Weekend Listings February 16-17

February 15, 2013

Tavern Weekend time. Which player is going to make waves in Europe this weekend?

All times are set for US Eastern Standard Time. TV broadcast networks are US based and streaming should be available internationally.

The televised games:

SATURDAY

German Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen vs. Augsburg 9:30 a.m. GolTV
Koo Ja-Cheol is injured and may be out for this match. Ji Dong-Won expected to start.

Spanish La Liga, Getafe vs. Celta Vigo 10 a.m. beInSport Espanyol

Not sure of Park Chu-Young‘s status, but I’m going to guess that he will start, and here’s why: Park Chu-Young became the first Korean to score in La Liga back in September at the Baliados, and the team he scored against?  Getafe.

SUNDAY

English Premier League, Liverpool vs. Swansea City 10 a.m. Fox Soccer Plus, foxsoccer2go.com       Ki Sung-Yeung expected to start, though boss Ladrup may start rotating players in preparation for the League Cup final next week.

And the non US televised matches:

SATURDAY

English Championship, Cardiff vs Bristol City, 8 am.  Last weekend, Kim Bo-Kyung was subbed off at halftime against Huddersfield and Tavern contributor CJay was at the match. “[Kim] was our finest player in the first half. Producing much of the same kind of play as we have come to expect from him, controlling the ball well, picking the correct passes and never losing possession. I feel he has adjusted to a slightly more physical style of play and he is certainly putting more tackles in than when he first started to play. Unfortunately I think he received an injury just before half time and had to be subbed.”   Consequently, analysts don’t believe Kim will be in action on Saturday. Cardiff sits atop the division with 11 points separation – exciting as it is an unsurmountable lead in their quest for promotion.

German Bundesliga, Fortuna Dusseldorf vs Gruether Furth, 9:30am.  Ok, so what if Gruether Furth is likely to go down the relegation drain, at least Wolfsburg loanee Park Jung-Bin has been getting some playing time despite his youthful age of 18. He’s been impressive, even if he hasn’t scored yet.

UPDATE: it’s official – Cha Du-Ri’s contract with Fortuna Dusseldorf was terminated. By mutual agreement, yesterday’s news was the sad eventual conclusion to Cha’s meandering experiment with returning to the Bundesliga. The weird thing about this is while Cha wasn’t necessarily setting the Bundesliga on fire this season, the veteran defender/midfielder played competently enough to get some consistent minutes as a substitute, and could have continued to have a role with club -had it not been for some bizarre ‘extended field trips’ to Korea recently. We’re not privy to all the details, but Cha may have had some family problems related to his wife’s refusal to move to Germany. Cha asked for and received an extended leave of absence to clear up a family situation during the winter break. He never returned and is still in South Korea, thus the termination of contract. The son of legendary forward Cha Bum-Kun could still try to play in Europe if he can find a team to pick him up in the summer. Save that, he could try to play in the K-League Classic during the current transfer window before the season begins in March.

German Bundesliga, Hamburg vs Borussia M’Gladbach9:30am. Son Heung-Min has been tearing it up lately, registering another brace last weekend at Borussia Dortmund. We posted yesterday about his cracking open the AP Top 10 to be the 7th best in the week (Leo Messi ahead in the 4th spot as a reference point). SKS blog talked about the conundrum of Son somehow not fitting into the Taeguk Warriors system yet. You can read about that here.

English Championship, Nottingham Forest vs Bolton, 10 am.  Lee Chung-Yong recorded a fine assist last weekend in their 2-1 victory over Burnsley. He’s got in 5 goals so far (4 in league, 1 in the FA Cup against Sunderland), can he get another one in?

SUNDAY

Swiss Super League, Lausanne vs. FC Basel, 7:45 am. Left back Park Joo-Ho played 90 minutes yesterday in a Europa League clash against Sporting Lisbon. The Swiss side kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 victory. He might be in action again on Sunday.

 

Portuguese Liga, Maritimo vs. Estoril, 11 am. Since transferring in from FC Groningen, Suk Hyun-Jun has secured a spot in Maritimo’s starting XI. That paid off for his new Portugese side last weekend, his quick reflexed header in the early stages of the game against Sporting Lisbon was the eventual game winner. Maritimo is currently 7th in the table.

 

QPR players Park Ji-Sung and Yun Suk-Young won’t be seeing any action this week with no games scheduled this weekend.

UPDATE: We go to France for a Ligue2 result. Today, forward Kim Kyung-Jung played 90 minutes for Caen in a 1-1 draw with LeMans. Caen holds the 3rd place in the table, the last automatic qualifying spot for promotion to Ligue1.

LATE LATE UPDATE: Looking over today at the BSK forum, I couldn’t help but notice a neat score from a Jeonbuk Motors pre-season friendly that took place last Saturday. Jeonbuk Motors is gearing up for a new K-League Classic season and another run at the Asian Champions League. They’re training in Brazil and set up that friendly with Santos last weekend. Yes, that Santos – Pele’s old club and currently the one with Neymar on the squad. The team came away with a 1-2 victory. One of the posters who goes by Jitvera sent word about the result up on the forum, including pictures of Jeonbuk player Lee Jae-Myung going head to head with Santos’ Neymar. Neymar vs Lee Jae-Myung

Another poster going by the handle CoreanBoy671 found this nifty youtube video put out by Santos on the event. One can’t take too much from a pre-season friendly, but still, Jeonbuk Motors can take that special bragging rights straight into the opening round of the K-League Classic start up in March. 

About Roy Ghim 454 Articles
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