World Football Postulant

I have not updated the site with my picks for a while. I’ve gotten so busy that I’ve been writing them in my notebook. Here are two weeks of catch-up and then this weekend’s picks.

Match to look forward to: Atletico Madrid hosting Sevilla. The Atleti were dominant last week but step up the competition a bit in hosting Sevilla. It will be a good test of whether they can string together good performances. Should they be able to do so, they will show a quality needed from a team that’s going to challenge for the league title.

Note: I did not make any mid-week picks. I just plain screwed up.

September 13
Match
Barcelona 1-1 Racing Santander (pick: Barcelona, 2-1)
Valladolid 2-1 Atletico Madrid (pick: Atletico, 2-0)
Sevilla 4-3 Sporting de Gijon (pick: Sevilla, 3-1)
September 14
Villareal 1-0 Deportivo (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Mallorca 1-1 Osasuna (pick: Mallorca, 2-1)
Getafe 0-0 Real Betis (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Recreativo 0-1 Espanyol (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Malaga 0-0 Bilbao (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Real Madrid 4-3 Numania (pick: Real Madrid, 4-0)
Almeria 2-2 Valencia (pick: Draw, 2-2)

Results: 5 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses
Cummulative: 8 wins, 4 draws, 7 losses

September 20
Atletico 4-0 Recreativo (pick: Atletico, 3-1)
Espanyol 1-1 Getafe (pick: Espanyol, 2-0)
September 21
Valencia 1-0 Osasuna (pick: Valencia, 3-2)
Real Betis 0-0 Sevilla (pick: Sevilla, 2-1)
Almeria 1-0 Malaga (pick: Almeria, 2-0)
Bilboa 2-0 Valladolid (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Numancia 1-2 Villareal (pick: Villareal, 2-1)
Deportivo 0-0 Mallorca (pick: Deportivo, 2-1)
Racing 0-2 Real Madrid (pick: Draw, 2-2)
Sporting de Gijon 1-6 Barcelona (pick: Barcelona 3-0)

Results: 5 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses
Cummulative: 13 wins, 6 draws, 10 losses

September 27 - Picks
Real Betis 1-3 Real Madrid
Sporting de Gijon 1-3 Villareal
Espanyol 2-2 Barcelona
Racing Santander 2-1 Mallorca
Almeria 2-0 Recreativo Huelva
Malaga 1-2 Valladolid
Atheltico Bilbao 2-1 Getafe
Numancia 1-0 Osasuna
Valencia 3-2 Deportivo
Atletico Madrid 2-1 Sevilla

Wesley Sneijder is on the brink of making a miraculous comeback to Real Madrid’s lineup.
Photo from Goal.com

One day after it was reported that Dutch international winger Wesley Sneijder had resumed training with the first team, Real Madrid has said their star is set to return.  When he does enter a match, Sneijder will complete a miraculous comeback that saw initial injury estimates of a six month layoff turn into six weeks of downtime.

We go back to the Emirates in preseason, when an errant Abu Diaby tackle in the Emirates Cup had Sneijder laid out on the pitch.  Just a month after staring in the Euros, the promise of the Dutch international’s ascendency into football superstardom seemed buckled under a wrecked knee.

Reports after the match were gloomy.  Berdt Schuster said that the winger was in a lot of pain and crying.  Ramon Calderon impetuously speculated Sneijder would be out three months.  There was the general feeling that Sneijder had torn ligaments and would be out until late in the season.  Within days, Real Madrid had bought Rafeal van der Vaart from Hamburg (something they would have done, regardless).

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This is not the way Pep Guardiola wants to start for Barcelona.

Barça, who rightfully expect to get the league title back this season, went to newly promoted CD Numancia for what everybody expected to be a smooth opening to the league campaign.  But I suppose we all needed to be reminded that there are very few easy trips in La Liga.  Of the three big European leagues, La Liga had the most quality at the bottom of the table last season, and if CD Numancia showed what we can expect from the promoted side, that statement will remain true this season.

Numancia came away from their return engagement in La Liga with a 1-0 win over one of the league’s two titans.

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I just finished posting my Week 3 review article to American Soccer Reader. Here is a direct link.  I name Player of the Week, Manager of the Week, XI of the Week, talk briefly about how the teams lay giong into the international match break, and rank the tops one through twenty.

Now, I am going to spend some time updating ASR for all the big Premiership news.  There are three main pieces which stick out (off the top of my head):  Dubai, Robinho, Berbatov.  I’m sure I’ll find other news, too.

Many may not look at Real Madrid visiting Deportivo de la Coruña as a marque match-up, but when you predict the two-time defending champions to drop to third place, any opening match is big one.  That’s why I will be looking intently at their match-up, though there are a couple of other more evenly matched fixtures which should draw attention.

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One of the more exciting days of the European club football season is the day the Champions League group stage is drawn.

The 32 teams that have qualified for the group stage are drawn into eight, four-team groups.  Before that happens, all teams are broken into four pots, labeled A through D, where they are grouped according to a team’s strength (as determined by a formula called a coefficient).  Each of the eight groups can have no more than one team from each pot, no more than one team from a country.  The eight groups end up pretty even.

The draw is fun because you end up with a series of matches which, in addition to being high profile based on the quality of the teams involved, are rare.  In the days before the draw, you start considering the possibilities and potential story lines:  Chelsea and Fiorentina in a group, forcing Adrian Mutu to play the club he owes £14 million; Marseille being slotted with Arsenal months after having sold them Samir Nasri, and potentially getting Bayern Munich in the group, so they would have to face Franck Ribery; Barcelona being slotted with a Zenit St. Petersburg team whose star, Andrei Arshavin, so badly wanted to play at Camp Nou; FC Porto being grouped with Inter Milan and facing Jose Mourinho.

Here’s how the eight groups ended up being drawn, with the clubs listed in order of the group they were drawn from:  A to D.  Continue Reading »

Contracts may not mean much in the footballing world, but the signing of them can send messages. When David Villa signed his contract with Valencia today, a deal with runs through 2014, the message was clear. Villa will not be moving before September 1.

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A series of interesting notes from Saturday’s papers, but nothing to dissuade me from the notion that Robinho will be in London early this week and will be confirmed a Blue shortly there after.  There are, however, plenty of reports that would undermine that conclusion.

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In the last day Robinho has gone public with his wish to move away from Real Madrid, explicitly citing Chelsea as his desired destination.  Real Madrid, on the club’s web site, announced their intention to honor the request, taking a swipe at Manchester United in by saying they would never hold a player against his wishes.  And though it would seem the story has little to do with Cristiano Ronaldo, the loss of Robinho will undoubtedly have an effect on Madrid’s continued desire to lure the Portuguese star.  But first, Robinho.

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Yet another rumor surrounding Fluminense attacker Thiago Neves, though there is another suitor mentioned in this one.  This time, it is Manchester City, a team who is still looking for that marquee name after being used by Ronaldinho early this summer.  Neves, who just finished his Olympics commitment to Brazil, would fill that role, even if expectations of him are a bit high at this point.  Atlético Madrid has also been strongly mentioned in some reports, but Neves’s representation is speaking openly about a City move, something that is both a good and a bad sign.

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