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Soccer Sunday: Your Running Commentary

Miguel Michu of Swansea City and Sandro of Tottenham Hotspur

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By JUSTIN FERGUSON

After opening their season with shutout road wins in the English Premier League and the Europa League, Tottenham Hotspur return to White Hart Lane to face Swansea City in the spotlight match on this Soccer Sunday.

While last season’s star, Gareth Bale, edges closer to a Real Madrid move, Spurs have performed well in their first two matches of the new season. Both sides feature several new signings and are coming off of blowout continental victories. Like Tottenham, the visiting Swans also found great success in their midweek Europa League clash, registering a 5-1 home win on Thursday.

In Spain, Barcelona travel to Malaga in their first road match of the La Liga season. The defending champions will be without Lionel Messi, who left early during the first leg of the Spanish Supercopa final with a leg injury. Messi’s absence could open the door for Neymar to make his first start for Barcelona.

On this side of the pond, two afternoon matches in Liga MX will open a busy stretch of action from North America. After a big road win in the CONCACAF Champions League, a red-hot Toluca side hits the road to face Veracruz, who have played back-to-back scoreless draws in league action. Meanwhile, Cruz Azul will look to keep their three-match win streak going in a road match at Puebla.

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):

11am – NBC Sports Network/mun2 – Tottenham vs. Swansea City

12pm – beIN Sport USA – Inter vs. Genoa

1pm – Univision – Toluca vs. Veracruz

1pm – ESPN Deportes/Azteca America – Puebla vs. Cruz Azul

3pm – beIN Sport USA/beIN Sport en Español – Malaga vs. Barcelona

5pm – UniMas – Chivas USA vs. New York Red Bulls

7:30pm – MLS Direct Kick – New England Revolution vs. Philadelphia Union

8:15pm – GolTV – Estudiantes vs. Boca Juniors

10pm – ESPN2 – Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers

Comments

  1. Bedoya very influential thus far for Nantes against PSG. Started at RB, then switched to LB mid-way through the first half. Now on the left wing.

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    • Based on what I’m reading about Bedoya’s game, here and at the Goal live text of the match, I’m getting pretty excited about him. Certainly will be challenging for a WC spot. So glad he’s in Ligue 1 playing against big boys now, instead of Sweden. (OK, the Swedes run big, but you know what I mean.)

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  2. Bracamontes just said that the Red Bull defender will one day tell his grand kids he played against Cubo Torres.These Univision guys can be really funny sometimes.

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  3. Saw most or the second half of Nantes vs PSG and Bedoya looked damm good, had a tremendous head shot on target saved by a great goal-keeping effort and then 30 seconds later was at the other end and stopped a sure goal on a PSG counter-attack by intercepting a cross in the box. The Nantes crowd was wild and loud, a great atmosphere and Nantes plays an exciting style of soccer and Bedoya can only benefit from this and the USMNT from having another choice for attacking midfielder.

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  4. Roma dominate Livorno 2-0. Bradley goes the full 90. My stream cut out for the 10 minutes where the goals happened but De Rossi has a screamer.

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  5. Cesc Fabregas misses more good chances than any player of his skill level that I’ve ever seen. It makes me wonder about his mental toughness

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  6. Bedoya almost had a goal and an assist within the past 5 minutes, but he has to be careful as he has a yellow card for fouling Cavani.

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  7. Bedoya starting for Nantes against PSG. There is a guy for Malaga whose name is Nacho Camacho. This is not a joke. Nacho….. Camacho

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  8. If you didn’t see the second half of the Cardiff City-Manchester City game, I feel for you. Truly epic. One of the most memorable 45 mins in Premier Legaue play, ever.

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    • I don’t know. Not a City fan but I think ManCity’s 3-3 draw against QPR to win the league on the last day was a bit more memorable!!! Especially with all the United players out on the field ready to celebrate!!!

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      • Not sure how memorable it could have been it you don’t even remember the result, let alone the score.

