Here’s what’s coming up on Sunday. All times are EST:
English Premier League:
Everton (WDDLW) pays a visit to Bolton Wanderers (DLLWL) in the only EPL match that I’m aware of this weekend featuring at least one American as a starter on each team: midfielder Stuart Holden for Bolton and goalkeeper Tim Howard for Everton. Kickoff is 11:00 a.m. on Fox Soccer Channel.
And although it’s taking place on Monday, the West London Derby featuring Fulham (DWLWD), with Clint Dempsey leading their scoring this season taking on Chelsea (LWWWL) on ESPN2 at 3 p.m. should be worth watching if you happen to be able to see it.
Italian Serie A:
While Fox is carrying three games on Sunday, the prime game to see is third place Inter Milan (WLWWW), whose form has been improving under Brazilian coach Leonardo, travels southwest to Turin to face eighth place Juventus (WDLLW). The game starts at 2:30 on Fox Soccer Channel.
If you’re up early our out really late, you can catch fifth place Palermo (LWLWW) hosting eleventh place Fiorentina (DDLWD) on Fox Soccer Plus at 6:30 a.m. Forza Viola!
Fourth place Lazio (WLWDD) leaves the eternal city for Lombardy to take on eighteenth place Brescia (WLLDW) on Fox Soccer Channel at 9:00 a.m.
German Bundesliga:
Sixteenth place Cologne (LDWLW) hosts fourth place Mainz (WLLWD) on Gol TV at 10:30 a.m.
Spanish Primeira Liga:
The prime game on Sunday in my opinion is sixth place Espanyol (WWWLL), Barcelona’s other team, will host Barcelona’s dreaded rival, second place Real Madrid (WDWLW). Espanyol has lost at home only to FC Barcelona and Villarreal, number and number three, respectively, in the league. Go Periquitos! Kickoff is 12:30 p.m. on Gol TV.
ESPN Deportes is hosting a doubleheader starting at 10:55 with sixteenth place Hercules (WLLLL), the only club to put a “L” in Barcelona’s column this season, hosts thirteenth place Zaragoza (LWWWD), a club with only one win in its first sixteen games, but with four wins in its last six. The second match pits seventeenth place Deportivo La Coruña (LLLDL) , a once great team and league champion in 1999-2000 against third place Villarreal (LWWWL) at 12:55 p.m.
French Ligue 1:
French Ligue 1 fans, you haven’t been ignored. Fox Soccer Plus is carrying first place Lille (DWWWD) against eighth place Toulouse (WLWLW) at 2:55 p.m.
Steeplejack
Thanks for the tip last night about the early game this morning. I’m usually up early on Saturday, but I don’t check for Premier League action until about 9:30 or so, and I would have missed Wayne Rooney’s incredible game-winning shot in the Manchester derby. I was pulling for Man City (I’m a sucker for the underdog), but Man United deserved it after that shot.
Will definitely catch Fulham-Chelsea on Monday. That’s the second day of my weekend, so I’ll be off.
Alison
Haven’t caught any Bolton games for a while, plus Holden’s had some injury stuff, so I’m looking forward to seeing him on the pitch tomorrow. It’ll be tricky though – I want him to score but I want Timmy to do well too! Acck :)
Fucking Newcastle today and their 0-0 draw. Bleh. Need strikers plz!!!
wengler
I’m not an Aston Villa fan, but if you are interested in a team chock full o’ Americans you should catch them sometime. They have no less than four in Friedel, Guzan(on loan), Lichaj, and now Michael Bradley.
JWL
These are the desert days.
No football, no baseball.
It would be great to give a rat’s ass about soccer.
Brandon
@JWL: It’s like the World Cup all over again. If you don’t give a rats ass about soccer, then just don’t post.
As for the matches today, it is a pretty dire Sunday for roundball football lovers. Sky usually tries to get at least one of the “big four” in a Sunday match, so with ManU not playing their Champions League knock-out match until next week, it seems curious that the Manchester derby was played on Saturday. Unless ManCity have a UEFA Cup, oops, I mean Europa League, match midweek (I care so little about that club and that competition that I refuse to even look it up).
I also find it a bit irritating about the Americanization of the Premier League with Monday Night Football becoming a regularly scheduled exercise. The goal of course is to have Premier League football on every day of the week. What they don’t understand of course is that what makes both soccer and American football the most popular is that everything is decided every weekend. Seriously, who can follow the NBA or MLB when there are games all the time? I never have any clue that a game is on, except with the assumption that a game is always on. With soccer and American football, you can always follow what your team is doing and peek in on the competition as well. Then you have a full week of talk, hype, press conferences, tweets, rumors and an anticipation until you do it again next week.
