What to watch this weekend in the FA Cup, Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A - February 13th
(click to expand schedule)
FA Cup
Saturday, February 14
07:45 ET West Bromwich Albion vs. West Ham United
10:00 ET Blackburn Rovers vs. Stoke City
10:00 ET Derby County vs. Reading
12:30 ET Crystal Palace vs. Liverpool
Sunday, February 15
07:30 ET Aston Villa vs. Leicester City
09:30 ET Bradford City vs. Sunderland
11:00 ET Arsenal vs. Middlesbrough
La Liga
Friday, February 13
14:45 ET Almería vs. Real Sociedad
Saturday, February 14
10:00 ET Sevilla vs. Córdoba
12:00 ET Real Madrid vs. Deportivo La Coruña
14:00 ET Granada vs. Athletic Bilbao
16:00 ET Málaga vs. Espanyol
Sunday, February 15
06:00 ET Valencia vs. Getafe
11:00 ET Barcelona vs. Levante
13:00 ET Rayo Vallecano vs. Villarreal
15:00 ET Celta Vigo vs. Atlético Madrid
Bundesliga
Friday, February 13
14:30 ET Borussia Dortmund vs. Mainz 05
Saturday, February 14
09:30 ET Bayer Leverkusen vs. Wolfsburg
09:30 ET Bayern Munich vs. Hamburger SV
09:30 ET Borussia Mönchengladbach vs. Köln
09:30 ET Hoffenheim vs. Stuttgart
09:30 ET Werder Bremen vs. Augsburg
12:30 ET Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Schalke 04
Sunday, February 15
09:30 ET Hertha BSC vs. Freiburg
11:30 ET Hannover vs. Paderborn
Serie A
Saturday, February 14
12:00 ET Sassuolo vs. Fiorentina
14:45 ET Palermo vs. Napoli
Sunday, February 15
06:30 ET AC Milan vs. Empoli
09:00 ET Atalanta vs. Inter Milan
09:00 ET Genoa vs. Verona
09:00 ET AS Roma vs. Parma
09:00 ET Torino vs. Cagliari
09:00 ET Udinese vs. Lazio
09:00 ET Chievo vs. Sampdoria
14:45 ET Cesena vs. Juventus
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Bayern Munich vs. Hamburg
On a weekend with few eye-catching matches, turn an eye toward history: this is the 100th meeting of two Bundesliga stalwarts. No, Hamburg aren’t particularly sexy, but Der Dinosaurier are the only original member of the Bundesliga to never be relegated, though that could change this year.
HSV are presently four points clear of relegation, but given their offensive struggles — in all of Europe’s top leagues, only Aston Villa have had more difficulty scoring — they’re treading turgid waters. Hamburg have scored just 14 goals in 20 games; by comparison, Bayern’s Arjen Robben has 12 goals in 16 Bundesliga games. (In case that math is too daunting: a single Bayern Munich player is scoring goals at a faster rate than the club he faces on Saturday.)
In order to spark the offense, Die Rothosen added Croatian stalwart Ivica Olic in the winter transfer window, a homecoming for the 35-year-old striker who left HSV for Bayern in 2009. Another Hamburger with Munich ties: American wunderkind Julian Green, who has struggled with a rib injury and hasn’t seen playing time since November (a report that Green was being demoted to Hamburg’s under-23 team was untrue). FUN FACT: Olic and Green are the only two Hamburg players who scored a goal at the last World Cup; Bayern have four who combined for 11 goals (and it's worth noting that Franck Ribéry and Robert Lewandowski didn't play in the World Cup).
"But Bayern are struggling!" says someone making a case that this game will be close. True, the Bavarians got trounced by Wolfsburg and drew a tough Schalke team in consecutive games, representing five of the superteam’s 11 dropped points — and five of their nine goals allowed — all season. But Bayern still have a +36 goal differential and are eight points clear on the table; they’re doing just fine, even by FC Bayern’s rigorous standards.
So why tune in? For ageless Arjen Robben deftly cutting left even though the defender knows that’s where he’s going. For Ribéry bombing down the opposite sideline. For Philipp Lahm’s perfection on the pitch. For Manuel Neuer’s larger-than-life presence in goal, and his derring-do out of it. For Pep Guardiola’s impeccable fashion and Handsome Dad-ness. For the clinical majesty of Robert Lewandowski. For all the usual reasons you watch a buzzsaw at work: because a clean line through solid wood is immensely satisfying to watch. And any resistance the log can put up — however unlikely — only makes it better.
Think of Hamburg as a stately old redwood: worth rooting for, but long shots against the paper mill.
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Palermo vs. Napoli
The Italian nation-state is not yet two centuries old; before unification in 1861 it was a patchwork of independent republics, duchies and kingdoms. It’s therefore not at all surprising that Italy has a very strong municipal culture, nor that this culture manifests itself in its many weird and wonderful football derbies; some of which not only breach local divides, but more ancient, territorial ones too. One prime example is that between Sicilian side Palermo and Calabrian side Napoli, a rivalry that will be renewed at the Renzo Barbera on Saturday.
