ESPN's Jon Champion on FA Cup glories and a peculiar Manchester derby

The Football Weekend is on tour this week with a first stop in Paris, France after a harrowing red-eye flight sat in front of the most formidable snorer in human history. More on that in this week’s episode — a quick one for a number of reasons, not least your host’s fitness levels.

I initially asked ESPN and NBC commentator Jon Champion if he had a few minutes to chat about one of the stadiums I’ll be covering on the ground next week for the latest edition of our CATHEDRALS series on the world’s great football stadiums. Look out for more on that soon, and check out more of Jon’s stadium expertise in our Goodison Park feature from last year.

But it also seemed like a fine time to check in with him about his work calling FA Cup matches for ESPN — our U.S. listeners can catch every game on ESPN and ESPN+ this season — because it’s already an extraordinary edition of the world’s oldest knockout competition. Macclesfield, yes, but Wrexham, too, and Jon was at the Racecourse Ground to call that one last weekend. Plus, we got into a bit of a Manchester derby preview.

Get more sharp coverage of the world's game at TheFootballWeekend.com ↗️

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(79)

David Goldblatt Sees the World Cup Future

It’s the international break, a chance to take a deep breath before the club season's crescendo and the massive summer of World Cup 2026. It's also a good time to take stock of the international game,...

28 Mar 48min

The FA Cup Third Round is magic

We all spend a lot of time lamenting the cynical side of the modern game, but if there’s an antidote, it’s the weekend ahead of us. The FA Cup Third Round Proper is one for the romantics: the smallest...

9 Jan 46min

The Paris rebel club

New year, new weekend, and we’re off in an unconventional direction. The big match of the coming days for our purposes is in Paris, but it ain’t PSG. RED STAR PARIS travel to face TROYES on Saturday f...

2 Jan 57min

The Battle of Lisbon: Mourinho, Eusébio, Sporting and Benfica

David Novo from Lisbon's Record newspaper joins to help us preview the Dérbi de Lisboa, as Benfica host Sporting CP in a battle for bragging rights in the Portuguese capital. Along with Porto — which ...

4 Des 202552min

Brad Friedel: The American who lived Türkiye's most explosive football feud

Brad Friedel played his college ball at UCLA and had a stint at Liverpool before a longer and seriously fruitful one at Blackburn Rovers. He also stopped shots for Aston Villa and for Tottenham Hotspu...

28 Nov 202555min

The Road to World Cup 2026, Vol. 3: Jonathan Wilson's Histories

The World Cup is a sporting competition between national football teams to determine the best of them. But it’s always been a vessel for so much more, not least the ambitions of political leaders rang...

13 Nov 20251h 16min

El Clásico blasts off the title race in La Liga

There’s a big game down in Italy on Saturday, but there’s only one headliner for this weekend. It’s El Clásico, Real Madrid vs FC Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu, the biggest game in club football ...

24 Okt 20251h 2min