Clint Dempsey and Fulham aren't challenging for a European place, and are more concerned with avoiding relegation, but the FA Cup is still the club's best chance at glory and the Cottagers will need to knock off mighty Tottenham today to keep that dream alive.
Fulham-Tottenham headlines the day's FA Cup offerings, with Arsenal taking on Huddersfield Town in a battle of powerhouse vs. minnow.
Serie A has plenty of action, with Scudetto challengers Napoli and Roma both in action, along with Inter Milan.
If you're up for some nostalgia, Sao Paulo takes on Santos today in a clash of Brazilian powerhouses, and in a match that should feature the Sao Paulo debut of legendary Brazilian star Rivaldo.
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):
TODAY'S SOCCER ON TV
6:30am- Fox Soccer Plus- Brescia vs. Chievo Verona
7am- Fox Soccer Channel- Arsenal vs. Huddersfield Town (FA Cup)
9am- Fox Soccer Channel- Inter Milan vs. Palermo
9am- ESPN3.com- Bologna vs. AS Roma
9am- ESPN3.com- Napoli vs. Sampdoria
9am- Fox Soccer Plus- Notts County vs. Manchester City
11am- GolTV- Atletico Madrid vs. Athletic Bilbao
11am- FoxSoccer.tv- Bordeaux vs. Nice
11am- FoxSoccer.tv- Nancy vs. Montpellier
11:30am- Fox Soccer Channel- Fulham vs. Tottenham (FA Cup)
11:30am- ESPN3.com- Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Borussia Moenchengladbach
1pm- GolTV- Osasuna vs. Real Madrid
1pm- Azteca America- Morelia vs. San Luis
1pm- Telemundo- UNAM Pumas vs. Monterrey
2:45pm- Fox Soccer Channel- Juventus vs. Udinese
3pm- Fox Soccer Plus- Monaco vs. Marseille
3pm- ESPN3.com- Espanyol vs. Villarreal
3pm- GolTV- Santos vs. Sao Paulo
—————-
Anyone up watching Arsenal in the FA?
Dempsey with the hat-trick today. Make it so DEUCE
I guess Fulham will let EJ ride out his $2 million a year contract in May. Hope he can head back to a club in Greece or try Holland or Turkey.
When is Findley going to start playing? Is he still having problem with paper works or is he just not able to make it to the 18 yet? He’s been granted that work permit for 16 days now.
whow what a match. needed cesc to inspire the team for a 2-1 win but huddersfield surprised me with their quality, was expecting more direct rugby kicks.
shame nasri came up lame in the first and i hoped this would be the match arshavin figured it out but alas up and down performance.
up Arsenal!
Eintracht Frankfurt v. ‘Gladbach? Great! No wonder espn3 has this game. Get to watch Clark against Bradley…err…ummm….
Maybe they should send those announcers to Egypt instead, to get ready to cover the Egypt-US friendly……
There will be no friendly in Cairo…not too there at the moment.
And Bradley is in England. Where have you been?
And Clarke is out with a cheeckbone fracture.
What part of “…err…ummm…” didn’t you understand?
Ives:
Two off topic questions, but I needed to get these thoughts out before I forgot to ask.
1.) How is Agbossmounde’s trial going? Has he been signed to a deal yet?
2.) Excuse my French, but sh*t is hitting the fan in Egypt. Any word on if the Feb. 9th friendly will get canceled or postponed?
Thanks and props to you and the staff as always on a wonderful job.
How does Palermo just absolutely collapse in the second half? Everything that could go wrong is going wrong for them
You have absolutely no sense of humor or any ability to detect sarcasm and irony.
I believe he was being sarcastic. But in alternate Universe B, Clark would have started for FRankfurt against Bradley and both would have scored to tie the match 1-1.
BTW I think every US fan in the universe followed Bradley’s suprise loan to AV.
They could hold it on neutral ground, but i don’t think it’s gonna happen in Egypt. Maybe Israel?
Edu with a goal in today’s cup tie. Game is at halftime, maybe he can bag another?
# GOAL FOR RANGERS! Edu smacks a delicious shot into the net from 25 yards out. Superb, fine. No chance for the Motherwell keeper.
Dempsey draws a penalty
Dempsey draws a pk!
Dempsey draws a spot kick! Murphy buries…1-0
and Murphy converts it.
And Murphy puts it away
And again??
Well, Fulham “should” be in good shape now.
WOW Tottenham is having all kinds of trouble with Dempsey and Murphy!
