Weekend Watch: Crowd Control

By: chris | March 7th, 2008

Saturday

Dinamo Zagreb v Hadjuk Split: The Eternal Derby. The teams, and fans, dislike each other. Dinamo is running away with the Croatian title (14 points between themselves and HNK Rijeka in second), but everybody knows derbies can make or break your season. And Luka Modric is playing, which is usually worth the price of admission all in itself.

Liverpool v Newcastle: Fernando Torres has 7 goals in his last 4 Premier League games….and he’s playing Kev Keegan’s Newcastle. Hide the women and children, it’s going to be raining goals.

Barnsley v Chelsea: And what do Barnsley get as a reward for giant thumping Liverpool? A game against also giants Chelsea. (The football gods are good and gracious.) They may be severe underdogs, but they’re currently The underdog story in England and another victory would slip that glass slipper just a bit further onto their foot. Problem is, of course, it’s Chelsea. It would require another massive upset.

Real Madrid v Espanyol: Los Merengues have only one thing left to play for this season and that’s the La Liga title; and now that they’re in the middle of a freefall, having lost 5 of 7, things don’t look so rosy anymore. Espanyol is no slouch, either, currently sitting in 5th place. We all know how itchy the trigger finger can be in the Real board room, and with rumors swirling about contact with Mourinho, Bernd’s got some serious work to do.

Sunday

Napoli v Roma: Derby del Sole. Usually it’s enough for a derby between rivals which was dormant for so long to pique some interest. But these two teams also combined for a 4-4 thriller back in the fall when they last met. Napoli is flying high after beating Inter, Roma is flying high after beating Real Madrid and Napoli beat Inter….should be a game to remember.

PSV v Ajax: Ajax may still have a strong hatred for all things Feyenoord, but this one’s getting close to being The Derby, simply because both teams have been finding themselves at or near the top of the table recently. This one’s no different, with PSV holding a 6 point edge at the top over the 2nd place Amsterdamers. Throw in the bitter 2-0 loss suffered by Ajax at Amsterdam ArenA and they’ll be out looking for serious revenge. (Oh, and they’ve scored 74 goals in 27 games already. They’re fun to watch.)

Lyon v Bordeaux: This one may very well be the title decider in France, if Lyon can manage to pick their heads up out of their European sorrow and get back to doing what they do domestically: kick ass. There’s only a 3 point buffer between Lyon in 1st and Bordeaux in 2nd, so a purple victory blows the doors wide open. It’s about time Lyon had some competition this late in the season.

Any other games we should know about?