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Europa League Final Preview: The Basque Lions vs The Madrid Mattress Makers

May 9, 2012 — by Suman

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The UEFA Europa League final is upon us. It's an all-Spanish match later today, with Atlético Madrid vs Athletic Bilbao facing off at the National Arena in Bucharest.  It's a late kickoff in Romania: 9:45pm EEST, which corresponds to the usual 2:45pmET/11:45amPT for those of in the US. (Athletic Bilbao's nickname is Los Leones, while Atlético is known as Los Colchoneros--The Mattress Makers.  Hence the headline.) See here for a quick overview of the road these two clubs took the final, and see UEFA.com's match centre here for previews, feature articles, lineups, stats, etc.  From UEFA's match backgrounder: This term Athletic won their home Liga fixture 3-0 in October with the help of two Fernando Llorente goals [a match report here], but a Falcao double consigned them to a 2-1 loss at the Vicente Calderón in March [a match report here]. We previously wrote about Athletic Bilbao initially in November (here), ahead of their

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What to Watch This Weekend, Part 2: Newcastle-Manchester City, Derby della Madonnina

May 6, 2012 — by Suman

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Sunday, May 6 EPL, Newcastle United vs Manchester City (8:30amET, FSC & Fox Deportes): A massive game in the Premier League, both for the title race and Champions League qualification. Following Man City's tense 1-0 victory in last Monday's much-hyped Manchester derby, this match becomes the new title-decider. If City win this one, they'll need only a final day win over Sunderland at home to claim the title (assuming Manchester United win their final two--versus Swansea at Old Trafford later today, and at Sunderland on the final day). But Newcastle will be fighting for a win here as much as City. They're even with Spurs on 65 points, who play Villa today--only 2 points behind Arsenal, who slipped up badly this weekend with a 3-3 draw at home against Norwich. And Newcastle is equally in form, especially January signing Papiss Demba Cissé.  He's the talk of the league after scoring 13 goals in 12

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What to Watch This Weekend, Part 1: FA Cup Final, Atlético Madrid vs Málaga, El derbi barceloní

May 5, 2012 — by Suman — 2

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A few picks for today, Saturday May 5: FA Cup Final: Liverpool vs Chelsea (12:15pmET, FSC & Fox Deportes): Two teams that have been underwhelming in the league but surprisingly successful in cup competitions.  Liverpool has already won the League Cup, while this is the 1st of two cup finals Chelsea will be competing for this month. As outlined in this Telegraph column, these two clubs developed a heated rivalry over the past decade, playing in each other a remarkable 39 number times in the aughts: One club was a product of its time, the other traversing a long road of redemption towards former glories. Chelsea had Abramovich's millions and the charismatic and calculating Jose Mourinho. Liverpool the tactical nous and organisational skills of Rafael Benitez that had been missing under the admittedly exciting stewardships of Gerard Houllier and Roy Evans. Liverpool had capital-h History. Chelsea were rich upstarts. The pair were never

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Match Preview: Stoke vs. Arsenal

April 27, 2012 — by Rob Kirby

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Stoke away has time and again proven the undoing of Arsenal, with the Gunners having returned from the Britannia Stadium with nary a point to show for their efforts on three of the past four visits. Add to that the troubling statistic that Arsenal has not won a league game in which currently injured midfield stalwart Mikel Arteta has not played and this match is far from a gimme. All that said, let’s hypothesize that Arsenal can pull it out. Arsenal needs to leave the northern lands with a point or more, and players and fans alike really, really want the team to take all three on Saturday to maintain third in the league. (For U.S. viewers, the match airs on ESPN2 at 10am EST.) So, Arteta’s out for the final three games, but Tomas Rosicky has bounced back from illness and will likely partner the unfairly criticized Aaron Ramsey

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Three Is the Magic Number (The Arsenal Represent, Represent Remix)

April 26, 2012 — by Rob Kirby — 2

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Three matches remain, and in light of Chelsea’s spot in the Champions League final, third place has now become crucial for ensuring a spot for Arsenal in next year’s competition. If the Blues win the European Cup, third will no longer guarantee an automatic group stage spot, but if the qualifying round is what’s available, we need to grab the opportunity with both hands. Considering the season the team have had, it's still a tremendous achievement. Newcastle’s breathing down Arsenal’s neck in a run of supremely good form, a rejuvenated Chelsea still has an outside chance of getting into the top 4 on league merits (imagine that) and though Tottenham has been tailspinning out of control, they are more than capable of righting that ship/plane and ending strong. If Arsenal should fail in the pursuit of third but still get fourth, the wait between the league finale on May 13

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What To Watch This Weekend (April 14-15)

April 13, 2012 — by Suman

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Frankly none of Saturday's games are all that compelling, but if you must: FA Cup Semifinal, Liverpool vs Everton (7:30amET; FSC & Fox Deportes): A Merseyside derby at Wembley. Liverpool have been in rotten form, in the league at least, winning just 2 out of their past 10 league fixtures, sinking to 8th in the table. Meanwhile, Everton has been experiencing their typical late-season resurgence--three wins and a draw in their past 4 league matches have actually put them one point above their rivals in the standings. There has much been written about the 10-year anniversary of David Moyes's tenure at Everton--during which he's generally been praised for guiding Everton to respectable finishes in the league, but which is conspicuously free of trophies. This FA Cup seems like a chance to finally remedy that. Bundesliga, Schalke 04 vs Borussia Dortmund (9:30amET; GolTV): The Ruhr derby--or, in the German, the Revierderby--is the biggest rivalry in

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What To Watch Today: Four Matches Across the Continent

April 11, 2012 — by Suman

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A busy week across the continent, including five more matches in the English Premier League.  But none of those look particularly compelling to us, while there are four compelling and consequential matches elsewhere featuring teams at or near the top of their domestic tables--highlighted a huge match in Germany and a derby in Madrid.  Here they are in order of importance, according to our subjective estimation and interest--given that it's this member of CF's birthday today, I've humbly requested the good guys at Woodwork to tune of their TVs to GolTV so that we can watch the first two matches in the German-Spanish doubleheader.  Join us if you're in the neighborhood: Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern München (2pmET, GolTV): #1 vs #2 in the Bundesliga--the biggest match of the day, and the biggest match of the season in Germany. Bayern has closed the gap between them and Dortmund to 3 points over

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EnglandPreviewSchedule

What to Watch on This Monday: A London Derby & The Lisbon Derby

April 9, 2012 — by Suman

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It's the post-Easter bank holiday in England, so there's a full slate of Premier League games today.  But we choose just the late game in London, and from further south on the Continent another derby from another great European footballing capital.  Both featuring Champions League sides (the London one having beat the Lisbon one just recently, in fact) against local rivals that are a bit further down in the table: Fulham vs Chelsea (3pmET; ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com): Fulham, in their usual mid-table inconsistency (#11), host local rivals Chelsea (#6). Story at Fulham has been American Clint Dempsey, who by all accounts is having the best season of any American soccer player ever. But as we've said before, Fulham is more than the Deuce--we like Costa Rican playmaker Bryan Ruiz as well as young Belgian Moussa Dembele.  For Chelsea, the storyline of the season has twisted close to 180˚ (π radians, if

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