Weekend Matches: March 31-April 1

Back to the leagues this weekend, and not a moment too soon. There are some pretty good games on, including a Liverpool-Arsenal match that looks fun (although it doesn’t mean much) on Saturday morning and a fun game with Sevilla on Sunday afternoon. The match of the weekend, however, is probably the Roma v. Milan game, which will be shown on Goltv on Saturday afternoon. It looks like a barnburner, especially compared to some of the awful internationals we’ve had this week.

Saturday

7:30am Liverpool vs Arsenal Setanta USA

10:00am Manchester Utd vs Blackburn Setanta

12:00pm Watford vs Chelsea FSC

4:00pm Roma vs Milan GolTv


Sunday

9:00am Inter Milan vs Parma GolTv

11:00am Atl. Madrid vs Mallorca GolTv

11:00am Tottenham vs Reading FSC

1:00pm Celta vs Real Madrid GolTv

3:00pm Osasuna vs Sevilla GolTv

5:00pm Barcelona vs Dep. La Coruna GolTv

Now the Fun (Hopefully) Begins

This weekend will witness the re-start up of league play in Europe. There are still a lot of interesting storylines left that need to resolve themselves, but one of the most interesting to watch is Manchester United’s quest for the Treble.

Manchester won the treble in 1999, with the Giggs/Beckham/Keane team that went down as one of the best in the club’s history. This year that have a chance to repeat that feat with a club that many predicted would finish second, third, or even fourth in the premiership. Instead, the club has a comfortable cushion at the top of the English league, and are well placed to go to the finals in both the FA cup and the Champions League. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, especially because the Red Devils still have to play Chelsea once more in league play and could very well face them in both cup tournaments as well. Things are further complicated by the recent injury to Christiano Ronaldo, who has been far-and-away United’s best player this season. Alex Ferguson himself has recently gone on record as saying he believes the team will NOT achieve the treble (his comments can be found here: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=417168&cc=5901) because there are simply too many games for the club to play at the end of the season. United fans and also many neutrals hope, however, that Manchester hangs in there and gives us something to watch as the season winds to a close. United haters, on the other hand, (and they are legion) would love to see them drop all three, even if it meant they fell to the equally-hated Chelsea. The fun will begin for all of us this weekend.

Quick Hits

Just some quick thoughts on a dreary Tuesday morning as we await the start of league play once again…

• These internationals are, frankly, killing me. The European and World Cups are great, don’t get me wrong, and some of the qualifying matches can be very interesting. But once again this past weekend we had another break from league play so these tedious international friendlies and qualifiers could be played. Barnburners tomorrow include England v. Andorra, among others. I honestly can’t wait for the leagues in England, Spain, and Italy to get started again.

• Speaking of England, I guess tomorrow’s match truly is a do-or-die game. Especially for Steve McClaren, who will surely be dismissed if the lions draw or lose the match. Obviously everyone expects England to at least beat the Andorrans, but to be honest most people also expected England to score a goal in the last three games. So we shall see. It also doesn’t bode well for “Big Steve” that he’s getting in post-match fights with Wayne Rooney. McClaren should count himself lucky that the Roonster didn’t break out his patented nut-stamp to end the argument, or that he wasn’t fired immediately by an FA intimidated by Rooney’s marketing sway.

• The United States actually played a fairly exciting friendly this weekend, against Ecuador. I saw about half the game with some good friends in a restaurant, and we were impressed by Landon Donavon, especially his two later goals, which included a sweet breakaway and a scorcher from outside the box into the top corner. If Landon has found his stride again it may mean a return to the top of the table for the LA Galaxy. Regardless, the team already knows it will top the table in another important category: shirt sales!

• Speaking of which, the MLS begins in a few short weeks. If you are reading this column from the states, support your local league and go out and buy some tickets. At the very least it will give us something to talk about other than transfers during the summer.

• Finally, there is a nasty rumor surfacing in Italy that striker Luca Toni is set to leave my favorite club, Fiorentina, for those nasty, cheating thugs called Juventus. C’mon, Luca! Think about Fierenze! The art! The food! The history! The Dome! And Fiorentina; pay the man the money he deserves; he is the player that has brought you out of relegation to challenge for Europe even with the points deduction. Don’t break my heart like this.

Internationals

This weekend continues the long road of international teams in Europe trying to qualify for Euro 2008. (The European Cup can be thought of as like the World Cup, only it involves nations solely from Europe.) While there are actually a number of interesting matches this weekend and early next week, many eyes in America will be firmly on England.

