Sport: The week in review

WILL it be unbounded joy for Tel Boy - or pure hell for El Tel? After much humming and hawing by the FA International Committee over alleged financial indiscretions, Terry Venables is offered the impossible job (albeit four years late) of managing the England football team. In a C4 documentary, his predecessor Graham Taylor offers some salutary advice: 'Don't lose.'

Graeme Souness fails to heed it and resigns as manager after Bristol City's Brian Tinnion dumps Liverpool out of the FA Cup at Anfield, leaving Tranmere as Merseyside's sole survivors in round four. Better luck for another ex-Kop idol as John Toshack is named technical director of the Welsh national team.

Further cause for celebration in Cardiff and Swansea as Steve Watkin shrugs aside a dicky back - those muscles must be resilient after carrying the Glamorgan attack for so long - to bowl England's cricketers towards a resounding win in the first match of their Caribbean tour, albeit against a weak Antiguan XI.

Much gnashing of teeth across the Atlantic as the Buffalo Bills, beaten finalists for the past three years, qualify for the Super Bowl yet again, denying national icon Joe Montana one last throw on the big stage. 'Accept it, America' demands one defiant Bills banner. Sadly, there is nothing America finds less acceptable than a loser.