We are a week into the 3rd round of the fortnightly helping hand initiative and the standard of the posts is once again high! When I was thinking about doing my graphic to show how things roughly stand thus far, my initial thought was to use curling with the nearest stone to the house signifying who was in the lead, after all it is now winter in the Northern Hemisphere so it seemed appropriate to use a seasonal sport. However, when I started reading through the posts, it became apparent that we have a very football (soccer) heavy representation this time around so going for a similarly themed graphic seemed the only way to go.

As you can see mr-sarriball and kristydd have both hit rasping shots towards the top corner while kolumbus has cannily sort to sneak his attempt into the bottom corner. All other writers have gained momentum towards the back of the net and there are some fantastic articles for your consideration listed below. Please take some time to give them a read, an upvote and of course leave your thoughts on their work.

I always felt I was a better 5-a-side player than a full 11 on 11 footballer. Unfortunately, I didn't make it into the final 5 of @oxygen02 's dream team, although I still maintain that I'm a better player than John Terry! Check out who else did make it in & share your own opinions on who you'd pick. This post has given me an idea for something to write as a follow-up!

Forget the big European Leagues with their overpaid players this is where football is truly valuable. Read about @lama10 and his team Pulchowk Campus side's victory in the LA Cup. It's a great story and not without incident, supported by some lovely pictures taken by the author himself. Congratulations to Pulchowk Campus!

Another dream team offering, this time with a full 11 players available to choose from. This is @davor27's entry into another writing contest that is currently taking place. Imagine having to face Messi and Maradona in the same team! Think you know better, then leave a comment on the post or better yet enter the contest yourself!

It was a fairly dramatic Ballon D'or ceremony this year to decide the best footballer on the planet. Luka Modric won the award and broke CR7 and Messi's decade-long monopoly on the top prize. Then there was also the twerking drama but in all the hubbub did we forget about young Mbappe who won the Kopa trophy? @kolumbus considers this question

A picture they say says a thousand words and as such, I can only surmise that young Jordan Pickford has just dropped his sandwich in a puddle. Of course, he may also still be upset about his costly last minute error in the Merseyside Derby that lead to Everton losing at Anfield once again. Read @mr-sarriball's entry to Happy Moanday

Number 1 that's a Spurs shirt so @easyboi is definitely worth an upvote! But before we let tribal loyalties get in the way be sure to check out his post about the recent Scorum Nigeria football tournament that was recently organised by several high profile members of the community. Great work guys!

I've been involved in raising awareness of head injuries in sports for some time now so the problems being faced by the NFL are no surprise to me. However, learning that the league is ripping off breast cancer charities was a little disturbing and made me wonder if the NFL is the only organisation involved in such an act? Food for thought provided by @kristyyd

I actually did an analysis of the top tags a couple of months ago and wrote a report (not published on Scorum) that highlighted why I think cricket should replace F1 on the main page. Of course, at that time we were really struggling to get writers to blog about F1 but now we have @roguebot who certainly knows his stuff when it comes to motorsport.