First, the England U21s (the national team of players under the age of 21) will be playing Italy. This in and of itself means it will be a fairly interesting match, but more importantly, the game will be the first competitive match played at the new Wembly stadium in London, which has finally opened after many delays. Many people like to refer to Wemby as the “home of football,” and no one can doubt that many great and historic matches have been played there. It’ll be good to have a Wembly open again; incidentally, the February 2007 issue of Fourfourtwo has a nice spread on the stadium. It does seem like a great place to watch a game.

The full English Internationals, meanwhile, will be playing a qualifier against Israel (who are not a bad team at all). Many observers feel that if England lose (or even draw) in this match they may very well not qualify for Euro 2008. If England does lose (and especially if they also lose their match next week against Croatia) it looks as if head coach Steve McClaren will be cut loose. This match could hardly have more controversy and interest, then, although it actually could have if David Beckham wasn’t injured. Beckham’s recent stellar play for Real Madrid (before the injury) had led some to call for Beckham to be placed again on the England squad. Beckham’s bad wheels are probably a relief to an under-fire Steve McClaren, but he still needs some wins if he is to save his job and reputation.

One to Watch: Robinho

One of my favorite clubs, Real Madrid, played and won a game this weekend, 2-0 against bottom-feeders Gimnastic. Aside from the sheer rarity of Real actually winning a game, (their first in the last four matches) the game was otherwise a rather standard Real Madrid affair: lackluster defense, disinterested stars, and blown scoring chances. Raul, Cassano, Cannavaro and the rest all seemed completely indifferent to what happened on the field.

Real Madrid won the game because at the start of the second half coach Fabio Capello replaced the overweight and deadweight Antonio Cassano with the Brazilian spark-plug Robinho. Robinho immediately scored a sweet goal off a rebound, hit a laser off the post, was the direct cause of his opponents conceding an own goal, and hit two other fine shots that needed to be saved by the keeper. In other words, he turned the game around, effectively being the only decent player on the field for Madrid.

Robinho has long been an intriguing player. He was born in São Vicente in 1984 and was playing with Brazilian superclub Santos by the time he was seventeen. The kidnapping of his mother (an all-to-common experience in Brazil) hastened his exit from South America, and thus before the 2005 season he signed with Real.

Robinho has not been without his critics at Real. Some say he is to long on the ball, and too prone to trickery, while others say he dives. His defense is questionable at times and he does seem to drift in and out of games.

Still, Robinho must be considered one of the best young players in the world. There is, perhaps, no one better on the ball in the world save Christiano Ronaldo. He constantly attacks the goal, is a good passer, and isn’t afraid of a long-range shot. He is also improving: his passing is better than last year and commentators have noted that he seems to have cut out the diving.

Robinho is a young man to build a team around, but Fabio Capello disagrees. (Note that Robinho didn’t start this weekend.) The young player has made noise that he wishes to be transferred if he does not start getting more playing time, but we will have to see what occurs since Capello himself will likely be gone at the end of the season. In the meantime, Arsenal, Spurs, and a host of other big clubs have been liked to the young man. It will be interesting to see how he, and the situation, develops.

Weekend Matches March 17-18

Even as the United States is distracted by their obsession with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament (including me), football goes on. This weekend has a nice set of games, including the Aston Villa v. Liverpool match on Sunday, which should be a good one. The best game of the weekend, however, will surely be Roma at Fiorentina, which may go a long way towards deciding who will get that coveted fourth Champions spot in Italy. Of course, we can’t watch that game here in the States unless we have the Italian station RAI. Thanks to all the dolts at GolTV. Our love/hate relationship just grew a little worse….

Saturday

8:30am Manchester United vs Bolton Setanta

10:45am Chelsea vs Sheffield United Setanta

3:00pm Recreativo vs Barcelona GolTv



Sunday

9:30am Aston Villa vs Liverpool Setanta

12:00pm Zaragoza vs Atl. Madrid GolTv

2:00pm Milan vs Atalanta GolTv

3:00pm Boca Juniors vs Gimnasia FSE

4:00pm Sevilla vs Celta GolTv

Links

Here are a few football-related columns to get you through a dreary hump-day. All of the columns are courtesy of ESPN.com, which is not the best place to go for breaking soccer news, but does employ very fine columnists.

Start with Phil Ball’s excellent article on this past weekend’s ‘superclassico’ between Real Madrid and Barca, which was a fantastic game.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=414076&root=europe&cc=5901

Then try Jon Carter’s look at the respective chances of Chelsea and man United to win the Treble. Sensible and even-handed.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=414265&root=england&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1&cc=5901

Finally, check out Phil Holland on the less-than-estimable Frank Lampard. I’m not real crazy about Frank, but Holland is right: he should get paid while he can.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=414460&root=england&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1&cc=5901

Back with more tomorrow. Also, thanks to the reader who wrote in suggesting other good soccer shops in the U.S.. Later this year I will post a follow-up column on the best brick-and-mortar soccer stores in America.