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What To Watch This Weekend, Interlull Edition (Part 1 of n)

October 7, 2011 — by Suman

altintop_oezil.jpg

Another interlull upon us–no club matches, as the top players are jetting around to join their national sides. There’s a full and relatively interesting slate of Euro2012 qualifiers, given the that qualifying group stage finally wraps up on Tuesday: 20 fixtures today, out of which we’ve picked 5 to keep an eye on, and then 22 more on Tuesday.

We start with five Euro qualifiers plus one friendly; we’ll be back over the course of next few days with picks for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (hence the “Part 1 of n”, where n is somewhere between 1 and 4).

In fact, all five of the matches we’ve chosen are between the top two teams in their respective group tables–which is what’s important of qualification.  The 9 group winners qualify directly for the tournament in Poland & Ukraine next summer, as well as the runner-up with the best record. The other 8 group runners-up get paired for a 2-legged playoff round, yielding 4 more qualifiers. Add to that the hosts, and we’ll finally have our 16 team field for Euro2012 set by the end of November.

The five matches to watch today, which have some interesting group dynamics, as you can infer from the top of the current group tables:

Turkey vs Germany 2:30pmET foxsoccer.tv: The top of Group A looks like this: Germany way ahead (perfect 8-0 record so far for 24 points), Turkey in 2nd (14 pts), Belgium close behind (12 pts).  And Belgium is playing cellar dwellers Kazakhstan at home in Brussels–so basically Turkey needs to knock off the big dogs of Deutscheland.

Mesut Özil & Hamit Altıntop

A potentially interesting set of matchup in midfield, as Hamit Altıntop will have to deal play against his Real Madrid teammates Sami Khedira and Mesut Ozil.  This matchup of course always puts extra focus on Ozil, given that he’s a rising superstar who born in (West) Germany but is of Turkish descent (3rd-generation Turkish-German, in fact–which points the long but complicated socioeconomic relations between these two nations).

Czech Republic vs Spain 2:45pmET ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com: Exact same dynamic in Group I–Spain is perfect (18 points), Czech Republic in 2nd (10 pts) but only 2 points ahead of 3rd place Scotland (8 pts)–with the latter playing minnows (Lichtenstein in this case)

Serbia vs Italy 2:45pmET ESPN3.com, foxsoccer.tv (tape at 7 p.m. on ESPN Deportes): Similarly in Group C–Italy close to perfect (22 points), but Serbia (14 pts) trying to hold off Estonia (13 pts)

Greece vs Croatia 2:45pmET ESPN3.com (tape at 9:30 a.m. Saturday on ESPN Deportes): A bit different in Group F, where it looks like these two teams will finish in the top 2–but it’s not clear in what order. Current standings: Croatia (19 points), Greece (18 points), Israel (13 points).

Montenegro vs England 3pmET ESPN3.com: England need just a point to clinch the top spot in group, while Montenegro needs to make sure they don’t allow Switzerland to catch them for 2nd place (England 17 pts; Montenegro 11 pts; Switzerland 8 pts)

For all the other group standings and fixtures, head over to UEFA’s Euro2012 site.

And finally, here’s one friendly to watch:

Costa Rica vs Brazil 10pmET ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com: CONCACAF’s Costa Rica hosts the Seleção.

Commentary

What To Watch This Weekend (Sept 24-25)

September 23, 2011 — by Suman

Relatively slim picking this weekend for must-see matches.  Here are a few quick picks for Saturday:

Saturday, Sept 24

Spain, Sevilla-Valencia 12pmET (GolTV): Valencia is atop La Liga, undefeated after drawing Barcelona at home mid-week, in an exciting game they very well could have won (or lost, actually). They’ll have to be careful to avoid a letdown, with another relatively tough fixture, going down south to take on Sevilla.

