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.

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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 clubs in the land can share a pitch with the biggest, and both sides can live a different football life for a day.

Moss Rose was built in 1891 for Macclesfield Town, which was would-up in 2020 amid financial troubles. A phoenix club was born in the ashes and has risen from the ninth tier of the English football pyramid (the North West Counties Football League) to the sixth (the National League North) in next-to-no time. Now they’ve got their biggest match of the year on Saturday, as FA Cup holders and Premier League stalwarts Crystal Palace will come to a small ground south of Manchester to battle the Silkmen.

In fact, says this week’s guest, it’s one of the biggest days in the combined history of Macclesfield Town and Macclesfield F.C. That guest is James Walker of The Silkmen News, a podcast and newsletter, and he also explained how new owner Robert Smethurst righted the ship with the help of his friend Robbie Savage after buying up the assets in an online liquidation sale. We also touched on how Wayne Rooney’s brother, John, is doing this season having replaced Savage as manager having helped the club win promotion how non-league football is thriving these days, and how Macclesfield got their nickname.

For our U.S. listeners, you can catch every FA Cup match this season on ESPN+

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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 for a meeting of second against first in France’s Ligue 2.

It’s a perfect opportunity to have a look at one of the world’s more storied — if off-beat — football clubs. Red Star was founded way back in 1897 by Jules Rimet, eventual inventor of the FIFA World Cup, and in the time since it’s acquired layer upon layer of identity. It’s the French capital’s rebel club, a vessel of alt-Paris, a different kind of chic from the glitz of the European champions at the Parc des Princes.

Simon Binns is a veteran journalist who wrote a book on Red Star — and fell in love with the club along the way. Red Star Paris: Punks, Politics and Power Struggles in the Fight for the Coolest Club on Earth is a history, a social study, and a love letter, though Binns also made use of his background as a financial journo to tackle the issue of Red Star’s new owners: 777 Partners, most famous for a failed takeover attempt of Everton Football Club.

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