Good afternoon from Athens

Welcome to SunSport’s live blog coverage of the Conference League clash between Panathinaikos and Chelsea at Athens Olympic Stadium (OAKA) in the League Phase – Kostas here, and I will be bringing you all the action from Greece.

The Blues pose as the strongest favourites to win this European competition, which would seal a hat-trick of continental trophies after conquering the Champions League and Europa League in recent years.

However, the West Londoners will have to do it without Marcus Bettinelli, Wesley Fofana, Ben Chilwell, Romeo Lavia and star man Cole Palmer at least during the first round as they have been omitted from the squad list.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has also travelled to Athens without Levi Colwill, Reece James, Malo Gusto, Moises Caicedo and Nicolas Jackson.who stayed in London to rest ahead of Sunday’s crunch Premier League clash with Newcastle at Stamford Bridge.

Panathinaikos manager Diego Alonso, on the other hand, is without Dimitris Limnios, Zeca, Tonny Vilhena, Erik Palmer-Brown, Hordur Magnusson, Ruben Perez, Alexis Trouillet, Lazlo Kleinheisler and Benjamin Verbic who are ineligible after missing out on the squad list.

Alonso is also deprived of Philipp Max who is nursing a sprain and star striker Fotis Ioannidis who has been sidelined with an adductor injury.

However the Uruguayan tactician has been given a boost with Andraz Sporar passing fit in time after overcoming a knock.

Nevertheless, PAO are in a time of mourning after the sudden death of star player George Baldock who tragically died two weeks ago.

Usman Nurmagomedov is a man with a plan.

Younger brother of UFC bantamweight contender Umar Nurmagomedov and cousin to lightweight GOAT Khabib Nurmagomedov, the undefeated Usman is currently the Bellator 155-pound champion. Recently, Usman Nurmagomedov successfully defended his title against Alexander Shabliy at in September, cementing himself as one of the best lightweights on Earth. But his ambition doesn’t stop there.

Speaking recently about his future plans, Nurmagomedov revealed he hopes to follow in his cousin’s footsteps by making the move to the octagon once training partner and UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev is done.

“I’m waiting for Islam to finish his career and then I will [go after the UFC title],” Nurmagomedov said on Gorilla Fighting’s YouTube. “I think if we get it right, we’ll be fighting in the UFC at 28. I’m 26 years old right now. Two years, I’ll get stronger and that’s it. Go into the UFC at 28 and compete until I’m 32.”

Undefeated for nearly a decade, Makhachev is currently the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in MMA, with three successful lightweight title defenses to his name. Before winning the belt, Makhachev found himself in a similar situation to Usman, serving as “the next man up” to Khabib Nurmagomedov. That played out exactly to the plan of the legendary coach Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, who developed all of these fighters, and according to Khabib, that plan also extended to Usman.

“This is what Abdulmanap envisioned,” Khabib said. “He strongly believed in Usman and always said that he would be the future champion. I didn’t see the potential when he was 16 years old. I saw the prospects and I believed, and from the very beginning, my father believed in it all, believed in Usman’s future.”

Of course, Nurmagomedov’s intention to go to the UFC is not exactly great news for the Bellator or its owner, the PFL. However, speaking with MMA Fighting on Wednesday, PFL co-founder Donn Davis dismissed this as a concern for the promotion.

“How many of you have said you’re going to move to Florida and retire in four years, and how many of you do it?” Davis said. “One in 10? One in five? … People say things all the time, and then they don’t do it.

“So might he go? Might not he go? Might he go in two years? Might he go in five years? Might he be the champion? Might not he be the champion? My goal is to make my man Usman happy. My goal is to make my man Usman successful, financially rich, and a champion, so that in two years he forgets he said this today.”

Whatever happens in two years, for the time being, Nurmagomedov remains signed with Bellator, where his next fight is likely a title defense against Paul Hughes, following the Irishman’s win over A.J. McKee at PFL Battle of the Giants this past Saturday.

Four people have been arrested in Spain over allegedly conducting an online campaign of hate and racism against Real Madrid forward Vinicius Jr.

The campaign is said to have encouraged supporters to racially abuse the 24-year-old, asking them to wear black face masks to avoid being identified, police confirmed.

The Brazil forward broke down in a press conference earlier this year when talking about the racist abuse he has encountered, saying he felt “less and less” like playing football following multiple incidents.

The men were detained on 14 and 15 October and then released as investigations continue.

Spain’s national police did not name the four men who were arrested and questioned, with no immediate statement from any lawyers representing them.

They added the investigation remains open and could lead to more arrests after the online campaign raised “significant social alarm” by going viral.

The first detentions by police linked to the campaign happened on 29 September in the build-up to the La Liga derby at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium, with the hashtag translated in English to ‘Metropolitano with a mask’ reportedly used.

Though no racist incidents were reported at the match, officials did temporarily suspend the game after objects were thrown on to the pitch.

Three Valencia fans were sentenced to eight months in prison in June for abusing the Madrid forward at a match in May 2023.

In August, the Brazilian said he and his team-mates will leave the pitch if they face any more racism this season.

He added that the only way to drive racism out of football altogether may be by stopping matches.

Cyclist Sir Chris Hoy says he has been “blown away” by the number of men seeking cancer advice since he revealed his terminal diagnosis.

The six-time Olympic champion, 48, said at the weekend that doctors have told him he has between two and four years to live.

In a video posted on social media, external on Thursday, Hoy said he had received “incredible kindness and support”.

“I now have a deep resolve to turn this incredibly difficult diagnosis into something more positive,” he added.