Damn it that 2nd PK should gone to Dempsey!
(Yells with hanging US Jersey and Dempsey Fulham Jersey before they switched to Kappa)
Dempsey off the top of the Crossbar…
Murphy hadn’t scored all season and then twice in 2 minutes.
This Athletic Bilbao/ Atletico Madrid game is very entertaining….Llorente misses a pk and forlan misses a complete sitter wide…doesn’t happen very often
Deuce is completely dominating this game, yet the announcers barely take note of him.
Not much point in neutral ground, especially since very few Egyptians would go willingly to Israel
Shame Dempsey didn’t take either of the PK’s. Murphy was really thanking him for the 1st. Hope Dempsey scores. Dembele has had chances but has failed.
When Zamora comes back, Dembele will be “super-sub”
that shirt tug by dawson was brief- a little harsh but obvious i suppose.
This has become a laugher..sure Spurs are down a man..but even before that their Defense has been at sea. Dempsey, Dembele, Duff, and Johnson are running riot…
22 minutes in and Gomez’s kit looks like he has been through a war lol
Here is my xenophobic take: English (and most european) commentators do not wish to accept that Americans play well. As a result, you only hear when they play poorly.
With the exception of Holden, think of the good tactical games US players have had – no credit. Think of US players on poor teams – the US players is always the worst of the bunch, like Spector at West Ham.
thought bendtner was a little better today. definitely showed some glimpses of hope. Same from Arshavin too. Wish the ‘b’ side could have come up with the win on their own today though. Shame about Nasri…
Am I the only one that find that amusing? I thought the same thing but just now was thinking, why are such amateurish misses come off as great or entertaining? LOL
Must be the pace of it and the back and forth it’s given the game?
I am a bit disappointed by Sidwell’s play so far. Had hoped that he would strengthen Fullhan’s midfield but 30+ minutes gone by and I think he may have touched the ball twice and should have been called for a card once. This when Fulham totally dominating possession….hum….
Whatever happened to Salcido?
I don’t agree 100%, however to add fuel to the fire Holden was born in Scotland and that may be a reason.
Now to be fair Sepctor was horrible.
I see he was playing today be was he injured or something?
shut up you’re talking out of your @ss, Dempsey gets praised week in week out
just out of favor after having a couple shocking performances
Salcido did pretty well for the first month he joined. He assisted on 2 goals of Dempsey’s I believe. Unsure if fans would rather have Konchesky but Salcido is a decent player for sure.
He did have a minor injury..but also has been quite poor this year. Great crosses..but terrible on D
WOW, this is funny
hmmm. . .
Dembele probably should have passed that ball to Dempsey, but what a shot. This game is hysterical.
this was supposed to be a reply to ChristheLSUTiger…guess I could change my name to JStheMSUBulldog…always good to see a fellow SEC fan
Thanks to Rob for the civilized response (thanks to 20 for the opposite).
How about this for an example in support of my comment: Lichaj plays great and basically took Bale out of the game when Villa played Tottenham – very little notice by the commentators (we played it up very well here on SBI).
The next week he did not play well and was blamed for all sorts of problems in the Villa defense, when in reality he was left exposed and bare on many occassions. I am not defending his poor play (nor Spectors), but they weren’t always the worst of the bunch.
Update on the Boss man if anyone is interested:
link to wn.com
His trial ends Jan 31st so a decision on his situation should take place very soon
Anyone else notice how often Dembele ignores Dempsey? It’s like he knows Dempsey will finish and he threatens his job security or something. Just speculation
Are you tuned in now — a while they’re talking about what a bargain Dempsey was? I”m sure you can tweak you’re theory to encompass this….
Why do people invest.waste so much emotion and energy into complaining about game commentators?
Not sure if this has been posted yet, here’s Edu’s sick left-footed blast from today. get it while it’s up:
link to youtube.com
Just nonsense. NOthing would threaten Dembele’s job security more than sucking.
Thanks for that link. Coach spoke pretty well of him, though one of the first things he said was that he’s not in great shape. That’s unfortunate, since Gale is an athletic monster; if he could have found a way to show up in game shape!
I heard he was approved for everything, but had to come back to the states to finalize the paperwork. I’m looking out for him too, can’t wait to hear about him playing.
UAE isn’t far from there, neither is Saudi Arabia. I don’t see why Algeria wouldn’t be an option either.
Gutted about Nasri. He’ll likely miss Barca, making Mission Impossible even more so.
Also worried that it always takes Cesc to get us up off the mat. If/when he’s not available, we are not even close to being the same team.
