After a month’s hiatus (due primarily to an extended internet-free trip to India–see below), we’re back with a TV guide to the weekend. As usual, we provide US TV listings with ET kickoffs, since that’s where we reside. For our non-US readers, we’ve included a link to livesoccertv.com for each match.
Check back in over the course of the weekend, as we’ll post our Saturday and Sunday selections. But since our first selection kicks off in less than an hour, we’re posting now:
Friday, Jan 20
Germany, Borussia Moenchengladbach-Bayern Munich (2:30pmET GolTV): A good matchup in the Bundesliga’s Friday Night Lights offering. They’re just returning to action this weekend in Germany, after the longest holiday break in Europe. In fact, Bayern Munich took a little training trip to Asia earlier this month–some training and a friendly match in Doha, followed by a friendly in India–and they happened to land in Delhi while we were there. We’ll write that up in a separate post. For now, we’ll note that Munich is back to full strength–Bastian Schweinsteiger returned to the lineup in their friendly against the Indian national team, with Heynckes playing his top XI against the Indians (with the sole exception of Ribery, who came on in the 2nd half): Neuer, Boateng, Badstuber, Lahm, Kroos, Robben, Tymoshchuk, Schweinsteiger, Rafinha, Gomez, Muller.
On the other side, the only Moenchengladbach player we’ve heard of is Marco “Rolls” Reus–read this column by Guardian Bundesliga correspondent Raphael Honigstein: ‘Rolls Reus’ is the latest star off Germany’s production line. He’s definitely a player to watch. Since the fall all Bundesliga-watchers were well-aware it would be difficult to for Moenchengladbach to hang on to him. Wrote Honigstein back in October: “Reus, or ‘Rolls Reus’ as Bild has started calling him, was being genuinely targeted in the spring by Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Arsenal and Manchester United.” And in doing our pregame research for this match, we just learned he will move to the other Borussia this summer, after having spurned Bayern.
Actually we also just came across mention of another Moenchengladbach player to watch: Brazilian defender Dante, who was just praised by Bayern’s Heynckes. Uh oh..
