There aren’t many football fans around who can say they have seen their team built from nothing, but FC Brickstand supporters certainly can.
PA photo
The entirely Lego-based football club, created by Chris Smith, 35, a teaching assistant from Altrincham, already has more than 1000 followers on Twitter since its inception in April, capturing people’s attention with astonishing attention to detail.
Yes, the team have a board of directors, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
FC Brickstand play in the Diorama Conference (division five of Lego football for those unaware) and host games at Brick Lane stadium, while Lego are an official affiliate partner of the club.
The management team have even been spotted on fact-finding missions ahead of their first competitive season…
Before the process of creating a Lego football club came about, Chris began his mission to build all 92 English league and Scottish Premiership grounds from Lego.
He told the Press Association that FC Brickstand is “almost an extension of the original project, and a desire to explore further what could be done that mixed football and Lego”.
He added: “It is a much more interactive project that will allow people to become part of something that will grow gradually over time, just like a real football club.”
Fan involvement is the name of the game, with management and kit some of the things supporters have been given control over, but there’s nothing they can do about the results against other teams in the division, from Athletic Buildbao to Plastic Thistle.
“(Results are) based on the outcome of real games that are played, but these are chosen beforehand so that I can’t interfere with the outcome!” said Chris.
“A Saturday game is picked during the week, the basis of which becomes the Sunday FC Brickstand game.”
As a result, FC Brickstand have failed to win a game so far, with defeats to Olymbrick De Marseille and Brickin City bringing supporters back down to earth with a bump.
Such teething problems are natural for a club in its infancy however, and results are sure to come as the club builds its reputation – and if not, there’s always something to look at in between games.
It looked improbable two months ago.
Two years ago — impossible.
But against the odds, Miami and Indiana have a date in the College Football Playoff final — a first-of-its-kind matchup on Jan. 19 in the second national title game of the expanded-playoff era.
The Hoosiers (15-0), the top-seeded favorite in the 12-team tournament, stomped Oregon 56-22 on Friday night to reach the final. The Hurricanes (13-2), seeded 10th and the last at-large team to make the field, beat Mississippi 31-27 the night before.
Indiana opened as a 7 1/2-point favorite, according to the BetMGM Sportsbook.
The game is set for Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida — the long-ago-chosen venue for a game that happens to be the home of the Hurricanes. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is a Miami native who grew up less than a mile from the campus in Coral Gables.
“It means a little bit more to me,” Mendoza said of the title game doubling as a homecoming.
He'll be going against the program known as “The U.” Miami won five titles between 1983 and 2001 and earned the reputation as college football's brashest renegade.
A quarter century later, they are one side in a tale of two resurgences.
Miami's was sparked by coach Mario Cristobal, a local boy and former ‘Cane himself who came back home four years ago to lead his alma mater to a place it hasn’t been in decades.
Among his biggest wins was luring quarterback Carson Beck to spend his final year of eligibility with the 'Canes.
Beck, steadily rounding back to form after an elbow injury that ended his season at Georgia last year, is getting better every week. He has thrown for 15 TDs and two interceptions over a seven-game winning streak dating to Nov. 8.
“He’s hungry, he’s driven, he’s a great human being, and all he wants to do is to see his teammates have success,” Cristobal said after Beck threw for 268 yards and ran for the winning touchdown against Ole Miss.
It was the latest step in a long climb from No. 18 in the season's first CFP rankings on Nov. 4 — barely within shouting distance of the bubble — after their second loss of the season.
The Hurricanes haven't lost since.
Indiana's climb to the top is an even longer haul. This is the program that had a nation-leading 713 losses over 130-plus years heading into the 2024 season. Since then, only two.
The turnaround is thanks to coach Curt Cignetti, who arrived from James Madison and declared: “It's pretty simple. I win. Google me,” while explaining his confident tone at a signing day news conference in December 2023 when he landed the core of the class that has taken Indiana from obscurity to the edge of a title.
But Indiana's biggest catch came about a year ago from the transfer portal — the oxygen that drives the current game.
Mendoza, who went to the same high school as Cristobal in Miami, chose Indiana as the place to finish his career. So far, he has won the Heisman Trophy and is all but assured to be a top-five pick in the NFL draft.
“Can't say enough about him,” Cignetti said.
One more win and he'll bring a national title and an undefeated season to Indiana, an even 50 years after the Hoosiers' 1975-76 basketball team, led by coach Bob Knight, did the same.
Lots of people could see that one coming. Hard to say the same about this.
It might seem like ancient history, but Miami almost didn’t make the playoffs.
In its first ranking of the season, back in November, the CFP selection committee ranked the Hurricanes eight spots behind a Notre Dame team they beat to start the season.
The history of Miami’s slow crawl up the standings, then its leapfrogging past the Irish for the last spot, has been well-documented. If Miami’s trip to the final proved anything, it’s how off-base the committee was when it started the ’Canes at 18, even if they were coming off a loss at SMU, its second of the season.
One of the best games of 2024 was Miami's comeback from 25 points down to beat Cal. The quarterback for the Bears: Mendoza, who threw for 285 yards but got edged out by Cam Ward in a 39-38 loss.
With Ward headed for the NFL, the Hurricanes were a consideration for Mendoza as he sought a new spot to finish out his college career. But he picked Indiana, Beck moved to Miami, and now, they meet.
The College Football Playoff will distribute $20 million to the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conferences for placing their teams in the finals — that's $4 million for making it, $4 million for getting to the quarters, then $6 million each for the semis and finals.
While the Big Ten divvies up that money evenly between its 18 members, Miami keeps it all for itself — part of a “success initiatives program” the ACC started last season that allows schools to keep all the postseason money they make in football and basketball.
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Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti walks on the field before the Peach Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal against Oregon, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal yells from the sideline during the second half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Mississippi, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Miami quarterback Carson Beck (11) holds the offensive player of the game trophy after winning the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Mississippi, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Indiana wide receiver Elijah Sarratt (13) celebrates his touchdown reception with quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) during the second half of the Peach Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
