ON THE PITCH
Weekly Soccer Recap: Landon Donovan is soccer’s Brett Favre, Man City finally loses
Jan 16, 2018, 11:48 am
Landon Donovan is coming out of retirement to play in Liga MX. Victor Araiza/SportsMap
Liverpool and Manchester City delivered a thriller while - what at first looked like a massive troll job - Landon Donovan left many wondering why he is coming out of retirement. Here are the most important moments in soccer this week:
Premier League
There are several storylines to dive into after this weekend’s results in the United Kingdom but none will garner much attention than Liverpool’s 4-3 win over league leaders Manchester City. The Reds were up to a 4-1 lead at home before the Citizens scored two in the last seven minutes. Ultimately time ran out on City’s undefeated season but this may not me anything more than a blemish as City still hold a 12-point lead at the top of the table.
Manchester United enjoyed a 3-0 win over Stoke while Tottenham got a home win of its own, 4-0 over Everton. Chelsea could not undo Leicester City as that match ended in a scoreless draw. Arsenal, meanwhile, sees a spot in the top four slipping after a 2-1 loss at Bournemouth. Among other notable results are West Ham’s 4-1 win over Huddersfield and Newcastle’s 1-1 draw with Swansea City. Stoke, West Brom and Swansea are currently in the last three.
Top 5: Manchester City (62), Manchester United (50), Liverpool (47), Chelsea (47), Tottenham (44)
La Liga
The Barcelona show continues in La Liga, this week with a 4-2 win at Real Sociedad where Luis Suarez and Leo Messi stood out for their marvelous goals. Atlético Madrid managed a 1-0 win at Eibar while Valencia saw out a 2-1 win at Deportivo La Coruña. A long ways away from contention are defending champions Real Madrid in fourth who suffered another stunning loss at home, this time 1-0 to Villareal. That win, plus Alavés’ 1-0 win over Sevilla, places Villarreal in the top five.
The 5: Barcelona (51), Atlético Madrid (42), Valencia (40), Real Madrid (32), Villarreal (31)
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga winter break is over but not much changed. Bayern Munich picked up another three points with a 3-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen, with Martinez, Ribery and Rodriguez as the scorers. Leipzig broke the deadlock for second and took sole position of that spot - for now at least - with a 3-1 win over Schalke. Dortmund moves up to fourth after only picking up a point in scoreless affair against Wolfsburg at home.
Top 5: Bayern Munich (44), RB Leipzig (31), Schalke 04 (30), Dortmund (29), Bayer Leverkusen (28)
Ligue 1
The second half of the season begins to pick up steam as the Paris trains continues to chug along, this time with a 1-0 win at fifth-place Nantes. Meanwhile, Monaco and Lyon both picked up a point - giving PSG no cause for concern in a title race where they hold an 11-point lead. Marseille was the only other top five side to pick up a win this week, a 3-0 result at Rennes.
Top 5: Paris Saint-Germain (53), Monaco (42), Lyon (42), Marseille (41), Nantes (33)
Serie A
Normally soccer in Italy takes a winter break from Christmas (Dec. 25) to Epiphany (Jan. 6) as both are major Catholic holidays. This season, the Italian league broke tradition by playing during the holidays and prolonging the winter break until now. The Serie A returns this weekend.
The top 5: Napoli (51), Juventus (50), Inter Milan (42), Lazio (40), Roma (39)
Liga MX
It was a big week of news in Mexico but let’s begin with the results. Tijuana and Morelia each won their match, 1-0, over Necaxa and Puebla respectively. Queretaro picked up a massive 2-0 win against Lobos BUAP in a match of two teams fearing relegation. América and Pachuca battled to a 2-2 draw at the Azteca, while Tigres, León, Pumas and Monterrey all saw out three points this weekend.
Off the field, León made the biggest noise with two transfers with ties to MLS. The first was former Houston Dynamo Giles Barnes - an Englishman with Jamaican roots - who will ply his trade south of the border after his contract has expired with MLS. As if that wasn’t enough of a shock, León decided to bring the all-time MLS leader in goals, Landon Donovan, out of retirement. Barnes and Donovan share the same agent which is how talks began. Donovan - who has now become US Soccer’s version of Brett Favre - has not played a professional match since November of 2016. Donovan was in Houston last month in the Kick In For Houston match that raised funds for Harvey Relief efforts.
The top 5: Pumas UNAM (6), León (6), Cruz Azul (4), Monterrey (4), Club América (3)
MLS offseason
Major League Soccer clubs will all report next week for the start of preseason but before that, clubs will have the opportunity to bolster their squads in Friday’s MLS SuperDraft. Teams are in Orlando getting one last look at the best talent coming out of colleges in the 2018 MLS Combine.
That’s not the only way teams are making their rosters betters. Transfers continue to heat up in the MLS offseason with the inclusion of more young talent from South America. On Monday, Orlando City announced the signing of 19-year-old Josue Coman. According to reports, the Timbers are close to signing Peruvian international Andy Polo (age 24) while Chicago Fire have their eyes set on Colombian Juan Quintero (age 24). The biggest splash, however, was made last week as Atlanta United paid an MLS-record $15 million transfer fee for 18-year-old Argentinian Ezequiel Barco.
Upcoming Matches (All Times CT):
Tuesday, Jan. 16:
12 p.m. - [Ligue 1] Marseille vs. Strasbourg (beIN Sports)
1:45 p.m. - [FA Cup] Leicester vs. Fleetwood Town (FS2)
2 p.m. - [Ligue 1] Monaco vs. Nice (beIN Sports)
Wednesday, Jan. 17:
12 p.m. - [Copa del Rey] Atletico Madrid vs. Sevilla (beIN Sports)
1:45 p.m. - [FA Cup] Chelsea vs. Norwich (FS1)
2 p.m. - [Copa del Rey] Espanyol vs. FC Barcelona (beIN Sports)
Thursday, Jan. 18:
9 a.m. - 2018 NWSL Draft (Facebook LIVE/YouTube)
2:30 p.m. - [Copa del Rey] Leganes vs. Real Madrid (beIN Sports)
Friday, Jan. 19:
10 a.m. - 2018 MLS SuperDraft Draft (Facebook LIVE/YouTube)
1:30 p.m. - [Bundesliga] Hertha Berlin vs. Borussia Dortmund (FS1)
1:45 p.m. - [Ligue 1] Caen vs. Marseille (beIN Sports)
Saturday, Jan. 20:
6:30 a.m. - [Premier League] Brighton vs. Chelsea (NBC Sports)
8:30 a.m. - [Bundesliga] Hoffenheim vs. Leverkusen (FS1)
8:30 a.m. - [Bundesliga] Freiburg vs. RB Leipzig (FS2)
9 a.m. - [Premier League] Burnley vs. Manchester United (NBC Sports)
9 a.m. - [Premier League] Arsenal vs. Crystal Palace (CNBC)
11:30 a.m. - [Premier League] Manchester City vs. Newcastle (NBC)
11:30 a.m. - [Bundesliga] Hamburg vs. Koln (FS2)
Sunday, Jan. 21:
8:30 a.m. - [Bundesliga] Bayern Munich vs. Werder Bremen (FS1)
9:15 a.m. - [La Liga] Real Madrid vs. Deportivo (beIN Sports)
10 a.m. - [Ligue 1] Monaco vs. Metz (beIN Sports)
11 a.m. - [Bundesliga] Schalke vs. Hannover (FS2)
1:45 p.m. - [La Liga] Real Betis vs. FC Barcelona (beIN Sports)
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.