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Soccer Friday: Your Running Commentary

Mesut Ozil of Arsenal

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By TIM FONTENAULT

It took a hard fought win against a bitter North London rival, but Arsenal made it through to the last 32 in the FA Cup.

The Premier League leaders will open this weekend’s fourth round play with a match Arsenal takes on Coventry City at the Emirates Stadium ,after defeating Tottenham on Jan. 4, 2-0. The Sky Blues knocked off Championship bottom feeders Barnsley in the third round on a late strike from Leon Clarke, and they will need that magic again to pull an upset.

In Germany, the Bundesliga springs back to life after the winter break as Bayern Munich travel to Borussia Mönchengladbach with a short-handed squad. Franck Ribery, Javi Martinez, and Bastian Schweinsteiger are unavailable while Arjen Robben is on the bench, but Bayern will need to shake off the winter ice in order to continue their dominance in the national league.

Former Vancouver Whitecaps forward Camilo Sanvezzo could make his debut for Liga MX side Querétaro in the club’s fourth round match against Santos Laguna Friday night. A win for Camilo’s new club would let them jump Toluca, Cruz Azul and Club America into first place for the time being. Meanwhile, Club Tijuana and Morelia, each with four points, will look to position themselves near the top of the table before the rest of this weekend’s action.

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:

2:30pm – Lille vs. Rennes – beIN Sports USA

2:30pm – Borussia Mönchengladbach vs. Bayern Munich – GolTV USA

2:45pm – Arsenal vs. Coventry City – Fox Sports 1

3pm – Celta Vigo vs. Real Betis – beIN Sports en Español

8:30pm – Querétaro vs. Santos de Torreón – ESPN Deportes/Azteca America

10:30pm – Xolos de Tijuana vs. Monarcas de Morelia – ESPN Deportes/Azteca America

Comments

  1. Castillo and Gomez starting. Pretty solid so far. Corona not even dressing, injury? Garza and Arriola on bench. Guido with a pretty sick goal for the U20 Xolos today. Video on their Facebook

    Reply
  2. Young Zelalem received hardly a touch, unfortunately. I only saw 2 sequences where he touched the ball. In both, he moved it smartly, safely and quickly. He showed good energy in pressing the ball but poor technique in closing out the man. Several times he backed off at the last second or had the ball go right through him.

    Reply
  3. Houston Dynamo re-sign Andrew Driver. I await the Dominic Oduro u-turn (perhaps followed by yet another reversal?) as the Trust Dom faithful re-calibrate to the fact that we want him after all.

    Reply
  4. From the ‘Did that friendly actually happen?’ department, Finland and Oman played to a scoreless draw. I bet that match was cooking.

    Reply
  5. Podolski, Mertesacker & Co. runnin wild here….USMNT in serious danger of conceding 15 goals in the group this summer…whew

    When I did a mock draw before the WC draw, I got this:

    Brazil
    Russia
    USA
    Holland

    I didn’t think it could any tougher than that, but this group of ours definitely is.

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    • Arsenal drubbing Conventry City means the USMNT will concede 15 goals?

      I hope that I I’m just too thick to sense the sarcasm in your post.

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    • Podolski is a backup for club and country. It’s likely we will never even see him. Mertesacker has his finer points, but is hardly without his faults. Jozy has owned him in their matchups. Those two guys are the very least of our concerns.

      Reply

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