As with many of Italy’s notable derbies, this clash has a rather fancy title: the Derby delle Due Sicilie, or Derby of the Two Sicilies. But it isn’t just a pithy name; rather a handy reminder of the origins of a rivalry between two teams separated by the Strait of Messina and an eight hour drive. It is named after the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was a massive state that spread across the entire Italian south (or ‘mezzogiorno’) and Sicily under Bourbon rule, until the pesky Giuseppe Garibaldi rocked up in Marsala with his band of Redshirts in 1860, quickly to overthrow King Francis II in the name of Sardinia, and pretty soon a unified Italy.
"But why ‘two Sicilies’?", you may reasonably ask. Well, the original Kingdom of Sicily came into existence as a Kingdom under Norman invaders in the 12th century, and it spread all of the way from the Papal States in the centre of the Italian peninsula, down into the island of Sicily itself. However, some controversy over dynastic succession led to the Angevins winning control of the Kingdom as a papal vassal, and their King Charles promptly moved the Kingdom’s capital from its original home in Palermo, to Naples.
Unfortunately for Charles, things went downhill pretty quickly courtesy of a spontaneous revolt by the Sicilians (that’s the island, not including the Kingdom’s mainland territory), apparently resulting in almost all of Sicily's French population being massacred. The Sicilians promptly turned to Peter II of Aragon to rule (and paving the way for centuries of Spanish domination in the process). Thus, while the Angevins retained control of the mezzogiorno, the Aragonese had control of the island of Sicily, or Trinacria, as it was known.
It stayed that way until an opportunistic move in the 15th century saw the latter swoop to displace the Angevins on the mainland, thus reuniting the Kingdom of Sicily with the island proper. King Alfonso was promptly declared the King of both (or Two) Sicilies; a name that was still being used by the Bourbons right up to unification, despite various foreign incursions into both Sicily and Naples (including by the Austrian Habsburgs and Napoleon Bonaparte) in the intervening few hundred years.
And if that tale doesn’t get you salivating for football, then nothing will. Except maybe Paulo Dybala.
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Arsenal vs. Middlesbrough
Who'd be a television executive, hey? Spend the entire buildup to the FA Cup fourth round praying for a big upset … and then get loads, all piled on top of one another. Which makes for two things. First, a delirious, hilarious pile-up of punctured ego, tattered reputations, and really expensive footballers being made to look thoroughly silly. Second, once the dust settles, a kind of thin-looking fifth round.
Still, the FA Cup is the FA Cup, and while that used to mean "the greatest competition in the whole world (as understood by England and the English, which is to say, in the whole of England)", these days it means that whatever happens, somebody's going to complain about it being rubbish. So let's not do that. Let's instead take the silver linings, count the positives, and turn that frown through 540°. It's the FA Cup! Arsenal are playing Middlesbrough! H E double-L to the Y, E, S!
No, but really. Boro, under the guidance of the twinkly-eyed, square-jawed Aitor Karanka, are in fine form. Though their 2-0 victory away at Manchester City owed plenty to a certain legginess on the part of their hosts, it also served as notice good times might be returning to the Riverside. Karanka's side are unbeaten in 2015, have just risen to the top of the Championship, and have done all that while playing some pretty decent football.
Chelsea loanee Patrick Bamford got the first goal (and much of the media attention) after that game, but that wasn't a smash-and-grab result and Boro have talent all through their squad. Grant Leadbitter is as dominant a midfielder as the Championship possesses, Lee Tomlin has had an excellent season making play, and defender George Friend reportedly caught the eye of a couple of Premier League sides during January's frenzy. And, of course, there's still the venerable Jonathan Woodgate, whose body has been creaking louder and louder over the last few years. He was talked out of retirement by Karanka at the beginning of the season, and while he may not play every week, he stands in the squad as a totem to the virtues of experience and Teessideishness.
As for Arsenal? Well, who knows. Where Boro followed up their 2-0 win at City with three straight wins, Arsenal have been their usual frustrating selves. The good: a 5-0 steamrollering of Aston Villa; the bad: an outmuscling in the north London derby; and the weird: a 2-1 win over Leicester City that was more-or-less exactly the opposite of convincing. Add to this curious form the usual drip-drip of injuries — Aaron Ramsey will miss at least a month, while Alexis Sanchez's knee may keep him out of Sunday's game — and it's just as easy to see Bad Arsenal turning up as Good Arsenal.
Without wanting to descend to the level of the BBC — show me the magic where is the magic have you seen the magic oh God I'm sure I put the magic down somewhere here where oh where could it be — watching the FA Cup is always an exercise in upset-hunting, one way or another, since watching football as a neutral is always about hoping for a competitive game. As such this match, between the best team in England's second tier and one of the oddest in its first, is our most likely candidate of the weekend. After all, chances are that one way or another, Arsenal gonna Arsenal.
