THE RETURN OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUES (article in English and Español)

After the Champions and Uefa Cup´s games with the tremendous FC Barcelona´s spectacle –again the Pep Guardiola's team arrived to the half time of the game with a 4-0 in the score-, the national leagues return with easy games for the important and big teams and besides with the decisive and attractive Istanbul´s derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.
As we said, the teams, which are playing to be the National Champion in each league, have comfortable games and for example in Spain, FC Barcelona will receive Recreativo Huelva on Saturday at 20.00 CET-¿will be it another 4-0 at half time?- and Real Madrid will play against Real Valladolid on Sunday at 17:00 CET. The same circumstance will be in other championships, since Liverpool FC will receive Blackburn Rovers at Anfield Road on Saturday at 13.45 c.e.t, or Manchester United will play at Sunderland on Saturday at 16.00 c.e.t –, or Olympique Lyon will play against AS Monaco on Sunday at 18.45 c.e.t-it could be a great weekend for the Claude Puel's team because its rival, Olympique Marseille can have a complicated game after its Uefa Thursday´s game and besides other Lyon´s rivals, OSC Lille and PSG will have a direct duel-.

So, as these European championships do not have attractive games, I think that the attention will be at Istanbul with the decisive derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. It is a decisive game, because we can say that a defeat will mean to say goodbye to the Lig title-although the Turkish Süper Lig is “crazy” and anything is possible in any game- because after this weekend, the teams will play only 7 more games and the looser will have an important gap with the leaders of the championship Besiktas-yesterday it won 1-3 at Kocaelispor(Agbetu scored for Kocaelispor and Zapotocny, Bobo and Simsek for Besiktas) and Sivasspor. To this derby, the teams arrive at a different moment, because on the one hand, Galatasaray seems that it is accusing the injured of Servet Cetin and the departure of Fernando Meira to Zenit St. Petersburg and it is showing defensive problems during the last games and in fact it has won only 1 game in last 3 played –it drawn the game played against Trabzonspor(2-2), it beat Gaziantepspor (0-1) and it lost the game played at Ali Sami Yen against Eskisehirspor (0-1)-. On the other hand, Fenerbahçe is living a good time, especially if we refer to its level of play, since maybe we saw the best Fenerbahçe of the season during the last 2 games, showing seriousness, good mentality and order and the defeat at Bursa can be described as a mere accident, since the team played well and the only problem was its last minutes of the game when the players committed some defensive mistakes and besides it suffered an hesitant penalty in the last play of the game during a Yildirim´s play. Furthermore Luis Aragones has good news, since finally we are seeing the best Dani Güiza of the season and it seems that he has recovered his smell to score goals and in fact he scored in the last 2 games played with Fenerbahçe and besides he was decisive with his play in the game between Turkey and Spain. So, finally it seems that he is thinking in football and not in his “girls affaires” and he starts to assume the responsibility in the important moments as this Sunday´s game at Ali Sami Yen (at 18.00 c.e.t), where his team will need his best performance to supply the absence of the brilliant Brazilian star Alex, who has muscular problems and until the last minute his presence will be hesitant. Absences:
Galatasaray: Servet Cetin and Tobias Linderoth. Hesitant: Shabani Nonda
Fenerbahçe: Edu Dracena; hesitant: Alex
Finally, we will make our prediction of the Spanish League´s games, where the attention will be in the relegation´s zone, where we will see crucial game as the duel between Numancia and Espanyol Barcelona, which will try to win the game and to reduce the gap with Getafe, Recreativo de Huelva or Real Betis, which have complicated games. This is our prediction:

Saturday:

20.00 FC Barcelona-Recreativo Huelva 4-1

22.00 Villarreal CF-Malaga CF 3-1

Sunday at 17.00:

Racing Santander-Real Betis 1-1

Real Mallorca-Almeria 1-1

Real Madrid-Real Valladollid 3-0

Sporting Gijón-Valencia CF 1-2

Numancia-RCD Espanyol 1-2

Osasuna-Athletic Bilbao 2-1
Sunday at 19.00
Sevilla CF-Getafe 2-0
Sunday at 21.00
Deportivo Coruña-Atlético Madrid 2-2

Good luck!!

Cheers,

J&F