Germany, Bayern Munich-Leverkusen 12:30pmET (ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): After last season’s turmoil, Bayern Munich are back, riding high in Bundesliga–in fact, there’s already talk about whether anyone will challenge them in the league. Leverkeusen is one of the few sides that might.

Netherlands, Ajax-Twente 2:45 p.m. ESPN3.com: We choose another Eredivisie Ajax match, this weekend against another of the sides that could challenge for the Dutch title.

Spain, Barcelona-Atletico Madrid 4 p.m. ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com: Barcelona have been shaky in the back, and new addition Falcao has been fantastic up front for Atletico.

 

 

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What to Watch This Weekend, Part 2: Sunday Sept 18

September 18, 2011 — by Suman

Belatedly posting our guide to today’s matches to watch. In fact, the first match is already in progress–it’s 1-1 at halftime in Eindhoven, where PSV is hosting Ajax:

Sunday, Sept 18

Netherlands, PSV-Ajax 6:30aET (ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): We said it last year, and we’ll say it again: if you’re only going to watch one Eredivisie match all year, might as well be this one.  A surprising fact that kicks off the excellent The Swiss Ramble’s (“Usually writes about the business of football”) excellent essay about Ajax (“Why Ajax are no longer Dutch masters”): “Ajax’s star has been on the wane for many years. The cold, hard facts are that they have only won the Eredivisie twice in the last 12 years, the most recent occasion being way back in the 2003/04 season, while PSV Eindhoven have won the league seven times in the same period.”

England, Spurs-Liverpool 8:30aET (Fox Soccer Plus, foxsoccer.tv):

England, Manchester United-Chelsea 11aET (Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes; tape at 5 on Fox main network): The big one in England this weekend. Read our Spurs man on this match, on his recently-launched Political Footballs blog.

Germany, Schalke-Bayern Munich 11:30amET (GolTV)

Italy, Napoli-AC Milan 2:30pmET (Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes, ESPN3.com)

France, Lyon-Marseille 3pmET (Fox Soccer Plus, foxsoccer.tv)

PreviewSchedule

What to Watch This Weekend, Part 1: Saturday Sept 17

September 17, 2011 — by Suman

 

Subscribing as we do the just-in-time philosophy, here’s your weekend TV guide for today’s matches, with the first one kicking off in 15 minutes at Ewood Park.  Check back tomorrow morning for Sunday’s picks.

(As usual, we’ve included US TV coverage, and listed kickoff times in terms of ET.  If you live elsewhere, do the timezone math, and check your local listings–or rather check livesoccertv.com.)

Saturday, Sept 17

England, Blackburn-Arsenal 7:30aET (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): Venky’s boys host the Gunners.  Arsene’s revamped squad is still a work in progress, but at least they’ve produced a Premier League win and a Champions League draw (on the continent against a good team, no less).  They should really beat Blackburn, given that the Rovers are sitting dead last in the table, with only a single point from 4 games. But we’ll see..

Spain, Gijon-Valencia 12pET (DirecTV 477): We like Gijón, because it’s the hometown club of un amigo (y un periodista…y un buen jugador).  Plus we like Manolo Preciado (and his moustache).  But we also like Valencia, and would like to see them do more than just finish 3rd in the league again this year.  We think they could make some noise in the Champions League, even though they only managed a draw against Genk this week. There’s no reason they shouldn’t advance out of their group (along with Chelsea, most likely–so they will need to beat Bayer Leverkeusen).

