Friends star Matt LeBlanc is just one of a number of celebrities descending on London to witness the Champions League Final between Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on Saturday.

Matt LeBlanc was down at the #DiscoverFord event at the Champions Festival at Stratford earlier today to watch his friend and professional rally driver Ken Block do his stuff behind the wheel.

We took the opportunity to get a few words from Matt ahead of the final and get his all-important match prediction…

Don’t all rush to the bookies at once!

FootballFanCast.com

Former Bayern Munich and England midfielder Owen Hargreaves has tipped his old team to begin a period of in which they “steamroller everything” following their clash with Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final.

The 32-year-old represented die Roten for 10 years before joining Manchester United in 2007 and won the continental prize with them, defeating Valencia in the 2001 final.

Hargreaves believes that the Bundesliga giants are at the top of the European game at present, telling the Daily Mail: “You have to say they’re No.1.

“That team is as good as you’ll find, with a work ethic. I’d be shocked if they didn’t steamroller everything over the next few years. The only issue is complacency.”

With former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola set to take over at the Allianz Arena in the summer, the former Three Lions star feels that the Spaniard may find it difficult to follow this season’s potential treble-winning exploits but that he is going to the perfect club to keep up their success.

“The infrastructure has always been there,” he explained. “People asked me why Guardiola chose to go there, not Chelsea. Well, he’s a smart man. If Bayern is not the best-run club in Europe, you would struggle to find a better one.

“But if they win the treble, what’s he going to do? It’s only downhill from there. I’ve heard great things about Guardiola and maybe it’s good that he keeps it fresh. Barcelona is the best example. They were the best team ever to play this game and to get beat as they did in the semi-final can only be down to complacency.

“Any team with success over a period can fall victim to that. We thought they were undefeatable and then to go and get beat 7-0 over two legs [by Bayern] … it wasn’t even close. It could have been 12 or 13.

“Bayern have the right balance,” he added. “They’re a model for a lot of people. Their stadium is probably the best in Europe, their training ground is one of the best, commercially they turn a profit and make their own money. It’s done naturally.

“It’s mostly [club president] Uli Hoeness who has made the club what it is. He’s the heart and soul. There was a time when he said they had to decide if they had enough money to cut the trees and plants down and to go from that to where they are is pretty amazing.”

Goal.com News – News

“We are very sad to hear of the passing of Flynn Robinson,” said Lakers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Jeanie Buss. “Flynn played an important role on the 1971-72 Lakers team that brought Los Angeles its first NBA Championship and won what is still an NBA-record 33 consecutive games.

“Lakers fans might remember [Robinson] as ‘Mr. Instant Point,’ a nickname given to him by the great Chick Hearn, a nickname that was well earned as Flynn led the reserves in scoring that season, averaging 10 points in 16 minutes off the bench. He was a proud part of our Lakers heritage, participating in numerous reunions and special events over the years and he will be missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this time.”

NBA.com: News

Fri 24 May, 2013

SoccerNews.com – The Latest Soccer & Transfer News

PARIS (AP) –
Used to be the French Open was the scene for clay-court specialists and surprise champions.

Scan the list of past winners and runners-up. There’s Gaston Gaudio and Albert Costa, Guillermo Coria and Martin Verkerk, Andres Gomez and Mariano Puerta. Not so much a “Who’s Who.” More like a “Who’s He?”

The women’s list features fewer out-of-nowhere names, yet does include those such as Iva Majoli, Anastasia Myskina and Francesca Schiavone, who all won the French Open while never making it past the quarterfinals at any other major championship.

With the year’s second Grand Slam tournament set to begin Sunday at Roland Garros, there is little thought being given to that sort of stunning outcome, thanks to Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.

As seven-time major champion John McEnroe put it: “It’s pretty obvious who the favorite is.”

He meant, of course, Nadal, who won his record seventh French Open title last year and is 52-1 for his career at the place. Consider, too, the nearly perfect way the Spaniard has played after seven months off the tour because of a left knee injury: Since returning in February, Nadal is 36-2, reaching the finals at all eight tournaments he’s entered, winning six.

