Real Madrid have watched FC Barcelona run away with the early lead in the Spanish First Division, and have seen their own struggles leave them far behind city rival Atletico Madrid.
If Real Madrid wants any hope of catching unbeaten Barcelona, they must knock off an Atletico side enjoying an outstanding first half of the season. Led by Colombian star Falcao, Atletico can extend their own lead on Real Madrid to 11 points with a win.
In England, Tim Howard and Everton travel to the Etihad to take on Manchester City. The Toffees will look to hand the Citizens their first loss of the season, while also boosting their own modest hopes for a Top Four place after slipping to sixth place in recent weeks.
Clint Dempsey returns to Craven Cottage today to face his former club for the first time as Tottenham take on Fulham. Spurs sit in fifth place heading into the day, and will look to beat a Fulham side that is sliding after a promising early start to the season.
As you know, the 2012 MLS Cup Final is also being played later today, so look out for SBI’s own Match Day Commentary covering all the action.
For now, if you will be watching today’s action, 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
10am- Fox Soccer Channel- Manchester City vs. Everton
10am- Fox Soccer Plus- Arsenal vs. Swansea City
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Fulham vs. Tottenham
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Liverpool vs. Southampton
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Queens Park Rangers vs. Aston Villa
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- West Bromwich Albion vs. Stoke City
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Rotherham vs. Notts County
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Sheffield United vs. Port Vale
10am- FoxSoccer2Go.com- Crawley Town vs. Chelmsford City
11am- Univision Deportes- Lyon vs. Montpellier
Noon- beIN Sport en Espanol- Valencia vs. Sociedad
12:30pm- Fox Soccer Channel- Reading vs. Manchester United
12:30pm- GolTV- Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund
2pm- Univision Deportes- Nice vs. Paris St. Germain
2pm- beIN Sport- Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao
2:45pm- RAI- Juventus vs. Torino
4pm- beIN Sport- Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid
4:3pm- ESPN/Telefutura- LA Galaxy vs. Houston Dynamo
9:30pm- Fox Soccer Channel- USA Women vs. Ireland
Terrance Boyd with the 1st goal for his team on another start today for Rapid Vienna. They saw the game tied shortly after but went up to 4-1….I saw the 4th goal which was a nice play from Boyd. Trapped a long pass out of the back can’t remember if it was from a goal kick or a defender booting it long but he brought it down with his chest and then made sort of a chip pass for the assist on what ended up being the winning goal because Rapid would allow a 2nd goal and then a very late PK to make interesting in the 91st minute
Brilliant Barcelona, 3-0 at the half, Athletico beats RM today.
When Messi plays, he scores 2 goals. It’s become routine now, and he’s only 1 or 2 away from tying Muller’s record. Crazy!
Does anyone know what time kickoff is for MLS Cup?
Does anyone know what time the walking dead is on Sunday?
9pm eastern
4:30 EST.
TV coverage begins at 4:30. I suspect the actual kickoff is closer to 5.
Yeah, I heard if its Alexi and that dead racoon on his face, he will ramble til approx. 4:53, then the National Anthem, fire works, then kick off possibly between 5:03 and 5:07.
How did Lichaj play?
Saw almost all of that game and he was okay. I get the feeling that he is a little uncertain and feeling his way due to little playing time before the recent injuries. He seems tentative at times. He was better today than the previous two games. He didn’t make any real mistakes and went forward with some effect on occasion. At another web site they rated him 3 stars out of 5.
Can anyone suggest a good website for watching some of these games not on TV? Last Wednesday I was trying to watch the Spurs game on First Row which I have used before. When I could get a picture it would crash right away or be covered by some ad. I tried several other sites with no better success and picked up a cookie that kept sending me to some video game site that I could exit only by shutting down my computer. I have Windows 7, a fairly new computer, Real Player and downloaded several other apps that the various sites said I needed. I only got to see maybe 10 minutes of the first half of the game before I gave up. Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks.
