THERE will be more than a football match on the horizon when Giovanni Trapattoni lands with his Ireland team in an airport named after Alexander The Great just outside Skopje tonight.

FA chairman David Bernstein last night admitted the attempt to have the FIFA presidential election called off is almost certain to fail but insisted a “coronation” of Sepp Blatter is unacceptable.

CORK boss Denis Walsh insisted it was “embarrassing” that people had completely written off his team’s chances before yesterday’s game.

AFTER extra-time, James Horan came mightily close to a losing championship debut as Mayo manager after his wasteful side almost came a cropper against London in Ruislip yesterday.

A WIN pulling up for Wexford then, but the 11-point margin owed more to Antrim’s spectacular collapse than anything the home team offered up in a Leinster quarter-final that seemed to hang in the balance at half-time.

IT was Aaron Kernan, one of the Armagh stars in this surprise result, who put it best afterwards.

A number of stadia will host one Championship clash this summer — if they’re lucky. Brendan O’Brien looks at grounds that are under-employed and dragging county boards into the red

THEY call Porto ‘the Dragons’ and, even if it was all more huff than Puff, they lived up to their nickname by breathing just about enough fire to incinerate the dream of battling Braga in the Europa League Final.

ON opposite corners of Parnell Square, the protestors were making their voices heard.

IT MAY go down in the history books as having finally drawn a line under centuries of animosity between two neighbouring nations.

I KNOW it’s juvenile but perhaps my favourite moment this past memorable weekend was hearing BBC Radio reporting live that a stunt mounted by the Red Issue fanzine had succeeded perfectly.

ARSENAL suffered a humiliation yesterday after defeat to Aston Villa in their final home game of the season, with supporters jeering the team during a lap appreciation after the final whistle.

A NEW championship and a new start for so many Irish hopefuls makes today’s opening RBS 6 Nations encounter against Italy something to savour at Stadio Flaminio (2.30pm).

IN 1992 my father fired myself, my brother and two cousins into a car as a long, wet Sunday yawned in front of us.

GAA PRESIDENT Christy Cooney has welcomed the possibility of men’s senior inter-county fixtures being refereed by female officials.

LAST March when Limerick IT and NUI Galway met in the Fitzgibbon Cup semi-final in Dangan, they conjured up a spellbinding clash that yielded 49 scores over 80 minutes of pulsating action.