We're bullish on Barça to run past Osasuna in Pamplona today

Spain, Barcelona-Osasuna 2pET (ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): Barcelona are coming off two consecutive disappointing draws–against Real Sociedad last weekend and then against AC Milan mid-week.  In both cases they were leading before defensive lapses allowed the opponent to draw level–indicating that Guardiola’s squad may indeed have a weakness, with a lack of depth in defense. In addition, both Alexis Sanchez and Andres Iniesta are out for a number of weeks due to injuries, so all of a sudden the midfield is looking a little thin too.  On the bright side, that means we’ll see more of Cesc, Thiago, and Ibrahim Affelay–and perhaps even a more competitive La Liga race (though probably not the latter).  Today they travel to Estadio Reyno de Navarra (formerly El Sadar) in Pamplona to take on Club Atlético Osasuna.  Again, like with Arsenal, it should be a match that the big club should win–as recently as three years ago Sid Lowe described them as ” the worst top-flight side in the whole of Europe.” [*]

Italy, Inter Milan-Roma 2:30pET (Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes, ESPN3.com): An important match for both clubs, which are both struggling mightily in the early going.  Inter has opened the season with 3 stinging defeats: in the Italian Super Cup to rivals AC Milan, in their Serie A opener to Palermo (a stunningly entertaining match), and in their Champions League match on Wednesday, shockingly,  at home to Turkish Champions League fill-in Trabzonspor.  But we’ll be rooting for la magica Roma, out of loyalty to nostro amico Romano.  Plus we’re rooting for Barcelona imports Luis Enrique and Bojan Krkic to do well in Serie A.

Commentary

Champions League Matchday 1: Yesterday’s Results, Today’s Fixtures

September 14, 2011 — by Suman

The 2011-2012 Champions League Group Stage is underway, with Matchday 1 halfway done.  Eight matches in the books yesterday, eight more matches coming up later today.

See below for yesterday’s results–the most surprising that Barcelona and Milan drew in the Camp Nou; below that are today’s fixtures with our preview notes (including a preview of Benfica-ManU sent in Jon Novy):

 

Tues 13 September 2011 – Results

Group E: Chelsea 2 – 0 Leverkusen; Genk 0 – 0 Valencia

Group F: Olympiacos 0 – 1 Marseille; Dortmund 1 – 1 Arsenal

Group G: Porto 2 – 1 Shakhtar Donetsk; APOEL 2 – 1 Zenit

Group H: Barcelona 2 – 2 Milan; Plzeň 1 – 1 BATE


Wed 14 September 2011 – Fixtures & Notes


Group A: This is the proverbial Group of Death.  Every match will be up for grabs, and it’s conceivable that any two of these teams could advance.

Man. City-Napoli (Stadium: City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester): See our discussion of Napoli’s squad here. The Neapolitans hope to challenge in Serie A as well as make some noise in the Champions League, but they’ll be hard pressed to beat Man City on their home turf–especially given the way City has opened the Premier League season.  Edin Dzeko, Kun Aguero, David Silva, Samir Nasri make for quite a multinational strikeforce that has been imported to Manchester.  See the chalkboard analysis of Man City’s passing this past weekend that Michael Cox (aka Mr Zonal Marking) created and analyzed for the Guardian.

Villarreal-Bayern Munich (Stadium: Estadio El Madrigal, Villarreal): We do rather like el submarino amarillo; see our analysis of their squad here.  They’ll be looking to get a win at home against the Bavarian giants–they’ll need to pick up maximum points at El Madrigal in order to advance out of this group.

 

Group B:

Lille-CSKA Moskva (Stadium: Lille Métropole, Lille): Lille are the defending Ligue 1 champs–see this quick post we put up about them last spring.  They recently brought in Joe Cole from Liverpool (it’s not often an English player goes to the continent, is it), but the player to watch is still young Belgian Edan Hazard.

Internazionale-Trabzonspor (Stadium: Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, Milan): Trabzonspor was a late addition to the tournament, given that fellow Turkish club Fenerbahçe was disqualified for match fixing.  Inter haven’t been impressive–they seem like a club in decline, ever since their treble triumph in the spring of 2010 under Mourinho (Champions League, Serie A, Coppa Italia).  Last season they stunningly lost to Schalke in the Champions League and couldn’t catch crosstown rivals AC Milan in Serie A.  Then over the summer they lost striker Samuel Eto’o to a big-money move to Dagestani club Anzhi (that’s a Jonathan Wilson column you must read). Most recently, they lost their Serie A opener to Palermo in a highly entertaining match.  Given all that, it will still be surprising if they can’t beat the Turks at home.  Here is Trabzonspor’s current squad–let us know if you recognize any names, because we don’t.

