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Soccer Sunday: Your Running Commentary

Frank Lampard (Getty Images)

Benfica takes on FC Porto while West Ham takes on London rival Chelsea in two of the day's more highly-anticipated match-ups.

Sunday has already boasted a handful of quality match-ups this morning, but there is still plenty of soccer to be played (and watched). If you will be watching today's action (and are done shoveling snow), or watched some of the morning's top tilts and want to discuss them, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action (Today's TV schedule is after the jump):

TODAY'S SOCCER ON TV

10:30am- ESPN360.com- Roda JC vs. PSV Eindhoven

11am- FSC- West Ham vs. Chelsea

11am- ESPN Deportes/ESPN360.com- Espanyol vs. Almeria

11am- DirecTV- Villarreal vs. Racing Santander

11am- DirecTV- Malaga vs. Mallorca

11am- Setanta USA- Lille vs. Le Mans

11:30am- ESPN360.com- FC Cologne vs. FC Nuremberg 

12:55pm- ESPN Deportes- Roda JC vs. PSV Eindhoven

1pm- GolTV- Tenerife vs. Atletico Madrid

2:45pm- FSC/FSE/RAI- Inter Milan vs. Lazio

3pm- ESPN Deportes/ESPN360.com- Deportivo La Coruna vs. Valencia

3pm- Setanta USA- Monaco vs. Lyon

3:15pm- ESPN360.com- Benfica vs. FC Porto

5pm- FSC/FSE- Everton vs. Birmingham City (Delayed)

6pm- GolTV- Medellin vs. Huila

10pm- Setanta USA- West Ham vs. Chelsea (Delayed)

Comments

  1. It seems like managers don’t understand that Adu will actually do better when they give him more minutes….they just choose not to. Like yall said, he never really performs THAT badly. He’s normally about as good as you would expect a player who sees about as much green as the club pays him. This club couldn’t finish a half-eaten ham sandwhich, so they obviously need offensive finishers/creaters, which is what Adu is. No, he’s not in top form, but they’re already sucking it up, and don’t have too much to lose by experimenting with Adu a little bit, while developing a player who could even turn into a long term option for them. Adu is THAT good, he just hasn’t found it yet, a lot of it is his own fault, but the bossman has gotta give him the chance.

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  2. The main reason I’d like Freddy back in form is because we’re still missing that Charlie Davies presence in the team. An exciting young player who got the crowd going, on and off the field, worked for the full ninety, never took his spot on the team for granted and worked his ass off to get it back when he did lose it, which was never. The problem is that Freddy really only is that first thing now. Benfica stated that they were impressed with his attitude and skill during training back in 2007, and that was the year Adu impressed us all during the U20 World Cup. That seems to be gone, and I don’t really know if anyone has a clue as to where he’s going to go or what he’s going to do to regain the form that made us call him the best young player we had, assuming it was ever there.

    Pretty sad story, to be honest. Sorry, didn’t mean to sound all cheesy and stupid.

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  3. Probably down to a few factors: Not enough American reporters who care about soccer, and the US journalists who do focus on soccer (like Ives et al.) are too busy reporting stuff like new friendlies/World Cup developments/etc. There’s definitely a big audience for Adu stuff (see his quarter of a million Twitter followers…Davies, Jozy, Edu, etc probably don’t have that many combined), and even though I don’t think he factors into Bradley’s plans at this point, I for one would love to have a journo do a little back and forth w/ lil’ Freddy.

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  4. I kind of wish that somebody would seriously get extensive coverage on Freddy Adu and ACTUALLY watch him practice. I know that seems stupid, but is there no American Portugese soccer correspondant who can check in on Freddy? This question has been around for a while and we’ve never seen a single feature saying Adu’s training methods and habits suck/rock

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  5. Gio is riding the pine for Tottenham still. I know they don’t want to sell him (If they do, they owe Barca more for him, and he is still young and talented,) but he hasn’t been able to break into their first team– save for a few Carling Cup squads. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him loaned out again in January, but I’d be very surprised if Harry let him leave on a permanent basis.

    He’s got to play to be in form for the World Cup and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t let him leave on loan. Especially since Luka Modric is going to be coming back from injury soon, only further crowding and already crowded midfield.

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  6. Seriously Adu have to return to MLS over this january transfer window. I don’t see how being glued to the bench both in portugal and france helping his career. There are plenty of teams in MLS that can use his services.

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  7. Anyone know how Giovanni Dos Santos (sp?) got back to Tottenham? I remember he had a loan out to Ipswich Town and played a lot. He looked good over the summer with the Mexican NT. Now, he’s back at Tottenham. Is he contributing to Hotspurs or just riding the pine?

    I’m hoping there’s a way out for Adu. His time with the U20s and (initially) Benefica was good, now it’s all poor.

    I think he’s one of those guys that needs to play a lot to be in form. His touch and conditioning were really off during the summer. Without size, strength nor speed, all Adu has is skillz. If that’s poor, then why play him.

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  8. Don’t mean to seem like a Freddy hater, just he seems to have the same problem everywhere he goes, so I’m starting to think there is either a) A conspiracy to not play him, or b) maybe he just isn’t that good.

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  9. Glad Freddy feels he’s playing well, but it’s not his opinion that matters.. and maybe if he spent less time bragging about beating the team he’d be in it.

