Welcome one and all to this week's TLFG.
I had fully intended to write a much fuller piece this time but other activities have caught up again so you're going to have to fend for yourself with only the match maps to help you.
In all honesty, I'm under pressure to rationalise this blog.
As I've mentioned before, it takes around 8-10 hours a week to put this together and after nearly 15 years, it's starting to take its toll.
Since I began writing in 2011, I've had two kids, Non-League Day (NLD) has really taken off and now I have podcasts and programmes to produce for Actonians too.
The match maps are fun to produce and keep me abreast of everything but the previews are becoming a bit of a grind, particularly for Premier League games which loads of other people cover. Not only that but tickets are hardly ever available to non-members or cost a small fortune if they are.
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| Corinthians on the attack against Gotham |
When this blog started, I used to do a 'Top 10' of games to watch over the week, rather than a daily digest - I might go back to that again.
I've thought about providing a list of recommendations purely consisting of lower league and women's matches that might otherwise go under the radar.
Some have suggested I put up some kind of pay wall or start a subscription service but that would increase the pressure to deliver and I didn't get into this to make money, purely to promote football in this great city.
Or I might do nothing radical at all and just keep churning out the match maps with a bit of personal stuff about what I've been up to.
Either way, TLFG has become a big part of my life which has given me some great experiences so it will keep going in some form.
Anyway, what have I been up to in the last week?
I went to Brentford on Wednesday for the semi-finals of the FIFA Women's Champions Cup.
Brazilian club Corinthians started as underdogs as they took on US side Gotham FC but defended doggedly and nicked a late winner to the joy of their wonderful fans who put on a great show throughout the game despite the lunchtime kick-off.
One of the highlights of the experience, which other commentators have also mentioned, was the presence of a couple of groups of primary school children who ended up sitting among the Corinthians ultras.
There is great footage of them jumping up and down with the hundreds of black-and-white clad South American fans and then shouting with delight when their captain Gabi Zanotti came to celebrate with them at the end.
The GTech is a great venue for games like this - it's the right size, modern and is easily accessible by public transport. All in all, I really enjoyed myself.
Ultimately, Corinthians played Arsenal in Sunday's final at the Emirates and took them all the way to extra time before losing 3-2.
The Gunners pocketed a whopping $2.3m (£1.7m) for winning whilst Corinthians went home with $1m (£730,000).
To put this in context, the Women's Champions League winners get €500,000 (£430,000).
The week ahead sees the build-up to Non-League Day (NLD) continue with a big meeting at Premier League HQ on Wednesday.
As part of this year's NLD, the Essex Senior League have announced a groundhop around some of their games - with the fixtures set up so that pretty much every one is a local derby, it should be a great part of the country to celebrate the day.
I think that's about it from me but before I go, many thanks to Nicholas N from Illinois, USA for donating to TLFG's coffee-drinking fund - it's hugely appreciated.
Have a great week!
THE WEEK AHEAD
The Premier League tops the bill this week but we also have some big games in the EFL Cup, EFL, National League and Women's Super League.
All in all, there are well over 100 games to choose from within the M25 over the next seven days so there's no reason to get bored.
As always, please make sure you check with clubs before you travel just in case a game has been called off or the venue or kick-off time has changed - this is highly possible for some of the lower non-league clubs and development matches. Also, please let me know if anything is wrong or missing.
Has this blog been helpful? Donate to TLFG's coffee-drinking fund here