    • Early season BPL madness. This is the chance for the minnows to take a bite out of the big fish while they are still feeling themselves out.

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  9. Steve Clarke pretty culpable for a goal on a long shot: reacted to slowly, didn’t have a strong enough hand when it got to him and only parried it into the side netting.
    Norwegian football ftw.

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  10. Apparently, Spurs have used the Bale transfer money to buy the referees. This is the most ridiculous and biased officiating I’ve seen in a long time. That penalty dive was absurd.

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    • That was really ugly.

      Did you see that Tottenham only had 5 fouls called against them at the 70th minute? The first penalty shout was just simply not even close to a penalty. The ball was already on its way out of bounds when they went shoulder to shoulder.

      That second incident was embarrassing to watch. Even Townsend was shocked he got the call. Even on the live viewing of it, the dive looked just like a blatant dive.

      Really disappointing how Swansea got taken out of the game. Anytime a Swansea player was starting a build up, a Spurs player would come in and toss them to the ground with nothing called.

      THere was even a time when Michu got sandwiched in mid-air and then you could see him yelling in Spanish that the referee wasn’t protecting them.

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    • I have seen so many games this weekend, I can’t remember which game it was (maybe Sunderland). But I remember the refs name, Lee Mason, whom I have wondered about before. He was much worse on Saturday than the ref in the Tottenham game. Guys were getting knocked over left and right and the whistle stayed silent. You’d think he was an MlS ref, that’s how bad he was. I agree that the penalty which was called for Tottenham was a make up call. He realized he missed the penalty in the first half. Happens all the time in every sport.

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  11. Looks like the editor cut off your article, let me help you out a bit….

    In the biggest game of the day, the most attended game of the day, and the most meaningful for the standing game of the day…Clint Dempsey plays his first home game for the Seattle Sounders as they face their rivals in the 81st meeting of the Timbers.

    …..that had to be intentional leaving that game off….there is no way Justin is THAT ignorant, is he ?

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  12. Tottenham’s midfield looks good. The fullbacks are providing great support and the occasional good service. Imagine they had a strike partner for Soldado. Paulihño, Chadsley and Dembele… Choaw!!¡

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    • Thing is, they were playing a lesser team at home, created a lot of chances and scored only on the penalty kick. They need a couple more players if they are going to challenge for the CL this year. Some people claim Dempsey left because he wasn’t going to get playing time. I think he realized that Spurs won’t make CL this year either.

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  13. Now that Bale’s off to Real–that spot out left is just sitting there for Dempsey… Would have liked to have seen him get one more season in the EPL on a top five team in his favorite position. I think it would have been special.
    On a related note, I think Spurs are going to need another goal scorer on the field than Soldado. Paulinho will have some out of CM, but not in the 15-20 (in all competitions) that they’ll need.
    With 99M brand new €’s, it’ll be interesting to see who they can get. They still couldn’t get Willan–who might have filled that wide left role (I don’t know, I’ve never seen him play).

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    • True, but Gold Cup is a long way from hex qualifying in terms of level of play and intensity. He also had a long camp to find his form and fitness. He won’t have that luxury in the hex. We will certainly see Evans at RB but not sure about Parkhurst. JK can always play Big Geoff at RB in a pinch, right?

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    • Not going to happen, HeHan, because Michael Parkhurst will no doubt be called in again in September after continuing his trend of not even making the bench for Augsburg, today not dressing for the game against Stuttgart. I was curious so just checked. Parkhurst’s last time on the bench for Augsburg was May 5 (did not play). He last played on April 14, a full game. And then before that was on the bench and did not play March 8 and before that started and played 89 minutes on February 16. He has dressed four times for his club since February 16.

      If Klinsmann was trying to do Parkhurst a favor to help him at his club by calling him in for the WCQ camp in May-June and then the Gold Cup in July, it has failed miserbably, at least up to this point. That said, if Klinsmann called Parkhurst in to help him wrangle a transfer, then the verdict is still out with 8 days to go until the transfer window closes.

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