And that despite a horrible run of fixtures, time-wise: from Eindhoven to the Bernabeu to a Tuesday night to Valencia at the weekend, where Madrid and Barcelona both dropped points.
Michael Laudrup's side have conceded the opening goal in their Premier League fixtures 14 times this season, only opponents Fulham have conceded more with 15.
Fixtures (all times BST): Thursday 12 June: Brazil v Croatia 21 00, Friday 13 June: Mexico v Cameroon 17:00, Tuesday 17 June: Brazil v Mexico 20 00, Wednesday 18 June: Cameroon v Croatia 23:00, Monday 23 June: Cameroon v Brazil, Croatia v Mexico both 21 00.
The problem is compounded by the glut of fixtures, the time spent on the road and the lack of coaching time in between.
Each femur was preconditioned by first applying a 10 N compressive force (using an MTS machine, MTS, Eden Prairie, Minnesota) to the four-point bend fixture to preload the bone, and then applying a ramp displacement of 10 mm to the fixture 100 times.
There will be just two derby fixtures this time but organisers have retained the blockbusting game between Leeds and Wigan, a repeat of the 2015 Grand Final, to bring down the curtain on day one.
Rugby Union: Bordeaux-Begles v Ulster 12.30pm, Sky Sports 3 More Champions Cup action from the opening round of fixtures, this time from Stade Chaban-Delmas (Kick-off 1pm).
The week-long mixed marathon's jumping highlight is the Galway Plate, a valuable handicap chase, on Wednesday evening and the system to follow is perhaps to latch on to Dermot Weld, champion trainer at the fixture 27 times and responsible for an unprecedented 17 winners last year.
Certainly the NFL's aim of becoming the UK's third biggest sport is not overly outlandish but the steady approach – more British fixtures over time, coupled with a first game somewhere like Berlin – may be the more sensible play before a full-blown London franchise gets the go-ahead.
Last season Wasps attracted 60,000 to this fixture; this time the attendance was less than 40,000.