“I am enjoying every moment, and eight finals in a row is wonderful,” Nadal said. “Four, five months ago, it was impossible to think about this.”

He wore a wrap of white tape below that troublesome knee while practicing Thursday afternoon on Court Philippe Chatrier with the temperature in the 40s (less than 10 degrees Celsius) for about an hour before heavy rain fell; the forecast calls for more wet weather in the coming days.

Nadal has cut down on the amount of time he spends training on court, one concession to the recurring knee problems, which also forced him to pull out of Wimbledon in 2009, when he would have been the defending champion.

“I’m really happy for him, and impressed that he’s come back,” said McEnroe, an analyst for Tennis Channel, among other TV outlets. “It seems like he’s barely lost anything, if at all. Right now, he seems to be finally, he says, playing the best he’s been playing the whole year, which is sort of frightening for the other players.”

And yet Nadal will not be seeded No. 1 when the draw is held Friday.

That’s because the French Open decided to strictly follow the rankings, and Nadal’s time away deducted enough points that he is currently No. 4 (he’ll move up one spot to No. 3 in the seedings, because No. 2 Andy Murray, the reigning U.S. Open champion, withdrew because of a bad back).

Tournament director Gilbert Ysern explained that while he could have opted to ignore the rankings – and even contemplated doing so, because Nadal is “the best player on clay” and Roland Garros “is a bit like his garden” – there wasn’t a consensus it was the proper thing to do.

“You can understand the argument that those who are higher than him in the rankings in a certain way deserve their ranking,” Ysern said, “and to move these players back to move Nadal forward could have been considered unfair.”

Nadal, for his part, did not sound too fussed about the matter, saying, “I had a very good chance to be No. 10 (given the time off), and there are lots of chances to be worse, and I accept the situation.”

So last year’s French Open runner-up to Nadal, Novak Djokovic, will be seeded No. 1, and 17-time major champion Roger Federer will be seeded No. 2.

Djokovic handed Nadal one of his two losses of 2013, in the Monte Carlo final on clay last month, proof that Nadal is not completely invincible, even on the slow surface he dominates.

The No. 1-ranked Williams, meanwhile, has been unbeatable lately. She arrives in Paris having won a career-high 24 consecutive matches and is 36-2 with a tour-leading five titles this season. That’s part of a stretch in which she’s gone 67-3, including titles last year at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the London Olympics.

That 70-match stretch of excellence dates, probably not coincidentally, to her last match at Roland Garros, a shocking loss to 111th-ranked Virginie Razzano of France in the first round in 2012. It is her only opening loss in 50 career Grand Slam tournaments – precisely the sort of thing that seems to happen around these parts.

While there certainly are other women who realistically can harbor hopes of lifting the trophy in a little more than two weeks – defending champion Maria Sharapova is the best example – Williams appears to be playing as well as ever at the moment.

She already owns 15 Grand Slam singles titles, but the French Open is the only major tournament she’s won fewer than four times. Her lone championship in Paris came in 2002.

“Nothing is ever perfect and I learned that last year when I felt perfect,” Williams said. “So I am still in a danger zone.”

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SI.com – Tennis

Big changes are expected to happen around North London this summer. After the final day dramatics that saw Arsenal secure 4^th place and a spot in the Champions League next season, Arsene Wenger is looking to strengthen his squad in the transfer window, and build a team tough enough to push for the top of the league. Tottenham are also looking to sign some players this summer, and finally qualify for the Champions League again.

But both clubs will be looking to make space for their new signings. Some fringe players will be sold to make room for new players, and to also cut the wage bill, freeing up money for their transfers. So with some players set to leave London, who are the bargains that could be found in the Premier League this summer?

Click on Vermaelen below for the 10 bargains that could come out of Tottenham and Arsenal this summer

FootballFanCast.com