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
Just one more New York.
I mean 2 more.
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.
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.)
Pablo Ramirez just said that B.Wright-Phillips is the son of Ian Wright, who coached Arsenal and England respectively.
Will Adu ever play again?
He should play beach soccer, where u have to have skill on the ball in a 6 square foot space but that’s it….
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.
Insane.
Wilfredo Caballero made 10 saves against Barcelona and still lost.
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.
Grat finish to Barca Malaga, end to end
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.
Both goals were class. Second was a one timer from a long pass over the top.
Neymar pulling a Maradona and almost scores on the free kick he draws. Kid is special.
Maradona would have scored on the free kick.
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
He doesn’t just miss them, he completely flubs them. So many of them.
Michael Bradley connected on 29 of 32 first half passes for Roma with 2 key passes.
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.
Great header soo close
Bedoya’s looked very good.
Is he actually playing RB in a 5-3-2 as ESPN states? How is he doing defensively if so?
More of winger with Nantes playing a back 3. He the moved over to the left for awhile too.
He had a pretty spectacular interception on a ball to Ibrahimovic inside the six that looked likely to be a goal. All the more impressive as it came seconds after his near goal at the other end.
If it’s a 5-3-2, he’s playing a wingback which is not really any different from the midfield spot he plays regularly.
Only a matter of time ’til Barca scores. Nice Adriano curler to bottom left corner at end of first half.
Bedoya starting for Nantes against PSG. There is a guy for Malaga whose name is Nacho Camacho. This is not a joke. Nacho….. Camacho
I thought he got killed in Puerto Rico
Any updates on how Bedoya is looking?
Game is on delay on Bein at 5 so I will watch it then
The nick name for Ignacio is Nacho…
Bradley starts for Roma in 4-3-3. Bradley, DDR, Pjanic. Strootman injured, not in 18.
Who’s playing the deepest Bradley or DDR? Are they playing together behind? Want to get a sense of where Bradley fits in this new managers system.
Yes, please provide running commentary / more details. Ver curious about this game and Bradley, especially because of all the transfer talk.
Also curious how maicon performs.
Maicon’s had a couple of good runs but his crossing has been terrible.
Real good defending though.
DeRossi I middle. Bradley appears to be going forward and on the left side. He was part of a passing sequence in which he almost got an assist for totti. I gathered all this from here, pretty cool graphic of the shot on goal that auto played. http://espnfc.com/us/en/gamecast/377307/gamecast.html?soccernet=true&cc=5901
It appears DeRossi is hanging back.
kind of choppy but here is the a live stream
http://www.stream2watch.me/soccer/as-livorno-vs-as-roma-live-stream
also seems like bradley is playing box-to-box sometimes linking with defense and other times up near offense interchanging with ddr and pjanic
Roma dominating possession.DDR, Pjanic, and MB, that’s one heck of a midfield. Theyre going to have the lions share of possession in most of their games, you’ve got to think.
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.
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!!!
Not sure how memorable it could have been it you don’t even remember the result, let alone the score.
Honefoss down 1-0 at half time. The relegation march continues.
Honefoss had a massive comeback to win 3-1 with goals late in the 90 to actually jump out of the automatic relegation spot.
Who plays for them… I don’t recall anyone for the US….
Wow, just turned on the Man City game to see Cardiff go up 3-1. What happened here?
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.
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.
Brooks left the game in the 23rd minute today. Anyone have any info on the reason?
believe it was tightness in his quad; was pulled as a cautionary measure.
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.
Really? I’m pretty sure that the ref missed a penalty in the 1st half. Seemed as if the 2nd was a make up call.
Neither were remotely close to being penalties. That one in the second half was on of the worst calls I’ve seen in a long time.
In my opinion
The first was a penalty; the second was a dive
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.
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.
Johannsson’s scoring streak stopped today as AZ lose 2-0. Everyone looked sloppy and tired out there.
i concur
Undoubtedly because of the Europa League game on Thursday。
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 ?
You must be new to the site. They always run a separate MLS gameday thread on weekend days.
HAHAHAHAH. Guess this is the last time “Quit Whining About Soccer In The USA” ever uses that username again…
No need to imply that the writers are ignorant.
There is always a separate article/running commentary for MLS.
For example, see YESTERDAY.
relax.
Epic fail by this mls snob
mls snob…can’t recall that term
* Paulinho, Chadley cheooow!! Lol
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!!¡
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.
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).
They already made their first signing with the Bale money: today’s referee.
They should have done what conventional wisdom called for. They should have gone after Benteke hard instead of all those midfielders. Benteke and Soldado up front would have been something to see.
They always seem to be overloaded with midfielders. I makes you wonder whether they actually have a plan at all.
Chadli. And it looks like they’re close to signing Lamela. Dempsey would never have played.
To be fair, Parkhurst was solid in the Gold Cup despite his lack of playing time at Augsburg.
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?
Another solid 90 minutes for Lichaj. I hope he gets a call up soon.
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.