Do you have McAffee? Or whatever its called…it seems to be protecting me from that cookie problem…http://www.day.to/station/3/…im not too familiar w/ free streaming sites, but this one has pop-ups that have to be closed and you might have to close a window or two, but when that done I have been able to watch nearly hastle free (sometimes a window will appear that I need to close or the feed will stop and you just need to hit play again. Also, I think due to volume of viewers on some of the channels offeres, you might have a lag issue, but so far, im watching the 2nd half of the barca game.
I can’t spell..
I always use First Row and haven’t had problems….like Jason said in all sites really sometimes you have some lag but I have watched all of the Barca game today and was watching Boyd’s game in the last 30 minutes….usually First Row just has ads you have to close and maybe wait for the last few seconds of their counter clock thingy to see the boxes to close the ads
Zak Whitbread scored for Leicester, who are up 2-1 late.
3-1 now
4-1 FT
Leicester up to 3rd. Hopefully Zak is back in the Premiership with them next season.
…the hell is going on between Reading/United?
Picked the Bayern/Dortmund match over that. I look up, and they scored 7 goals in a half?!
Johnny Evans<Johnny Bornstein
You deserve recognition for your username. Charlotte would be good too.
Villa only have 2 games out of 15 where they scored more than 1 goal that doesn’t help Guzan much.
Arsenal loses by conceding 2 goals to Michu in the final 5 minutes. Get used to hearing that this year.
Arsenal falls to 10th. Ouch.
Yep. My club is in shambles. They look absolutely clueless on the pitch. Time for Wenger to go unfortunately.
Remember, they started terribly last year and ended up in 3rd. Remember that game against Man U? What was it, 8-1 or something unbelievable like that? I would suggest a little more patience.
Seriously and they are at least not in huge debt and have money to make transfers when there are great players to buy. The thing I do think Wenger should think about is to drop Arteta for depth on the bench and start playing more of a 4-4-2 with a 2nd forward to help Giroud and or Podolski….maybe have them up top and play Walcott and OX or Gervinho but a combo of 2 of those 3 on the wings with Wilshire and Cazorla in the middle…..that leaves maybe a bench with Arteta and say Ox as well as maybe Chamahk on the bench…..maybe Ramsey as well….
Arsenal needs 2 forwards to score more IMHO
pep to arsenal?
Did Edu at least make the bench today?
Yes due to a late scratch of Jerome.
thanks
the brits don’t like dempsey..never have. 0 credit on defoe’s third, point out every mistake he makes, etc etc… This game just supports Dempsey’s move to Spurs. Totally different level of class between the 2 teams and yeah he isn’t banging them in yet, but he’s getting better by the game, on a top 4 team. Simple.
+1 — also the announcers gushed when Berbatov pulled an arrant pass from Sidwell out of the air. No mention when Dempsey did the same on a ball out that he intercepted from Fulham.
I imagine Clint’s Texas accent bothers some of them. Yeah, Clint looked good today. His pass to Defoe for the third goal was so sweet, like his pass to Bale last week. You are right, Clint is improving by the week as a player and this is great news for the USMNT.
That’s simply wrong. Dempsey has been well respected in England for several years.
+1. Deuce has always been well respected by British announcers. His reputation took a bit of a hit with the way he left Fulham, but they’ll get over it.
Last year when Clint came in 4th for Player of the Year, the Guardian, a major paper, wrote that he deserved to be at least 3rd, ahead of Scholes. So, I think there’s support for your view.
Mr Page,
Regarding that poll where Clint placed fourth; what is really significant about it is there was only one question: “Who had the best season?”.
None of this 1st, 2nd and 3rd place stuff.
In other words an awful lot of voters none of them Americans as far as I know, thought Clint had the best season in the EPL last season.
Anyone who thinks the Brits don’t respect Dempsey has the attention span of a 3 year old.
