:57 pm

‘Ferryman’ Igor Tudor has the record to steer Tottenham to safety

Croat never stays long but is an expert at doing what is necessary and also comes with a reputation as a taskmaster

In Italy, the interim manager of a football club is often referred to as “un traghettatore” – a ferryman. When waters are choppy, you do not need some ambitious captain with notions of heading out on an adventure. All you really want is someone who can get you safely to shore.

Igor Tudor is not keen on the word. Hearing it applied to him when he arrived at Juventus last season, he observed that every manager, everywhere, is living from game to game. “You can have a contract for five years and get sent home after three matches,” he said. “You have to construct your tomorrow today.”

Published: February 15, 2026, 8:00 am

‘The perfect place for people like me’: how one couple started UK’s first women’s sports bar

Lucy and Pippa Tallant have opened the Crossbar, in Brighton, to create a place for women to feel comfortable watching all sport

You can’t miss it, the giant “Crossbar” flanked by two stylised crosses in black on the whitewashed outside walls glares down the street, a stone’s throw from Brighton’s Churchill Square. Outside is the narrow shelf that the co-owner Lucy Tallant, the DIY enthusiast of the pair, attached to the wall for those wanting to hang around outside. As she worked on that shelf, two girls walked past and one proclaimed: “Yeah, they’re opening a lesbian club.” “A lesbian club?” replied the other, “Yeah, there’s one outside now.”

Lucy was in stitches, and so was social media when she posted about what she had overheard. The shelf has become a thing, with lesbians posing for photographs and then sharing online with versions of “there’s one outside now” as the caption.

Published: February 15, 2026, 8:00 am

Keith Andrews’s gravity-defying miracle has Brentford dreaming of Europe | Jonathan Wilson

Their best players and managers may move on, but this thoroughly modern club keep punching above their weight

When the news cycle spins so fast, it’s worth remembering where Brentford were in the summer. They had lost their popular manager of seven years, Thomas Frank. They had lost their two best forwards, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. They had lost their goalkeeper Mark Flekken. And they had lost two stalwarts in Christian Nørgaard and Ben Mee (even if the latter’s involvement the previous season had been limited as he turned 35). Departure and replacement is an unavoidable part of life for a club such as Brentford, but this seemed a like a lot to deal with.

Their summer signings were hard to judge. As a rule of thumb, if Brentford are signing someone about whom you already have considered opinions, it’s likely something has gone awry. That said, Caoimhín Kelleher’s gifts are clear, and a fee of just under £13m seemed good value for a goalkeeper with Premier League experience, while Dango Ouattara had demonstrated at Bournemouth how effective he could be either through the middle or out wide. But Antoni Milambo, Michael Kayode and Kaye Furo were unknown quantities.

Published: February 14, 2026, 8:00 pm

India v Pakistan: T20 Cricket World Cup – live

Updates as crunch rivalry clash goes ahead in Colombo
Follow us over on Bluesky | And get in touch: mail James

Gone! The gamble does indeed pay off for Salman Agha and Pakistan. He spears a ball into the tacky surface, Abishek tries to pull it away but does not time it at all, serving only to plink a catch to Shaheen at mid on!

A dot to start from Salman, will this gamble pay off? It’s only the first time he has opened the bowling in a T20I… a single follows as Ishan gets off the mark with a hack into the leg side, the fielder in the deep well placed. Three dots follow… and there’s a wicket!

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:45 pm

Wales v France: Six Nations 2026 rugby union – live

Six Nations news from the 3.10pm GMT kick-off in Cardiff
Sign up for The Breakdown | Follow on Bluesky | Mail Lee

It could a long afternoon if you are Welsh, is there anyone out there holding out some hope, or is it all being watched from between your fingers? Let me know this or anything else on the email.