 

Group C:

Basel-Oţelul Galaţi (Stadium: St. Jakob-Park, Basel): We’re not sure what to make of this match, and we doubt anyone outside of Basel or Galați will be watching, or expect either of these two teams to advance out of the group, given the other group members.

Benfica-Man. United (Stadium: Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, Lisbon): Read longtime ManU observer/supporter Jon Novy’s comments on this matchup:

CommentaryPreview

Barcelona-Milan: A Matchup of European Giants on Matchday 1

September 13, 2011 — by Suman

There aren’t many bigger clubs than Barcelona and AC Milan, so it’s quite a pleasant surprise to have them meeting on Matchday 1. Unless there are some serious surprises over the next couple months, they should finish 1-2 in their group–it’s hard to imagine either of slipping behind Zenit St. Petersburg or Cyprusians APOEL FC (see our run through today’s fixtures for a full account of what APOEL is an acronym for)–so their two matches should be crucial, determining who finishes atop the group and gets the better seed going into the knockout stage (which doesn’t start until five months from now, in Februrary).

Frankly, though, it will be a quite a surprise if Milan finish with more points than Barcelona.  The latter are, of course, as you’ve likely been hearing ad nauseum, one of the greatest club sides in the history of the game: two Champions League titles in the past three years, plus La Liga champions in each of those three years.  All achieved with not only an incredible collection of talent–led of course by Lionel Messie–but with a tactical style that could very well be the next evolutionary step in the game.

(We’ll post more about that latter idea in the near future; for now, read Goal.com’s Peter Staunton‘s column titled “With the signing of Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas, Barcelona could begin the next great tactical revolution” (“Pep Guardiola has become adept at using midfielders ‘out of position’ at centre-back. But what if that was the plan all along?”).)

On the other side, Milan have the history. They are seven-time winners of Champions League (1962–63, 1968–69, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1993–94, 2002–03, 2006–07), second only to Real Madrid (see the list); and eighteen-time winners of the Serie A title (tied with crosstown rivals Inter Milan, behind Juventus’s imposing total of 27; list).

(Indeed, these two sides met in the final of the 1994 Champions League–Milan was managed by Fabio Capello, who had succeeded the legendary Arrigo Sacchi at Milan, while Barcelona was managed by none other than Johan Cryuff.  The latter were favored, but Milan destroyed them 4-0.  See here for video highlights of that match.)

But although the current Milan side was top of the table in Serie from start to finish last season, they don’t feel particularly imposing.  In the Champions League last spring, they were knocked out of the Round of 16 by Spurs, who were subsequently exposed by Real Madrid (and in the Premier League) as not an especially strong side themselves.  They’ve got a big name multinational strikeforce–Pato, Inzaghi, Ibrahimovic, Cassano, Robinho–but they don’t come across as big game players (aside from perhaps the aging Inzaghi).  Ibrahimovic is out for today’s match due to injury, so it will likely be Pato and Cassano partnering up front.

Behind them, are they still going to rely on Clarence Seedorf to give them some presence in the midfield? Probably not–against Lazio in Milan’s Serie A season opener against Lazio, they played Ghanaian Kevin-Prince Boateng in an attacking midfield role, ahead of Alberto Acquilani (recently returned to Italy on loan from Liverpool) and hard man Rino Gattuso.

It will be interesting to see if those three can manage to contain Barcelona’s midfield.  Somehow we think it unlikely, given that no one else has managed to over the past few years.  Xavi, Iniesta, new arrival Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Busquets pushing forward from his holding role, Lionel Messi dropping deep from his center forward position, Dani Alves and Adriano flying up the wings..there’s a lot there to deal with in the middle third of the pitch.