Thlayli
@JWL:
If you’re going to be all exceptionalist, today is Pole Day at Daytona.
(And in the other direction, NBC is showing rugby sevens, of all things.)
JWL
@Brandon: Brundon**: That your moniker ranks among the top 5 names of babies so [unfortunately christened] in 1984/’85/’86 doesn’t mean jack shit.
Soccer is a drag. Ask any real American. Even the other guards at the Smithsonian.
**The fact you weren’t fired after having your security badge lifted by Ben Stiller is inexplicable. Or were you?
Shalimar
@JWL: “Real” American? As opposed to all the fake Americans who don’t agree with you? Way to wear a huge sign that says “I’m an asshole”.
SteveinSC
@Shalimar: Second that. Maybe JWL stands for Joe from Lowell. The attitude fits.
@Alison: Agreed. I’m on the horns of a dilemma: I want to see Holden do well, but I don’t want to see Tim Howard get scored against. Also I have not seen Bradley on the pitch, or Lichaj either. Maybe soon.
Also in other news, did Barcelona actually lose or was it some kind of mind game? I only saw the livesoccer.com blog because I felt sure they would romp, but no. Tie score. Impossible.
Randinho
@JWL: You’re trolling. If you don’t like the sport, kindly stay out of these threads or at least don’t come here and trash it, okay? This will be your sole warning.
@SteveinSC: They didn’t lose thanks to an incredible chip by David Villa against the team he grew up rooting for.
MikeR
Lichaj is currently on loan with Leeds United. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Leeds are near the top of the Championship and challenging for promotion.
Soccernet has a great function for figuring out which games are being played on any given day around the world. Go to “live scores” at the top of the page, and it lists all the days games. You can also go forward and check any day in the future.
burnspbesq
@Brandon:
Not dire at all, if you got up extra early and weren’t too snobbish to watch a lower-division game. QPR and Forest played a crackling one-all draw at Loftus Road. QPR scored first through Tommy Smith, and Forest had Radoslav Majewski rightfully sent off for a horrible two-footed challenge. But Forest equalized on David McGoldrick’s redirection of a sizzling free kick, and managed to hold on for over an hour with ten men. Way to go Reds! QPR remains in first, Forest are in fourth with games in hand on everyone in front of them. They will go back into second if they win the makeup of the snowed-out match at lowly Scunthorpe on Wednesday.
Fox Soccer Plus shows one Championship game every weekend. Next week it’s Forest – Cardiff, early on Saturday morning (6:00 Pacific time, I think).
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Burnsie, check out this song in the thread upstairs.
burnspbesq
@JWL:
Fixed that for ya. You’re welcome.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
Cool stuff. Thanks for the heads-up.
Mike Cotter
Don’t forget Futebol Portuguesa. Liga Zon Sagres has Benfica vs. Guimarães at 1:15 pm EST and Braga vs. Porto at 9:30 pm EST. Both are on RTP TV and times for both are approximate.
LT
Randinho, I don’t follow soccer (although it was the only sport I played in high school; I was a “five-goal” player: if we were five goals up or five goals down, I got to play), but I have a friend/acquaintance in England who was watching that ManU game yesterday when Rooney scored that goal. I watched that video about 50 times. The announcer’s “rooNEEEEY!” and the explosion, absolute explosion, of the fans – one of the best sports moments I’ve ever experienced.
What do you think?
Bill Murray
Lichaj is pretty decent getting forward from right fullback — good pace, decent dribbling and crossing.
Fox, also has foxsoccer.tv which is sort of like espn3.com, but you don’t have to have any specific high speed internet to get it. Well, it may be fox soccer plus (rugby union, French Ligue 1, Champions league, EPL and championship, serie A), but on the internet. You can currently get a free 7-day trial of foxsoccertv
Randinho
@Mike Cotter: I’m a fan of Porto, but I would imagine most people don’t subscribe to RTP. I’m going to focus on the channels that I do get here. For the same reason, I don’t mention the schedules on Rede Globo for the Brazilian games. Too few would have access to them.
@LT: Agreed – and I can’t stand Man U!
Paula
I have to watch Bolton v. Everton on replay …
Sad that MLS priced Landon Donovan out of Everton’s purchasing range. If anything, he could have been a shot in the arm.
BB
The Arsenal vs. Barca match this week will be very interesting. Everyone is predicting a huge Barca blowout, but if Nasri is back and at full speed I think it will be fairly close. Of course, with Vermaelen it would be much better, but Djourou and Koscielny have been better together than I would have thought.