I love Clint, but theres not a chance in hell he had a better season last year than Robin van Persie.
Well there were enough journalists in England who disagreed with you so that Clint placed fourth.
Just to repeat, that pool where Clint placed fourth? The question was who had the best season? One question. No second best, or third best.
So a fair number of journalists thought Clint did better than RVP.
And as far as I know, none of them were biased American fans. If you think that is BS take it up with them. They are there and follow the sport more closely than we do.
I have no idea where these people are getting the idea that Dempsey isn’t well respected in England. Even before last season, most English people would say Dempsey is far and away the best American outfield player, ahead of Donovan or anyone else that could be considered in that discussion.
But can’t you hear the derision in that remark? To them “the best American player” is like “the smartest guy on the short bus”
That says more about you than it does about Clint.
If there was a list of the 100 most talented players in the EPL Clint is not on it.
If there was a list of the 100 best players in the EPL Clint is on it.
Fortunately Dempsey thrives on that kind of adversity.
Wouldn’t it be funny if this mostly blah performance gets them a first clean sheet in a while. I’m still really worried about the state of the defense, though. So many injuries right now. And let’s hope Bale isn’t out for too long.
btw, anyone know when Assou Ekotto or Kaboul might come back?
Bale is world-class, no doubt about it. But actually the Spurs have looked more dangerous after he left the game–great assists by Sigurdsson and Dempsey, both to Defoe whose goals were things of beauty. Defoe is so in form right now.
In any case, great to see Tottenham and Dembele and Dempsey crush Martin Jol. He and his big mouth would have been unbearable had Fulham won. It appeared to me that Dempsey did not celebrate on any of the three goals. Classy from Clint.
The announcers on the Fulham Spurs game are annoying
Demps with a nice through ball to Defoe and it’s 3-0!
Spurs have been ruthless in the second half and dempsey has been very lively, couple give aways but overall playing very well in front of his old fans. Super pass to put defoe through on the 3rd.
Did Rafa have the interim tag? What a golden parachute that month-long stint’s going to be if not.
wow, keeper should have had that. 1 for Spurs from Sandro.
Fulham/Spurs match no better so far in the second. Hope I don’t regret watching this one.
Ouch! Gladbach defender gets crushed in the nuts by a deflected shot!
How long til Benitez is gone too? Something is wrong with that Club. Oh well, COYW!
dumb decision by the russian owner. he never liked di matteo. shame.
Fans have to be fed up with the owner…suppose they’d like him fired.
Fans have to be fed up with the owner…suppose they’d like him fired.
Rafa out!!
how’s deuce looking so far? is he in the XI?
Yeah, he’s in. Looking alright. Getting some mild abuse from Fulham fans but it doesn’t feel heartfelt. Deuce looking about as good or bad as anyone else on for field right now. Not much to talk about either way honestly. Kind of a snoozer
Thanks!
yeah, very dull from both teams so far. Fulham looked slightly more competent/driven in the first half, but by the end of they half, Spurs seemed like they might be waking up. Hope they kick it up a few gears in the second.
*the half
oops.
Demsey assist for 3rd goal. 3-0 Spurs
Maybe now the conspiracy theorists will cut out the “OMG Deuce STOLE the ball from his OWN TEAMMATE!” crap from the last match.
I think Borussia Dortmund/Bayern Munich is must see soccer along with the Madrid derby.
It could very well be that CR9 has more sadness after the derby. Charter hasn’t added BEInSport so bummed I won’t be able to catch it live.
You can watch online…that’s what I’ve been doing.
I agree Tim, but it seems like so few people get GolTV anymore that it’s tougher to justify including that in the main write-up. Becomes a bit of a tease.
I’m really disappointed you didn’t mention Universitario, especially as I am going to be living about 4 miles from their stadium. 😉
Howard looking sharp so far. Good save on Tevez’s header to preserve the 1-0 1h lead.
Cheers from snowy Worcester MA