Steve Tandy despatches Ben Thomas from the starting line-up, with Joe Hawkins returning to the 12 shirt. In the forwards Rhys Carre is back at prop, joined by Tomas Francis after his stint of non-selection due to playing in France.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:30 pm

Bankes and Nightingale win mixed team snowboard cross for GB’s first Olympic gold on snow

• Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale win a thriller

• First time GB have won two golds at a Winter Games

After 102 years at the Winter Olympics, Great Britain has finally won its first gold medal on snow after Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale took a thrilling victory in the mixed team snowboard cross.

Few had pinned down Bankes and Nightingale as one of the favourites after poor performances in the individual events early in the week. Afterwards they had been so disappointed they had drowned their sorrows in the pub.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:22 pm

Clough pulls off FA Cup shock, Birmingham v Leeds buildup, WSL and more – matchday live, as it happened

Our writers with the reaction to Saturday’s games and the buildup to FA Cup and Scottish Premiership action

Leeds are fresh off their 2-2 draw against Chelsea. Meanwhile, Birmingham are eight games unbeaten in all competitions. What’s your prediction for today’s game? If it’s anything like Leeds’ 5-4 victory over Birmingham in 2019, we’re in for a treat.

Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur

Chelsea v Liverpool

Everton v West Ham United

Manchester United v London City Lionesses

Brighton & Hove Albion v Arsenal (2:30pm)

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:06 pm

India beat Australia in rain-hit first women’s T20 cricket international – as it happened

India take a 2-0 points lead in the multi-format series after beating Australia by 21 runs (on DLS) in a rain curtailed match in Sydney

3rd over: Australia 22-1 (Voll 14, Litchfield 0) Phoebe Litchfield at first drop for the Aussies, she blocks her first two balls as Renuka Singh completes a successful over.

Mooney is gone! She tries to emulate the lofted drive of her opening partner but plinks it straight to Mandhana at short cover.

Published: February 15, 2026, 11:22 am

Trump gets the Monroe doctrine wrong. He should take a page from Bad Bunny | Ted Widmer

The US president has twisted the 1823 doctrine to suit his quest for domination. It originally had a very different vision for the Americas

Throughout Bad Bunny’s mesmerizing performance during the Super Bowl, the word “America” kept expanding, like an accordion, stretching out to embrace people of all nationalities. “Together we are all America,” his football read, and he obviously meant it, in the largest, most hemispheric sense. Near the end, after shouting “God bless America” (his only words in English), Bad Bunny ran through a long list of countries in the western hemisphere.

That inclusiveness enraged Donald Trump, who erupted on social media, and tried to take the word back, declaring the half-time show “an affront to the greatness of America”. By which, of course, he meant the United States.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

Winter Olympics 2026: skeleton, ski jumping, Norway win 10th gold, and more – as it happened

It was another day of high drama at the Milano Cortina Games as Lucas Pinheiro Braathen made history for Brazil and South America, among other plotlines

Women’s dual moguls: It’s all very civilised out on the snow, the athletes have a hug when they reach the bottom. I was thinking the snow looked a bit grubby but it turns out the authorities put out pine needles – I think to help skiers find their way.

Anyway, they’ve zipped through very quickly and have already sorted the quarter finals, with four Americans in the final eight.

Published: February 14, 2026, 10:26 pm

Fall of the Quad God: Ilia Malinin finds he is all too human under the Olympic spotlight

The brilliant American was expected to glide to a gold medal on Friday. It was tough to watch such a gifted athlete discover the ruthlessness of his sport

By the time Ilia Malinin reached the closing stretch of his Olympic free skate, the outcome was no longer really the story. The story was the expression on his face – not panic, not shock, but the dawning realization that a destiny he had controlled for nearly three years had slipped beyond his reach in the blinding span of four and a half catastrophic minutes.

For the rising generation of men’s skaters, the 21-year-old Malinin has existed less as a rival than as a moving technical horizon. The Quad God. The skater who built programs around jumps others still treated as theory, who pushed the sport into something closer to applied physics. Much like Simone Biles, who took in Friday’s contest from the Milano Ice Skating Arena’s VIP seats, his only competition was himself.

Published: February 14, 2026, 10:00 am