By Tim Stannard

1) Zidane thriving under pressure

There were pompoms and a bout of tossing and tumbling in the Real Madrid press room on Friday morning as Coach Zizou faced a critical media after Real Madrid made the biggest boo-boo of all by losing two games of football in a row.

But there was no chance of third loss, announced Zinedine. “I’m not losing another one on my table…not today!” roared Madrid’s Surgeon General.

Not really. But there was still a defiant vibe with Zidane claiming that he likes a soccer situation to be a little bit sweaty and stressed claiming that the pressure “makes me grow stronger every day.” Aside from stabilizing a few quivering lips, the other jobs for Coach Zizou were to defend the under-fire Danilo and defend the under-fire Cristiano Ronaldo. “I also played badly sometimes, so what?” scowled Zidane, who then released a squad without the injured James Rodriguez on the list.

Tune into the Locker Room from 7:30PM ET / 4:30PM PT for a full preview and then catch Real Madrid’s clash against visiting Malaga at the Santiago Bernabeu from 10:05AM ET / 7:05AM PT

2) Diego Costa back in Chelsea fold

Well that de-escalated quickly. The Diego Costa Chelsea crisis bubble popped in less than a week, with Antonio Conte revealing that the footballer is available for selection for Sunday’s home clash against Hull City. This is despite fevered rumors from the English press that the pair had fallen out over the Brazilian born striker wanting a move to the Chinese Super League.

Chelsea are currently top of the Premier League with a seven-point lead over Tottenham Hotspur, a team that is travelling to take on a rattled Manchester City on Saturday.

3) Ivory Coast in must-win AFCON clash

But who cares about Saturday when there are a whole bunch of games on beIN SPORTS on Friday. Five-of-them, in actual fact. At 11AM ET / 7AM PT, Ivory Coast has a must-win match over Congo DR in Group C. And that’s the same panic bucket Morocco finds itself in with a clash against Togo at 2PM ET / 11AM PT.

In Ligue Un, Nice has a chance to return to the top of the table in the Derby de la Mediterranée against Bastia. Just a point will do the job. Up in the English Championship and the soaring Seagulls of Brighton can also get on top, so to speak, with victory against Sheffield Wednesday. That clash is on beIN CONNECT from 2:45PM ET / 11:45AM PT.

Over on our Spanish sister service, Las Palmas will be looking to recover from a recent hammering by Barcelona in a home Canary Island clash against Deportivo. Catch all the highlights of all those games on the 500-mile-an-hour Friday edition of the XTRA.

4) Aubameyang says bye-bye to Bayern transfer

One winter transfer that was never going to happen anyway, but now never will – if that is grammatically possible – is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leaving Borussia Dortmund in January. Being at the AFCON 2017 with host nation Gabon probably puts paid to that concept anyway.

However, one of Europe’s hottest striking properties revealed that he would never follow in the footsteps of Robert Lewandowski when he does eventually leave Signal Iduna Park and go to Bayern Munich. Indeed, the forward might not even join Real Madrid which is the expected route for the 27-year-old forward. “The only thing for sure is that I'm currently with Dortmund and I love it there.

The Bundesliga returns to action on Friday after a long, long winter break with league leaders Bayern Munich facing Freiburg.

5) Tennis top performers on easy street in Melbourne

After quite a lot of drama over the past few days at the Australian Open in tennis, overnight Thursday was considerably calmer with both world number ones in the men’s and women’s bracket passing through to the last 16 stages.

Andy Murray defeated his American opponent, Sam Querry, in straight sets while Angelique Kerber made short shrift of Krystyna Pliskova. The German will face American Coco Vandeweghe, in the next round, who overcame Eugenie Bouchard earlier on Friday.

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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.