WEEKLY RECAP
Weekly Soccer Recap: Stellar week in the Bundesliga; Dynamo fall to Sounders in Western Final
Nov 28, 2017, 11:59 am
The Houston Dynamo fell at home to Seattle Sounders FC and will be without Alberth Elis for the second leg on Thursday. Diego Dlouhy
The MLS Cup Playoffs resumed after a long layover, Liga MX playoffs got underway and the action heats up in Europe as November came to a close. Manchester City, FC Barcelona, Bayern, PSG and Napoli all remain atop their leagues but one took a stumble this week.
Premier League
The top of the table remains fairly unchanged as there were many close matches this weekend. A Nicolás Otamendi own goal had Manchester City fighting their way back to a 2-1 win at promoted side Huddersfield Town, Manchester United get a 1-0 win thanks to a Brighton own goal and Tottenham drew 1-1 with West Bromwich. The big name match was between Liverpool and Chelsea where Mohamed Salah scored again - his 10th goal in 13 appearances - before a Willian wonder goal would save a point for the Blues. Arsenal jump back into the top five after Alexis Sanchez converted a penalty in stoppage time at Burnley.
Top 5: Manchester City (37), Manchester United (29), Chelsea (26), Arsenal (25), Tottenham (24)
La Liga
The big news of the weekend was Barcelona’s contract renewal of Lionel Messi and his newly imposed €700m buyout clause. Of course he was a topic of conversation again as the top teams in Spain met, having a goal disallowed and sparking the conversation for video review in La Liga. Valencia jumped to a 1-0 lead in the 60th min. before Jordi Alba’s 82nd min. goal tied things up. The two sides split points and Barcelona maintains its four point lead at the top.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored the game-winning goal in a Real Madrid’s 3-2 victory over Málaga while Antoine Griezmann scored a double in three minutes in Atlético’s 5-0 win at Levante. The other top five team, Sevilla, won 3-2 at Villarreal.
The 5: Barcelona (35), Valencia (31), Real Madrid (27), Atlético Madrid (27) and Sevilla (25)
Bundesliga
Just when it looked like Bayern Munich may have been running away with the league, Borussia Mönchengladbach pull off a 2-1 win to keep the leaders within three points of second place. Leipzig may be ruing last week’s result after bouncing back to win 2-0 this week at Werder Bremen. As far as the other two top five teams? They delivered the match everyone was talking about.
Rivals Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 delivered a match that will be remembered in the latest edition of the Revierderby. Dortmund jumped to a 4-0 lead at home before Schalke made their way back to salvage a point from the matter. Dortmund are know winless in their last six across all competitions as the opportunity to bounce back from a midweek Champions League defeat just took more air out of their season. To make matters worse, leading scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was red carded and will mix the next match.
Top 5: Bayern Munich (29), RB Leipzig (26), Schalke 04 (24), Mönchengladbach (24), Dortmund (21)
Ligue 1
A Neymar penalty was the decider as Paris visited Monaco to hand them a 2-1 defeat. Monaco know slips out of what was their habitual second place spot as Lyon delivered a 5-0 thumping at Nice. Florian Thauvin was the hero for Marseille as they get a 1-0 victory at Guingamp and Nantes suffered a 2-1 setback at Rennes.
Top 5: Paris Saint-Germain (38), Lyon (29), Monaco (29), Marseille (28), Nantes (23)
Serie A
Napoli simply cannot be beat as a Jorginho goal secured a 1-0 win at Udinese to keep them undefeated at the top. Icardi was the man of the match after scoring a double for Inter Milan and Juventus picked up a 3-0 win vs. Cotone. Roma tied 1-1 at Genoa as Daniele De Rossi was handed a red card while Lazio tied 1-1 with Fiorentina.
The biggest news off the field came after the weekend when both A.C. Milan and Sassuolo parted ways with their managers. Milan legend Gennaro Gattuso has been named the interim for the Rossoneri.
The top 5: Napoli (38), Inter Milan (36), Juventus (34), Roma (31), Lazio (29)
Major League Soccer
Columbus Crew could not take full advantage of home field as they battled to a nil-nil draw against Toronto FC in the first leg of the Eastern Conference Championship. The second leg will be on Wednesday in Toronto as the league leaders will welcome back two of their best players in Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore.
In the Western Conference Championship, the Houston Dynamo fell 2-0 at home against defending MLS Cup Champion Seattle Sounders FC. Gustav Svensson and former Dynamo Will Bruin were the men who helped their side to the lead and the two important away goals. The two teams meet again Thursday night in Seattle with Houston needing at least two goals to force extra time and likely three to advance to the MLS Cup Final.
Conference finals:
Toronto FC, Columbus Crew SC tied 0-0
Seattle Sounder FC leads Houston Dynamo 2-0
Liga MX
No side could find separation in the series between Tigres and León with both sides splitting 1-1 draws in their home field. The same can be said in the series between Morelia and Toluca where both sides split 2-1 wins. Mexico City rivals América and Cruz Azul also split results, playing to nil-nil draws. Thanks to the tie-breaker that gives the edge to the higher seed it will be Tigres, América and Morelia who advance to the semifinals.
The only series with a definite winner was between Monterrey - the best club during the regular season - and Atlas. Atlas immediately gave up the lead in the first leg and could never fight their way back. Monterrey won 6-2 on aggregate.
MVP of the Week - Antoine Griezmann
The MVP this week goes to Atlético Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann. The French forward - who last year gave Cristiano Ronaldo a run at the Ballon d’Or - was reignited this week with a goal against Roma in Wednesday’s Champions League match, followed by a double on Saturday against Levante. Spain’s La Liga has been by and large a two-team race but Atleti has been hanging around the top during the last few seasons. For the Colchoneros to be the disturbing force that has led them to two of the last four Champions League finals, they will need Griezmann to be at the top of his game.
Upcoming matches (All Times CT):
Wednesday, Nov. 29:
6:30 p.m.- Toronto FC vs. Columbus Crew SC (FS1)
9:00 p.m.- América vs. Tigres (Univision Deportes)
Thursday, Nov. 30:
7:30 p.m.- Morelia vs. Monterrey (Univision Deportes)
9:30 p.m.- Seattle Sounders FC vs. Houston Dynamo (ESPN)
Friday, Dec. 1:
1:20 p.m.- Freiburg vs. Hamburg (FS2)
Saturday, Dec. 2:
6 a.m. - Barcelona vs. Celta Vigo (beIN Sports)
8:30 a.m. - Bayern Munich vs. Hannover 96 (FS1)
8:30 a.m. - Leverkusen vs. Dortmund (FS2)
10 a.m. - Strasbourg vs. PSG (beIN Sports)
1:45 p.m. - Bilbao vs. Real Madrid (beIN Sports)
11:30 a.m. - Arsenal vs. Manchester United (NBC)
11:30 a.m. - Schalke vs. Cologne (FS2)
7 p.m.- Tigres vs. América (Univision Deportes)
Sunday, Dec. 3:
8 a.m. - Bournemouth vs. Southampton (NBC Sports)
10 a.m. - Manchester City vs. West Ham (NBC Sports)
6 p.m.- Monterrey vs. Morelia (Univision Deportes)
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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.