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David Tindall kickstarts the weekend’s football programme with our unmissable rolling blog that rises early to provide all the breaking news from around the grounds. There’ll be wash-up from Friday night’s Premier League meeting of Leeds and Nottingham Forest, buildup to Saturday’s bumper seven Premier League matches, a full Championship and lower-division programme, plus plenty of swirl around Serie A and La Liga, with Napoli and Barcelona in action. In Germany, Borussia Dortmund have cut Bayern Munich’s Bundesliga lead by five points, drawing six behind the leaders and reviving a title race long considered dead. Bayern’s shock home loss to Augsburg – their first league defeat in 10 months – along with a hard-fought draw in Hamburg last Saturday have allowed Niko Kovac’s Dortmund to edge closer. Dortmund play at wobbling Wolfsburg, a day before Bayern’s home clash with Hoffenheim. Why not join the conversation by sending your thoughts to matchday.live@theguardian.com?
Twelve hours of entertaining live coverage from Italy begins early as our team keep the updates flowing from the four-site Olympiad. This is the most spread-out Games – summer or winter – in history, with competition venues dotting an area of about 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of Wales, with Merseyside tacked on. The hub is in Milan at San Siro, the celebrated football stadium which is due to be bulldozered in the next few years. Other venues include Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains, Livigno in the Alps and Predazzo in Trento. There’s British interest in the women’s slopestyle qualifying (9.30am-11.35am) with the 21-year-old Scot Kirsty Muir in stellar form after winning X Games gold in January and her first World Cup gold last year. The men’s downhill is one of the Winter Games’ blue riband events (10.30am-12.50pm) and there’ll be some spectacular flicks and tricks in the snowboard men’s big air (6.30pm-7.50pm).