CommentaryPreviewSchedule

Our Quick Champions League Preview: Group Stage Matchday 1

September 13, 2011 — by Suman — 1

Balls Out for the UEFA Champions League

An exciting day–it’s the start of the UEFA Champions League group stage! Matchday 1 consists of eight matches today and eight tomorrow, with all 32 teams in action.  Four of the eight groups play their matches today (Groups E, F, G, H), with the other four in action tomorrow.  As usual, all the matches kickoff at 20:45CET (= 2:45pmET for those of us in the US; as the saying goes, check your local listings for TV info).

The big one to watch today is defending champion Barcelona hosting Italian Serie A champions AC Milan.  But let’s take a quick look at all of today’s fixtures:

Tues 13 September 2011

Group E:

Chelsea-Leverkusen (Stadium: Stamford Bridge, London): The Blues should win at home, despite not being quite settled: seems like they’re still adjusting to new manager Andre Villas-Boas, the Fernando Torres situation is still unclear, especially after AVB sat him for the entire match over the weekend; and it’s same old guys at the core of the squad (Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ashley Cole).  Indeed, a bit of controversy erupted this week when Torres said as much in an interview to a Spanish newspaper–that Chelsea needed to bring in Juan Mata because the midfield was too slow.  And indeed, newly arrived Juan Mata, as well as back-from–loan Daniel Sturridge, give the Blues a new look and some more creative play, making them somewhat more interesting to watch.  As for Leverkeusen, all eyes will be on Michael Ballack, in his return to Stamford Bridge.

Genk-Valencia (Stadium: KRC Genk Arena, Genk): Speaking of Juan Mata, Valencia looks to regroup after losing their star player at the end of the summer transfer window.  But it’s not as if they’re not used to it–the previous summer they lost the two Davids, Villa and Silva, but still managed to finish third in La Liga yet again. They are indeed the unsung heroes of La Liga. Watch for striker Robert Soldado, who has been on fire in the first couple La Liga matches–a hat-trick against Racing Santander and then the game-winner against Atletico Madrid this past weekend.  Indeed, Soldado is making a case to be included in Vincent del Bosque’s Spain squad (perhaps at the expense of the aforementioned Torres?).  Behind Soldado, look for Argentines Éver Banega and Pablo Piatti (both of whom have been capped playing for La Albiceleste), and Spaniards Pablo Hernandez and Sergio Canales.  Regarding the latter, The Football Ramble writes that a “potentially exciting arrival was former child prodigy Sergio Canales on loan. Canales looked incredibly good when he burst on the scene in early 2010 and starred as Spain U-19s bamboozled England. Then last season he got jammed up in the cogs of Mourinho’s Madrid machine. Still only 20 years old, he’ll probably need to be slowly eased back on track.”

Group F

Olympiacos-Marseille (Stadium: Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus): We have very little to say about this matchup, other than we do rather like OM, after looking at their squad ahead of their Champions League matchup against ManU last spring: “Marseille does have some interesting players to watch in attack: French internationals Loïc Rémy and Mathieu Valbuena, and French-born Ghanaian international André (Dédé) Ayew“–the latter the older of the two sons of Marseille/Ghana legend Abedi Pele Ayew that now play for OM. Read more about Valbuena, Rémy, Ayew, and Abedi Pele in our post from last spring.

Dortmund-Arsenal (Stadium: BVB Stadion Dortmund, Dortmund): Rob Kirby has posted at length about this tough German test for the Gunners, to which we’d links to our coverage of Die Schwarzgelben last season: match reports from Bundesliga contests versus Bayern Munich and Eintract Frankfurt.

Group G:

Porto-Shakhtar Donetsk  (Stadium: Estádio do Dragão, Porto): Porto had a remarkable season last year: domestically, they were Portuguese Invincibles, winning Liga Sagres by going undefeated.  In Europe, they won the Europa League title. But the centre could not hold: over the summer they sold star Colombian striker Falcao to Atlético Madrid, and perhaps more significantly, their special manager Andre Villas-Boas left for the big time.  But his 2nd-in-command stepped into the managerial chair, and they’ve still got Hulk and James Rodriguez in attack, to which they’ve added Kléber, another young Brazilian.

