By Tim Stannard

1) World Cup qualifying comes to an end in Peru 

It all began on March 12th, 2015 in a balmy Dili, Timor Leste with a convincing 4-1 win for the home side against visiting Mongolia in front of 9,000 fans. 

It will all end two-and-a-half years later on November 15th, 2018 in Lima, Peru with the 32nd and final place at the 2018 World Cup in Russia being awarded either to Peru or New Zealand. 

Spot number 31 was tied up in the very early hours of Wednesday morning, USA time, with Australia beating Honduras 3-1 in an intercontinental World Cup-qualifying play-off on the other side of the Pacific Ocean from Peru, to put the Socceroos on a plane to Russia 2018. On Wednesday night, Peru will look to repeat the victorious feat against the Antipodean All Whites with the tie goalless from the first leg, but knowing that New Zealand's away goals could be costly.

The pacific derby is upon us and the globe-trotting beIN SPORTS has got you covered with live coverage of that era-ending clash from 8:30PM ET / 5:30AM PT. 

2) Ronaldo wants to leave Real Madrid. Again. 

While the World Cup qualifying antics of the likes of Denmark, New Zealand, Peru and Australia might of great interest to the fine people of those nations, it doesn’t really shift units in terms of hits and clicks.

Which is why the story-hungry Spanish media has dusted off a familiar concept. Actually, Cristiano Ronaldo wanting to leave Real Madrid - but not actually doing so - has been used with such regularity, that dust has not ever been allowed to gather. The story is kept in a handedly-placed sandwich bag in case of any spillages.

That’s the line being spun this week with the walking billboard very reportedly wanting to leave the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer of 2018, three years ahead of the expiration of the footballer’s current deal. 

The reasoning is that Ronaldo was supposedly unhappy at summer overtures towards Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Leo Messi are paid more and the whole tax thing going on in Spain. Sergio Ramos was probed on the affair on Tuesday in Russia on Spain duty and made the right move by pulling a Jeff Sessions, and claiming complete ignorance of anything. "Cristiano is leaving? Ask him, I don't know about these things," said Ramos. 

Tune into the XTRA from 7PM ET / 4PM PT for a bumper edition of Clasico Corner for all the latest news and scurrilous rumors. 

3) Italy waits for end of Ventura with Italy 

Over to Italy now and the ongoing saga of whether ‘Ace’ Ventura is going to resign as coach of Italy or get himself sacked with the ensuing payoff that would entail. 

At the moment it looks like the latter after the most-maligned man in Italy defended his record as Italy coach which pretty much consisted of failing to get the country qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1958. 

"I still had some of the best results of the last 40 years. I lost just two [sic] games," muttered Ventura to a fairly intrusive journalist, omitting the fact that three were lost.

Another footballing figure under pressure in Italy is the federation head, Carlo Tavecchio, but he has received very high praise indeed from FIFA president, Gianni Infantino who boomed his fellow suit to the high heavens. “It’s unfair and ridiculous to judge a presidency on just one bad result,” opined the Swiss. Tune into the XTRA at 7PM ET / 4PM PT to find out what Mr Christian Vieri thinks about that.

4) Lebron with another chance in win popularity polls  

King James has the chance to get into more on-court antics on Wednesday with the Cleveland Cavaliers taking on the Charlotte Hornets looking for the team’s first three game winning streak of the season.

Far away in London, the other big event of the day continues with the ATP Finals of tennis. Jack Sock and Roger Federer prevailed in their respective group clashes on Tuesday…up on court on Wednesday are Grigor Dimitrov taking on David Goffin. Pablo Carreno Busta makes his debut in the competition, taking the place of the withdrawn Rafa Nadal in a clash against Dominic Thiem. 

EXCITING NEWS! beIN SPORTS is delighted to debut a new Facebook Live show at 1PM ET / 10AM PT that will pour over the news of the day from around the world and also dip into the controversial world of college football rankings. 

WHAT IS SPORTS BURST?

The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.