Phil Neville is pleased with the Portland Timbers recent form but admits they still have a lot to work on as they prepare to face Austin FC on Wednesday.

After a run of nine games without a win in MLS, Portland have now won two of their last three outings, beating Sporting Kansas City 2-1 on Saturday.

That win moved them up to 16 points in the Western Conference, and the Timbers are now just one point behind the ninth-placed Seattle Sounders in a playoff place.

Neville was pleased with his side s reaction to a recent defeat to Minnesota United and is looking forward to building on their upturn.

We ve got two wins out of [last] three and it s what we expect, what we want. We want to keep improving. I think we ve seen improvements over the last two or thre…

Another fervent European evening, another scarcely credible denouement in the Champions League.

Tottenham were 3-0 down on aggregate in Amsterdam with nowhere left go in the semi-final – or at least that was how it looked until Lucas Moura scored twice in a hurry before completing a brilliant hat-trick deep into stoppage time.

Ajax and Spurs had both plotted improbable paths to their semi-final, a drama that played out 24 hours after Liverpool ransacked Barcelona in remarkable scenes at Anfield.

Here, we look back at three months where Europe s grown-up football competition started behaving like a devil-may-care teenager and was all the better for it.

THAT feeling when you reach your first-ever !

Congratulations,

— UEFA Champions …

Brazilian football icon Ronaldo believes that his country are the favourites to win the FIFA World Cup in 2014.

Speaking after the hosts FIFA Confederations Cup final win on Sunday, the 36-year-old said that the success could be a stepping stone for Brazil to win the biggest title in international football for the sixth time.

Brazil beat current world champions Spain 3-0 to seal the Confederations Cup crown and Ronaldo, who scored 62 goals in 98 games for his nation, believes his countrymen can win the competition on home soil.

I think that the Brazilian team is again the Brazilian team, the favourite to win the title, he said.

I think that the national team showed very good potential, it is again one of the main national teams in the world, (they) gained again …

Rodri remains intent on building a legacy to replicate the greatness of Spain s golden generation as La Roja prepare to meet France in the Euro 2024 semi-finals on Tuesday.

Luis de la Fuente s side are the only team to win all five matches so far at the tournament in Germany, with their next challenge an out-of-sorts Les Bleus in Munich.

That Spain form has drawn many comparisons to the La Roja side that triumphed in back-to-back Euros across 2008 and 2012, lifting the World Cup between those successes.

Rodri has been compared to legendary Spanish midfielders Xavi and Andres Iniesta, both integral to those aforementioned triumphs, though the current international says they started from scratch, too.

That golden generation, when it started, wasn t, the Ma…

Barcelona coach Luis Enrique gave his team just short of a perfect mark for the year as they completed 2015 with a 4-0 win over Real Betis at Camp Nou.

Lionel Messi marked his 500th appearance for the club with a goal and Luis Suarez scored a brace after Heiko Westermann s first-half own goal on Wednesday.

The win saw Barca stay top of La Liga to finish a year which saw them win five trophies.

But Luis Enrique was unwilling to describe it as perfect as he urged his team to improve on their efforts.

It s a very good year and I put nine because everything can be improved, he said.

I, as a player, based my philosophy on giving everything and never had anything to reproach myself, always finished every season well and as a coach I feel the same.<…

Simon Clegg, the man who guided Britain to a record-breaking medal haul at last year s Beijing Olympics, was on Tuesday named as the new chief executive of Championship side Ipswich.

Clegg, 49, was chief executive of the British Olympic Association for 12 years and chef de mission of Team GB which came in fourth in the 2008 Games table with 47 medals including 19 golds.

A former army officer Clegg, who left his Olympic post in December, takes over at Ipswich from Derek Bowden, who is standing down at the end of the season.

I have joined Ipswich Town because I am absolutely convinced that working together with the fans, sponsors, community and staff we can once again put the club back in its rightful place in the Premiership, he said.

Club owner Marcus E…

The Los Angeles Chargers head into Houston to face the Texans as they continue to fight for their postseason lives. The 8-6 Chargers are two wins behind the Chiefs but have a chance of a wild-card spot. They face a Texans team already in the prep stages for next season.

Here are our NFL betting picks and predictions for the Los Angeles Chargers vs. Houston Texans on December 26.

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The NFL season is waning fast, as the calendar has flipped to December. Dreams will be crushed and realized in the regular season’s stretch run, those of bettors included. 

Let’s try to get lucky in Week 13 and hitch our wagon to the Commanders and Chiefs in both of these parlay plays. I’ll attack those two games in two different ways, as I outline below.

…

When putting this article together this week, I couldn’t help but think to myself that there are a lot of team total-related trends here — just one of those weeks in the latest NFL odds, I guess.

Team totals aren’t an incredibly popular betting market, but maybe they should be, because it’s an easier handicap if you think about it. When betting a team total, you’re simply narrowing your analysis down to an offense vs. a defense, which eliminates a lot of factors that are involved in a traditional full-game bet. 

I usually have at least one team total on my card this week, but I’ll likely set a personal record for the amount I play in Week 16 odds — what could go wrong? 

Enough about me though. Taking a…

The Chicago Bears start a new era on Sunday as Caleb Williams makes his NFL debut against the Tennessee Titans at Soldier Field.

However, it’s the Tennessee backfield that has my attention, and our Titans vs. Bears predictions are eyeing the props market for Tony Pollard. Find out more in my NFL picks for Sunday, September 8.

Titans vs Bears prediction

My best betTony Pollard Over 10.5 receiving yards (-110 at BetMGM)

My analysis

The days of the ground-and-pound attack from the Tennessee Titans are a thing of the past following the hiring of pass-happy head coach Brian Callahan and the offseason signings of wide receivers Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd.

Running back Tony Pollard was also brought in after recording 94 r…