Ukrainians Shakhtar Donetsk also had a successful season–they won their Champions League group last fall, finishing ahead of Arsenal (you can see the video highlights of them beating Arsenal here), and hammered Roma in the Round of 16, before inevitable falling to the tiki-taka onslaught of Barcelona in the quarterfinals.  Indeed, Shakhtar has been displacing Dynamo Kyiv as the club power in Ukraine.  They’ve still got that full complement of Brazilian midfielders and strikers–forming what’s been called Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov‘s Brazilian carnival in far eastern Ukraine.

APOEL-Zenit (Stadium: GSP Stadium, Nicosia): Since you’re probably wondering, APOEL FC is in Cyprus, which is where this match will be played. In fact, Wikipedia informs us that the club name is, in the original Greek, ΑΠΟΕΛ Ποδόσφαιρο; short for Αθλητικός Ποδοσφαιρικός Όμιλος Ελλήνων Λευκωσίας– Athlitikos Podosfairikos Omilos Ellinon Lefkosias – “Athletic Football Club of Greeks of Nicosia”).  Zenit is of course from St. Petersburg.

 

Group H:

Barcelona-Milan (Stadium: Camp Nou, Barcelona (ESP): The biggie.  We’ll be back with a separate preview of this match shortly.  It’s the one we’ll be watching, along with most of the continent and footballing world.

Plzeň-BATE (Stadium: Eden, Prague): Again, just some geographical context. Plzeň is, as you can see, in Prague, while BATE is the Belarusian club FC BATE Borisov (Belarusian: ФК БАТЭ Барысаў, IPA: [baˈtɛ]; Russian: ФК БАТЭ Борисов, FK BATE Borisov.  Meaning that not only Plzeň but also Barcelona and AC Milan will have to travel to the 2nd largest city in Belarus (with a population of <150,00, one-tenth the size of the capital Minsk).

Here are tomorrow’s fixtures–we’ll be back with some preview comments before they kickoff Wednesday: 

PreviewSchedule

What To Watch This Weekend (Sept 10-11): Preparing for Champions League Matchday 1

September 10, 2011 — by Suman

Emma, the star of Borussia Dortmund

There’s a lot of soccer to watch this weekend, especially since there will be a lot to watch come Tuesday and Wednesday: the start of the UEFA Champions League, with group stage Matchday 1, meaning 16 matches spread all over the continent.

Hence, we highlight domestic league games this weekend featuring teams that qualified for the Champions League, so that you can get ready for Matchday 1 (and do some scouting for your fantasy team–join the CultFootball league!):

Germany, Borussia Dortmund-Hertha Berlin 9:30amET (GolTV): Dortmund were the surprise stars of the Bundesliga last season, running away with the title.  They did sell young Turkish-German midfielder Nuri Şahin to Real Madrid, but hung on to 19yo midfielder Mario Götze, despite interest from Bayern Munich and ManU. See our coverage of Die Schwarzgelben in these two match reports from last season.  They’re Champions League opener is an interesting one [Dortmund-Arsenal, Tuesday]

Germany, Bayern Munich-Freiburg 9:30am (ESPN3.com; tape at 3pm on ESPN Deportes): Bayern Munich had a troubled 2010-11 season, as evidenced by famed Dutch manager Louis van Gaal’s sacking in April.  Bayern has much the same squad, though strengthened in goal after they bought Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer [Villareal-Bayern, Wednesday]

 

Three of the four Premier League teams that qualified for the Champions League kick off at 10amET/3pmGMT, with the other right after:

England, Sunderland-Chelsea 10am (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): [Chelsea-Leverkeusen, Tuesday]