“I understand that there has been a massive increase in men seeking advice in prostate cancer in the last few days and that’s been a huge comfort to us to know that hopefully many lives could be saved by early testing.”

Sir Chris also said that he has written a book titled All That Matters, which will be released in November, about his illness and the story of his life since retiring from professional cycling in 2013.

He described the writing experience as cathartic for himself and his family, and said that he hopes the book can provide understanding around how families deal with a terminal diagnosis and to “remind us that all we have is now”.

Check out these photos from the UFC 308 pre-fight press conference at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, where Ilia Topuria, Max Holloway, Robert Whittaker, Khamzat Chimaev, and the rest of the main card fighters answered questions and took part in faceoffs. (Photos by Mike Bohn, MMA Junkie)

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

Tony Stewart went to the Stewart-Haas Racing shop a couple of weeks ago and saw as many people as he could a month before the team shuts down.

“Knowing that when I left the building there, here’s some of those people I’ve known for 16 years, and I may never, ever see them again, unfortunately,” Stewart said on “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour” podcast. “I don’t know that it’s even bittersweet. It’s more bitter than sweet, I feel like. It’s a tough decision.

“But, you know, things in life change. Your priorities change and variables outside of your control change as well.”

In a pair of interviews with FOX Sports last week, one with Harvick on his podcast and another with FOX Sports Digital, Stewart talked about his rookie season in an NHRA top fuel dragster (we’ll write more on that in a couple of weeks) as well as the final weeks of SHR. 

Stewart was given half of Haas CNC Racing prior to the 2009 season to form Stewart-Haas Racing. A two-time Cup champion at the time, Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing for the opportunity to co-own a team. The idea was he could help bring experienced racing administrators as well as attract people willing to work for the organization.

In its 16 seasons, SHR has won 70 Cup races, including Cup titles in 2011 with Stewart and 2014 with Kevin Harvick.

Stewart thinks back to winning the all-star race in 2009 as the pivotal moment that has guided him the last 16 years through the end of his Cup career in 2016 and the seasons that followed.

“There were crew guys there that literally were in tears, and it really caught me off-guard,” Stewart said about the all-star win. “I just didn’t expect to see that. And it was people that had been with the Haas organization before I’d got there and worked on different teams that had never won a race, and here we are winning our first race as an organization.

“And what I realized for the first time since I had started Stewart-Haas and become a part of that, it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about sitting there enjoying watching these guys that were so overwhelmed and overjoyed with winning a race that it brought tears to their eyes. And it was like, ‘This is way bigger than anything that has to do with me. This is about all of us and what we can accomplish together.’”

It was with that mindset that Stewart, facing significant sponsorship and manufacturer-support challenges, opted to get out of NASCAR Cup ownership. Gene Haas will keep one of the four Cup cars and both Xfinity programs and operate it as a new organization, Haas Factory Team. The team told employees at the end of May it would cease operations, impacting more than 300 employees (some employees could return with Haas Factory Team).

“The reason we did the announcement early in the season was to try to take care of all of our people,” Stewart said. “I got so blamed for people losing their jobs. Well, there’s companies left and right that shut down. Look at COVID [in 2020] — how many people had to shut down? Nobody was screaming about how employees weren’t taken care of and what it did to their families.

“We did what we did to take care of our people, and we created great severance packages for them to take care of them and their families. … I would say over 80 percent of the employees at SHR have found homes for next year.”

Stewart, who owns his NHRA team and sprint-car teams, said 16 years as a race team in one series is a solid run.

“The bashing I got online and on social media was very unjust through the process,” Stewart said. “It’s easy to sit on your ass, on a chair, on your couch in your mom’s house and sit there and tell us how we’re doing it wrong. But nobody can seem to sit there and come in on Monday morning and tell us how to do it right.

“I feel like our group did a great job of taking care of our people the best that we could, and with the right intentions and with the attitude of our employees came first — and that’s what the focus has been this year, is making sure that we do everything to take care of our employees in a season that’s a transition year for everybody.”

Even with the transition, Chase Briscoe won at Darlington to make the playoffs in SHR’s final hurrah. It snapped a 73-race winless streak for the organization.

“Obviously, for the building, the last couple years have been a huge struggle, and just trying to get a car in the winner’s circle again was tough,” Stewart said. “But to see Chase get that done at Darlington and win a crown jewel race and get himself in the playoffs, that was a huge boost for the building.”

Stewart said he didn’t know that the charter situation would lead to such angst between teams and owners over the summer, but watching 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports sue NASCAR is something he is glad he doesn’t have to be involved with as a Cup team owner.

“With their battle with NASCAR and the direction that things are going, it’s not a direction that I want to be a part of,” Stewart said on the Harvick podcast. “This is the right time. This was never a part of a master plan.

“But as this year has gone on, this has become very clear that this is the right time for me to get out of the sport. There’s things that I see that I definitely don’t like. And I’m happy doing the stuff I’m doing now. I’ve always been somebody that’s ran all kinds of different series.”

Stewart indicated the challenges of piecing together several sponsorships for one car and not having other companies to create enough business-to-business relationships was just too much for SHR to try to operate a successful team on the track. Stewart said he had a lot of respect for the NASCAR-owning France family and was appreciative of the opportunities he had racing the greats Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace and Harvick among them.

“The sport’s going to be healthy, it’s going to survive,” Stewart said. “It always has. It always will. But I’m happy at this point in my life to make this change. … It wasn’t that way at the beginning of the year.

“We had different reasons for why we had to shut down at the end of the season, but as time has gone on and watching the owners and NASCAR fight and just the chaos that’s going on over there, I’m fine being done with this at the end of the year.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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