Dude, that was the point!
Again to be fair they paid £1.5 mil for Dempsey, that’s a bargain for any player that plays average at best.
Oh and there is way more vitriol towards Dempsey, than praise historically speaking. Why? May be more to do with the fact he looks slow when he plays, then him being American.
Ugg sorry typing fast on a phone, bad grammar :-p
It be safer on the field in Egypt than being on the field in Algeria. Don’t forget the soccer rivalry those 2 countries have.
brilliant performance Fulham
Nah, he’s just selfish. He basically never plays the ball first time, always taking an absurd amount of touches before either losing it, or playing a dead-end pass into traffic. He is more than happy to let everyone else make runs off the ball to open up space for himself.
Last I heard he was going on loan to Djurgarden in Sweden.
I think Andy Johnson gets thet shaft instead of Dembele.
Lots of stories coming out of Turkey in the past 24 hours alleging Altidore may be on his way to Bursaspor. Don’t know how I feel about this just yet. As long as he gets some quality PT, I guess… But I remember saying the same thing when he was off to Hull last year…
Devastating loss for Real Madrid today. 7 points behind Barca now and I don’t see a way back. I wonder if the ongoing clash between Valdano and Mourinho is taking a toll. Regardless, no excuse. Hopefully they can win the Copa del Rey and Champions League before Jose heads back to England.
Ha we can start a Mourinho to coach USMNT rumor again, as well.
Rossi with a blast wow!…I wish he would’ve played for us …
I believe they won the league last year…. But I am reading the same and was about to see if Ives knows anything….
And I know, but Freddy Adu has been moved to Rizepor in Turkey as well.
Supposedly!
Ummm they’re struggling against weaker teams in La Liga and were inches away from being tied at halftime vs Atletico, what makes you think Real has what it takes to beat the teams should face in Champions League after and IF they beat whomever they play in the round of 16 for a change since they haven’t done that in like 8 years? You really think they can beat the likes of Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Man Utd, Barcelona, Marseille or even AC Milan in a home and away match up with no Higuain? Adebayor who has like no CL experience and a bad rift between Mgr and Club exec?
They’ll probably beat Atletico at the Bernabeu but they can’t beat Barca in that Spanish Cup Final
One game does not a great player make. Bornstein shut down Messi so bad in the 2007 Copa America that he moved to the other side in the second half.
A) Note the adverb “hopefully” and B) where did I say “this season”? Unless he is fired, Mourinho will stay for a second year. His ego will now allow him to leave without winning trophies.
They are capable of beating every team on the planet, Higuain or no Higuain. Their problems are purely the result of mental lapses and a lack of cohesion.
My guess is that you are a Barca fan who watches very little Spanish soccer and none of Madrid’s games.
Madrid can certainly beat any team at any time. My problem with the team is that, unlike Barca, the team seems to be in constant flux. The core of the team changes every six months and it takes time for a team to gel.
Agreed. It starts with the front office — I am tired of all the coaching changes. Valdano and Perez do not seem to know much about how to assemble a balanced team. Has there ever been a top five club that went into a season with only two (one and a half?) viable forwards?
All of the posters below are talking out of their a$$!!!
After a couple of back to backs about two months ago, Salcido was rested, and incredibly his sub, I think his name is Baird scored two goals on that match. So obviously they thought they had found the chicken that lays the golden eggs. But obviously that was just a fluke, and after a several lackluster games the trainer reverted to him, and after today’s overall performance from the whole team he’ll no doubt hold on to this starting 11!
Well first off, my bad -100000 for not taking into account that you said before Mourinho leaves.
But for you to “guess” I don’t watch many Spanish league games is not only wrong it’s a pretty poor attempt at you trying to guess what I watch.
La Liga is my favorite league, closely followed by EPL because of the US nats and then Serie A for top 8 teams and Love Bundesliga.
Higuain is the only guy on that roster that has consistently scored when the team has been under pressure, not that he’s always done it because for example vs Lyon AT HOME in last year’s CL match, he missed a kind of a sitter hit the pole I think.
Last guy to score on Barca too!
Benzema & Ozil can’t even run with Osasuna or Villareal, they will get schooled by Barca among others. Think what you want, reality is this team blows some easy teams, but then struggles vs Almeria? And gets calls 8 out 10 times every game in Spain
If I were a Madrid fan, I too would be angry with the front office. Right now I can sit back and enjoy the carnival.
Injury problems according to an interview by ESPN Deportes.