England, Arsenal-Swansea City 10am (Fox Soccer): CultFootball’s contributing writer & Arsenal fanatic Rob Kirby will be in attendance at the Emirates! [Dortmund-Arsenal, Tuesday]

England, Manchester City-Wigan 10am (Fox Deportes, foxsoccer.tv; tape at 5 on Fox Soccer): b/c Man City has been lighting it up, and they’ll be trying to keep pace with ManU–in the points and the goal diff’l cols [Man City-Napoli, Wednesday]

England, Bolton-Manchester United 12:30pm (Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes): ManU has been lighting it up even more than City, and prob will against struggling Bolton (still w/o their mf stalwart Stu Holden, who’s still recovering from that nasty knee injury from May).  But then they’ve got an interesting away match next week [Benfica-ManU, Wednesday]

The four Spanish Champions League qualifiers are in all action today as well:

Spain, Villarreal-Sevilla noon GolTV: We enjoyed watching Villareal get past OB in the playoff stage a few weeks ago, and we’re looking forward to seeing them in the Group of Death [Villareal-Bayern, Wednesday].

As we wrote ahead of that match, el submarino amarillo has some players to watch:

strikers Giuseppe “Jersey-born” Rossi and Brazilian Nilmar, and midfielders Cani, Borja Valero, Bruno Soriano and team captain Marcos Senna–the latter three of whom have all earned caps with the Spanish national team–no mean feat given the current generation of Spanish midfielders: Xavi, Iniesta, David Silva, Cesc Fabregas, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Busquets.

What we failed to mention is that Villareal did sell a star midfielder over the summer, another player who has earned caps for Spain: Santi Cazorla, who was snapped up the nouveau riche Malaga.

On the other side of the ball, watch for Sevilla’s striker Álvaro Negredo, another Real Madrid castoff who has forged his way with a lesser club (cf Juan Mata), and is now making a case to start for Spain. His nickname: La fiera de Vallecas (the beast of Vallecas).  Their heart and soul is still aging Malian midfielder Frédéric Kanouté, who has stuck with them since through their decline; see this Sid Lowe column about their draw with Barcelona last March.

Spain, Real Sociedad-Barcelona noon ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com: The Catalan club, which claims to be mes que un club, take on the Basque club ahead of their starting their defense of their Champions League title [Barcelona-Milan, Tuesday]

Spain, Real Madrid-Getafe 1:50 p.m. GolTV: Real Madrid has this the lesser known and even less competitive Madrid derby ahead of their trip to Croatia [Dinamo Zagreb-Real Madrid, Wednesday]

Spain, Valencia-Atletico Madrid 4 p.m. ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com: The Spanish alternative hosts Atletico, then goes to Genk [Genk-Valencia, Tuesday]

The three French qualifiers are also in action this afternoon, though available in the US only via foxsoccer.tv:

France, Saint Etienne-Lille 1pm foxsoccer.tv: They sold Gervinho, but the defending Ligue 1 champs still have Edan Hazard [Lille-CSKA Moscow, Wednesday]

France, Dijon-Lyon 1pm foxsoccer.tv: Lyon has to travel to Amsterdam mid-week… [Ajax-Lyon, Wednesday]

France, Marseille-Rennes 3pm foxsoccer.tv: …while Marseille has to travel to Athens [Olympiacos-Marseille, Tuesday]

 

Italy, Cesena-Napoli 2:30pm. Fox Soccer, ESPN3.com: Napoli is led up front by Uruguayan striker Edson Cavani, and strengthened their midfield by picking up  Gökhan Inler from Udinese, with a dramatic unveiling  [Man City-Napoli, Wednesday]

Sunday

Italy, Palermo-Inter Milan 2:30 p.m. Fox Soccer, Fox Deportes, ESPN3.com: Sunday Night Football in Palermo, then back to the San Siro a few days later [Inter-Trabzonspor, Wednesday]

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