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Soccer Saturday: Your Running Commentary

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FA Cup play resumes in England on Saturday, as a number of Premier League powers look to avoid the upset bug en route to the quarterfinals.

Regardless of whether the flu-stricken Landon Donovan plays, Everton will look to send the on-loan American out on a high note by taking care of League Championship side Blackpool in their fifth-round cup clash at Goodison Park. Chelsea and manager Andre Villas-Boas have come under fire lately, but they can keep their quest for silverware alive with a win over Jonathan Spector's Birmingham City.

Tim Ream eyes his debut with Bolton when the Trotters take on Millwall, while another English club who was interested in his services, Arsenal, meets Sunderland in the only cup meeting of top-flight clubs.

Outside of England, Charlie Davies has been included in the matchday 18 for Sochaux again as the club looks to climb out of the Ligue 1 cellar against Auxerre; Juventus has its eye on reclaiming first place in Serie A when it hosts Catania; and Santos Laguna and Monterrey clash in a meeting of two of Mexico's top teams.

If you will be watching any of Saturday's matches, please feel free to share any thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below. Enjoy the action (TV schedule is after the jump):

SATURDAY'S SOCCER ON TV

7:30 a.m. - Fox Soccer Plus/FoxSoccer.tv - Chelsea vs. Birmingham City

9:30 a.m. - ESPN3.com/ESPN Deportes - Hertha Berlin vs. Borussia Dortmund

10 a.m. - Fox Soccer Channel - Everton vs. Blackpool

10 a.m. - Fox Soccer Plus/FoxSoccer.tv - Millwall vs. Bolton

10 a.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Norwich City vs. Leicester City

10 a.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Nottingham Forest vs. Coventry City

12 p.m. - ESPN3.com/ESPN Deportes - Getafe vs. Espanyol

12:15 p.m. - Fox Soccer Channel - Sunderland vs. Arsenal

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Ajaccio vs. Brest

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Caen vs. Evian Thonon Gaillard

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Dijon vs. Nice

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Lorient vs. Lille

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Nancy vs. Toulouse

1 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Sochaux vs. Auxerre

2 p.m. - GOLTV - Real Madrid vs. Racing Santander

2:45 p.m. - Fox Soccer Channel - Juventus vs. Catania

3 p.m. - FoxSoccer.tv - Marseille vs. Valenciennes

4 p.m. - ESPN3.com/ESPN Deportes - Sevilla vs. Osasuna

5:10 p.m. - GOLTV - River Plate vs. Independiente Ravadavia

6 p.m. - Telefutura - Queretaro vs. Tijuana

6 p.m. - Azteca America/Fox Deportes - Cruz Azul vs. Pumas UNAM

8 p.m. - Telemundo - Chivas de Guadalajara vs. San Luis

8 p.m. - Telefutura - Santos Laguna vs. Monterrey

8 p.m. - Galavision - Tigres UANL vs. Atlas

Comments

  1. I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but I honestly believe that Newcastle United, at this point in time, has the best shot at getting 4th place, mostly due to the fact that they don’t have to worry about other competitions, and they have a pretty favorable schedule down the stretch. Now, admittedly, Arsenal (and probably Chelsea as well) are going to be done with UCL soon, and they are now done with FA Cup, so they can focus more on the league. Still, Newcastle really only has to worry about Man City at home, and then Arsenal and Chelsea away. It would be a nice story if they were able to sneak in…

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  2. Dude was hurt. Played all through WC hurt.

    Not making excuses for his lack of goals, but I think th emore accurate point is that the trade to Chelsea has been a disaster for him. Chelsea does not play a style conducive to him. Imagine him playing at a club with a style like Arsenal, Tottenham Bayern or Real. Problem is Chelsea paid so much for him they’ll never see that investment back even if he goes on a tear, so now what?

    I still say he’s one of the best strikers in the world, just at the absolute wrong club for him. it’s a real shame.

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  3. No subs at all of Sochaux and we’re reaching the 75th minute. They look like they could use that last bit of energy in the final 3rd cause they’re dominating possession now.

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  4. Mix had a real tough time finding the game tonight, hopefully he just needs more time to get comfortable with his teammates because he was very ineffective

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  5. For the last 15 min he was on, he looked good – and so did Gent. He was fluid and attacking with nice one touch passing and runs.

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  6. Wow. Arsenal. Wow. About to be knocked out of every competition with 3 months left in the season. Is mid-table respectability enough?

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  7. Not trying to be a jerk, but how exactly does this type of url encoding “hide” from web bots? It would take about two lines of code to search and replace spaces and “dot”.

    What do the “bots” do? A denial of service attack on feeds? If they are so sophisticated, searching for simply encoded url’s would be trivial.

    Please help me understand.

    Reply
  8. “As the game hit the 90-minute mark, and the fourth official displayed five minutes of added time, there was a lengthy and worrying stoppage after Rogers and Tommy Spurr had a clash of heads and both were stretchered off.” – From the Leeds website.

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  9. Yep, him and Tommy Spur of Doncaster had a clash of heads late. Both were stretchered off after a 10+ minute delay. Rogers was only on for a few minutes. Hope he’s OK.

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  10. and whenever I say this something always happens: gets a rebound inside the box about 6 yards out, strikes it into a block, possible hand ball not given, no goal, keeper collects.

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  11. Re: Ream

    Commentators stated that they were impressed with his positioning (during the run of play), vision, heading, and distribution. He was clearly beaten on a corner where his marker missed the ball. I would give him 6.5 or 7 out of 10. A good debut.

    Reply
  12. Maybe old was the wrong word, but I was thinking of the same players you listed as being the problem. Not only are they poor fits for AVB style, but they also just cover so much less ground than they used to.

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  13. Kinda random question- what was the name of the guy who chose to play for the Belgian national team instead of the US a couple years ago?

    Reply

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