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  10. Freddy has been feeling the exact opposite, saying that he has never trained better. He even bragged about beating the whole team in a goal scoring competition.

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  11. i have to agree with whitehart…if adu was showing promise in training the manager would be forced to play him…no results means his job is on the line as well..theres no hidden agenda a manager needs results and plays the players he thinks can ge the job done.

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  12. Freddy has every right to be annoyed at his situation in Belenenses, as Jose S. said they’ve been awful and have produced little to no offense. Even if Freddy isn’t the greatest field player in the world the one thing he does well is place the ball well on free kicks, corner kicks, etc. And if you’ve scored 7 goals in 14 games you should throw out guys who can put the ball in the back of the net and give other guys the chance to do the same.

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  13. Belenenses lose 1-0

    1 win and 7 goals in 14 games.

    Yet the manager won’t give Freddy a look, I just don’t get it. As sefone said Freddy has done well (at least as good as the rest of the team) when he has played so it is hard to understand.

    Hopefully Adu’s next tweet is “I’m out of this dump”

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  14. Agreed on the penalty. Very suspect. I must say though, I was pretty impressed that Lampard converted all 3 chances. Funny watching all the players streak into the box before he kicked it.

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  15. Entertaining game between the blues and the Hammers. No way was that a penalty against Upson. Lampard with three tries gets it in to tie it up. West Ham unlucky to not still be in the lead.

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  16. Adu is funny. his situation is funny. what gets me is that when he was fresh on his loan and every time he got playing time (aside from his one start) he played really well.

    Not saying he is the best player ever, but he does show promise. even in limited appearances (benefica, belenenses)- so something is going on that we don’t know about.

    but yes, the tweeting has to stop. but it is so entertaining.

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  17. You’re absolutely right. I’m not advocating another Adu piece b/c he is integral to our chances next summer, but it’s undeniable that there is a huge section of US soccer fans who are interested in him…purely from a readership standpoint, Ives would get a lot more hits for a interview w/ Adu than for one contemplating Spector’s bench-warming.

    I’m not really worried about our backline regressing…Spector wasn’t getting constant starts before the Confed. Cup and I thought he had a good tournament (helped create several of our goals, if I recall correctly).

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  18. New Adu twitter post: “Decisions, decisions — should I tag JoJo again when I go home for Christmas? What do you my beloved fans think? Is that ass still tight?”

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  19. Omar, I think there are no articles on him lately bc the “Adu was overrated” angle is played out. And I think he twitters so much bc he loves the attention and yet nobody is writing about him in mainstream media.

    I mean, how many more times can they write that he is riding pine? They will write about him again if/when he does something, which will give them a new “Hey, maybe Adu is not total crap after all” angle.

    Right now, I am more concerned about Spector getting some PT. I mean, the USA defense leaked a lot of goals even when it was healthy, at its best and had Timmy bailing them out every 5 minutes. As one Brit scribe put it, they are banking on him not being able to play nearly as well in South Africa next summer as he did there last summer in the Confed Cup. I have to think they may have a point.

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  20. Actually, on his Twitter last week sometime someone asked him if was going to come back to MLS, and he said something like “Naw I’m gonna keep at it here” (apparently meaning Europe).

    WHY do I learn so much about these guys from Twitter? He’s obviously a high-interest US athlete to us soccer fans, and yet there have been zero Adu articles of note in the past year. Maybe he’s not granting any interviews or something….but he seems ready to divulge info on his Twitter…

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  21. i actually wonder if on adu’s part, he’s just desperate to know that people are still following him. in reality he hasn’t been relevant in several years so i wonder if this is his way of trying to maintain a following. my greatest fear is that jozy goes down this path especially cause jozy has real talent. but his trip to villareal didn’t go so hot, the loan to xerez was a zero and at best his time at hull city has been mixed. i really hope things go more smoothly in the second part of the year

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  22. Beasley twitters as much as all of them, but doesn’t talk about his career or team issues. Compare that with Adu….in the past weeks he posts stuff like (paraphrasing) “Don’t worry guys, coach just wants me to get a feel for the team before I start playing” etc. First of all, I don’t know who to believe. Second, should you really be posting stuff about your coach? I know people who’ve been fired for talking about their boss on blogs, Facebook, etc.

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  23. Freddy wrote this on twitter on Thursday

    “I am about to make one of the most important decisions of my career. I have a lot of help of course but i hope i make the right one.”

    He hasn’t mentioned anything about it since.

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  24. why is he putting this stuff on twitter? compare him with beasley who wasn’t getting playing time either. beasley speaks with the media and says i have no problem with anyone here i just need to play because i want to go to the WC, keeps working hard and now he’s tearing it up. adu, jozy and the rest need to stop with the twitter for the love of god and just play hard and take their opportunities when they arrive

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  25. Adu on the bench. Apparently — according to his twitter thing a few days ago — he has a “major decision to make in the next few weeks.” Hopefully he’s talking about a new team and league, and not what Jay-Z album is the best.

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  26. 11:00 FSC game is West Ham and Chelsea. Spector on the bench again. Chelsea looking strong.

    Clean sheet and a win for Marcus this morning and the Wolves are out of relegation.

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