Atletico Madrid are close to completing the signing of highly-rated Brazilian striker Keirrison, according to [url=http://www.as.com/futbol/articulo/futbol-pitarch-brasil-ver-directo/dasftb/20090121dasdaiftb_44/TesAS[/url.

not the greatest of games at lluis companys (montjuic). still 0-0 half way through 2nd half.
it amazes me how good gudjonsen's touch is. he still looks really good on the ball.

Well Malaga have priced the cheapest ticket at €100, so I'll now be watching it on the box!

how on earth can they justify that?

so i take it only season ticket holders and lottery winners for that one then

Copa Del Rey QF first leg results:

Espanyol 0-0 Barcelona
Valencia 3-2 Sevilla
Athletic 0-0 Sporting
Mallorca 1-0 Betis

So all to play for going into the second legs. Sevilla's two away goals could be the deciding factor next week, while Mauricio Pochettino's first game in charge yielded a decent result against Barcelona, who rested a number of players but, well, they're still Barcelona aren't they? A little surprised Athletic, given their form, couldn't take an advantage over Sporting at home.

betis were shocking against mallorca's reserves and athletic were short on ideas

Saturday 24 January
Villarreal v Osasuna 19.00
Barcelona v Numancia 21.00

Sunday 25 January
Almeria v Athletic Bilbao 16.00
Getafe v Sporting Gijon 16.00
Malaga v Atletico Madrid 16.00 game of the week
Mallorca v Valencia 16.00
Recreativo Huelva v Real Betis 16.00
Valladolid v Espanyol 16.00
Sevilla v Racing Santander 18.00
Real Madrid v Deportivo La Coruna 20.00

After a week of turmoil behind the scenes, Juande Ramos now has the task of focusing the minds of his players away from events off the pitch. Ramos has stabilized Los Merengues and they will fancy their chances on Sunday evening against a Deportivo La Coruna side that has lost their last four and desperately wants to stay in touch with the European spots. If they harbour any title ambitions, Real must defeat a team who have in recent seasons become a real bogey outfit for them.

Barcelona, who were held 0-0 midweek by struggling Espanyol in the cup, welcome Numancia to the Camp Nou – the only side to have beaten them in the league this season. Alves, Eto’o and Henry, rested on Wednesday, will return and the odds are heavily stacked against the team from Soria repeating their first-round exploits. Elsewhere on Saturday, Manuel Pellegrini will look to continue his team’s gradual recovery as they host bottom side Osasuna. Los Rojillos are 7 points from safety and need to start picking points up from somewhere – though El Madrigal is never an easy place to go.

On Sunday, 3rd place Sevilla play Racing, two sides in good form of late with Nikola Zigic having rediscovered his goalscoring touch since rejoining the side from Cantabria. Valencia, who trail Sevilla by four points, will want to heap as much pressure on them as possible by taking maximum points from their trip across the Mediterranean while Atletico Madrid will want to reverse their wretched 2009 run with a victory at in-form Malaga – with or without Asim’s presence!

Another side in prime nick, Athletic, travel to Almeria, a side who could be sucked into the drop zone if they aren’t careful. Mauricio Pochettino’s first league game in charge of Espanyol is a trip to Valladolid – he’ll be hoping the hosts’ press the self destruct button like they did last week against Betis. Speaking of them, they make the short trip to Recreativo – bet you wouldn’t pay to watch that – and completing the line-up Getafe host Sporting Gijon, a team who have incredibly reached the halfway stage without recording a single draw.

madrid sniffing round agüero.
good to see guardiola not taking any cr@p from eto'o.
betis give up their bid to sign oliveira saying zaragoza are asking for too much.

Surprised Man City haven't been sniffing around Oliviera. He is a proven goalscorer and can't be too happy playing in the second division.

bugg@r that. id be straight in after agüero. absolutely fantastic player.

Saviola wants out of Real after falling down the pecking order. Portsmouth are reportedly interested.

the little fella's been on sulk duty for the past 4 years

average 1-1 draw at the madrigal.
barça have been all over numancia but couldn't get the goal in the first half. pep's half-time talk has had an effect as they are currently 2-0 up with only 10 minutes played in the 2nd half. hopefully this will make numancia change their formation of 9-0-1.

i say the same every week... messi! wow!

I'm surprised Man City haven't been linked with a £85893493m offer for Messi. They've been linked with outrageous bids for every other quality player.

turned out to be a very ordinary affair... and i was so close to going for the draw!!
performance of the week has to go to either mallorca or getafe.
fingers crossed depor can produce something special tonight but i can't see anything other than a real madrid victory.
i'll go 2-0

completely forgot about raqcing's excellent away win at sevilla!


not many teams will go there and keep a clean sheet.

and look out for malaga's goal and the header that gave recreativo the 1-0 win over betis

I'm so chuffed with that win at Sevilla, which was no thanks to the referee. Oscar Serrano's tackle was bad, I am freely admitting that, but there is absolutely no way it was a red card. If you're going to send players off for that teams will regularly go down to 7 men in matches. Such inconsistency blights the game. If anything though his dismissal galvanised us, and we scored from two set pieces. Sevilla barely turned up and Luis Fabiano looks in wretched form. I thought Jiminez had done a good job up till now but many more performances like that and Sevilla fans will get their wish and he'll be gone.

Almeria 2 Athletic Bilbao 1
Getafe 5 Sporting Gijon 1
Malaga 1 Atletico Madrid 1
Mallorca 3 Valencia 1
Real Madrid 1 Deportivo La Coruna 0
Recreativo Huelva 1 Real Betis 0
Sevilla 0 Racing Santander 2
Valladolid 1 Espanyol 1
Barcelona 4 Numancia 1
Villarreal 1 Osasuna 1

Well that was an interesting weekend. Barca show no signs of letting up eventually breaking down Numancia. Barkero's free kick was brilliant for the visitors but other than that they were simply overwhelmed by another terrific display. Elsewhere on Saturday Osasuna came away from Castellon with a point after Giuseppe Rossi had given Villarreal the lead.

On Sunday, Real Madrid unconvincingly squeezed past Deportivo through a single Raul goal but it still means they are 12 points behind the league leaders. Sevilla's lacklustre display at home to Racing could cost them dear in the race to shore up a top 4 spot, but it proved not to hurt them in the short term as Atletico could only draw in Malaga and Valencia went down 3-1 in Mallorca which must surely go down as the shock of the weekend.

Performance of the weekend comes from Getafe, who won 5-1 at home to Sporting Gijon thanks to a hat-trick from Roberto Soldado. Gijon are simply haemorraging goals and this habit will drag them down to the bottom 3. Elsewhere there were crucial wins for Recreativo (Camunas carrying their s as usual) and Almeria in the fight to pull away from the drop zone and Espanyol grabbed a morale-boosting point at Valladolid.

id say mallorca for beating valencia after their terrible run. sporting are paff.

I tipped them and Numancia to go down alongside Recreativo and I'd say I'm on track to get 2/3 right.

Surprised about Valencia losing.

They must have heard that you were going to make in game of the round



Instead of emptying my savings account I took in Granada vs Melilla in Segunda B instead - there was some suprisingly good stuff played although it wasn't at much of a tempo, at €10 a ticket it was slightly easier on the pocket too!

formerly ciudad de murcia