Weekend TV Preview: April 3 - 5

(All times - UK)

Friday 3 April

19.30 Arminia Bielefeld v FC Schalke 04, Bundesliga, Setanta Sports 1
Bielefeld are in danger of ending their five season stay in the top flight. Losing here could see them fall into the drop zone with a resurgent 'Gladbach having a very winnable trip to Karlsruhe on Sunday.

Saturday 4 April

11.00 Jubilo Iwata v FC Tokyo, J-League, British Eurosport 2
Jubilo just escaped relegation last season having to survive an end of term play-off to maintain their J-League status. This season has started just as bad, losing their first home match 2-6 (六) to Montedio Yamagata and gaining just a point from their first three games. Tokyo haven't started much better losing their first two but do now have a win under their obis.

12.30 Dundee United v Hibernian, Scottish Premier League, Setanta Sports 1
Hibs need a win against the side one place above them to avoid falling into the bottom half of the table before the 'Clausura' begins. In a twist of fate both Hibs and Motherwell (currently behind on just goal difference) play Rangers and St Mirren in their final two games before the split.

12.45 Blackburn Rovers v Tottenham Hotspur, Premier League Sky Sports 1/HD1
Such is the way of the Premier League this season that Spurs have gone from being relegation battlers to Europa League contenders in a matter of weeks. Blackburn will be hoping that old boy Alan Shearer will crash and burn at Newcastle as everyone wants... I mean 'expects'.

17.20 Bristol City v Preston North End, Championship, Sky Sports 1/HD1
Two teams sat just outside the play-offs but currently looking more likely to slip further down than challenge for places. Expect a desperate scrap from two teams struggling to find form.

17.30 Fulham v Liverpool, Premier League, Setanta Sports 1
The international break couldn't have come at a worse time for Liverpool with them building up almost unstoppable momentum while the leaders wobbled. Fulham have had their say in the title race, but they won't do it twice in a row, will they? Will they? Well, no.


Chris O: Draw; Sp3ktor: Away win; Seb: Away win; Duffman: Away win.

19.00 Valladolid v Barcelona, La Liga, Sky Sports 2
Still some way before tiempo del culo chirriante but Barca will need to hold at least the six point lead they have for a while yet. Shouldn't have a problem against a Valladolid side whose season is already comfortably complete.

21.00 Malaga v Real Madrid, La Liga, Sky Sports 2
Malaga are one of four teams on 43 points scrapping for the two Europa League spots. Real will be looking to maintain pressure on Barcelona, and most probably will.

Sunday 5 April

11.00 Cardiff City v Swansea City, Championship, Sky Sports 1/HD1
Huge South Wales derby. Probably a load of trouble too, hence the sparrow's fart kick-off. No other teams have lost fewer games in the Championship than these two, however no other teams have drawn more than these two - so how do you think this will end up?


Chris O: Draw; Sp3ktor: Draw; Seb: Away win; Duffman: Draw.

11.30 Roda JC v Ajax, Eredivisie, Setanta Sports 2
Roda have been in the top level of Dutch football for 35 seasons but that could all come to an end if they can't get themselves out of the relegation zone in the last six games. Ajax currently sit third, outside of the Champs' League spots, three points behind Twente (yes, his Twente).

13.15 Luton Town v Scunthorpe United, Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final, Sky Sports 1/HD1
Ah, the Full Members' Trophy live from Wembley. Full members of the Football League is something Luton Town definitely won't be come May.


Chris O: Scunthorpe; Sp3ktor: Scunthorpe; Seb: Luton; Duffman: Luton.

14.00 Falkirk v Rangers, Scottish Premier League, Setanta Sports 1
Though bottom of the table Falkirk registered a 4-0 win against Caley Thistle last time out, the chances of the same thing happening today are even more remote than Bolivia putting six past Argentina.

16.00 Manchester United v Aston Villa, Premier League, Sky Sports 1/HD1
The very definition of 'squeaky bum time'. Villa haven't won since the days when Ugg followed his invention of Hot and Burny with his next success titled Round and Rolly. United come into the game having lost two in a row and have Scholes, Vidic and Rooney missing with suspensions. The schadenfreude match of the weekend. Factoid: Manchester United last lost three Premier League games in a row in Nov/Dec 2001 to Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham.


Chris O: Home win; Sp3ktor: Draw; Seb: Home win; Duffman: Home win.

19.00 Valencia v Getafe, La Liga, Sky Sports 1 (2nd half only)
According to figures published recently Valencia are €550 million in the hole and getting deeper by the day. On the pitch things are looking decidely ordinary as their journey down to mid-table continues. A shop window for the expected fire sale in the summer.

20.00 Sporting Gijon v Racing Santander, La Liga, Sky Sports 1
Both teams hold the mid-table positions but could still easily get sucked into the relegation fight being just four points clear with ten games to go.

20.00 St Etienne v Marseille, Ligue 1, Setanta Sports 2
Marseille know a lot about invading personal space. They've been breathing down Lyon's neck for what seems to be an age. St Etienne are third from bottom but in a huge pack of awful clubs seemingly just as eager to go down. Wow, I managed a St Etienne preview without mentioning Sarah Cracknell... oh, damn!

World Cup 2010 Round-up: South America

Well there's really no other place to start than with Bolivia's monumental 6-1 thrashing of Argentina yesterday. One shudders to think what kind of odds you'd have got on that at your local bookmakers before the game, given that Bolivia are and were next to bottom in the table.

It's a scoreline which has sent shockwaves around the world and is a genuinely great achievement on the part of the victors. It's the first time Argentina have lost by five goals since their 5-0 home defeat to Colombia in 1993 and the first time they've let in six since Czechoslovakia beat them 6-1 in the 1958 World Cup Finals.

Bolivia resorted to their oft-used tactic of hitting plenty of long range shots which, when coupled with the altitude and bobbly pitch in the Hernando Silas Stadium, La Paz, can produce all manner of different outcomes. So it turned out to be as Joaquin Botero hit a hat-trick and his team-mates Marcelo Martins, Alex Da Rosa and Didi Torrico all stumped up one each to end Diego Maradona's 100% record as Argentina's coach.

That defeat allowed Chile to overtake them in the group after a 3-1 win over bottom club Peru at the weekend and a goalless draw with Uruguay yesterday. Chile are now undefeated in three but will find it hard to maintain that run when they face group leaders Paraguay in their next match.

The Albirroja found their lead over Brazil halved to just three points after a very poor showing this week. A 2-0 defeat to Uruguay at the weekend was a surprise in itself, but they nearly lost a second away to Ecuador yesterday and were only saved by an Edgar Benitez equaliser three minutes into stoppage time at the end of the game.

With everyone else failing to find any kind of consistency it was down to the Brazilians to capitalise by maintaining their plodding progress of late. At the weekend, however, they were outclassed for much of their game against Ecuador and would have lost were it not for some goalkeeping heroics from Inter Milan's Julio Cesar. A 1-1 draw ensued and was thus followed by a far more comfortable encounter against bottom team Peru that ended in a 3-0 for Dunga's side.

Outside of the top four, Uruguay predictably maintained the play-off spot by picking up four points out of six this week while Colombia did what Argentina couldn't by beating Bolivia 2-0. At the other end of the table, Peru were the only team not to pick up a point in either of their two games and are now five points adrift of the nearest team, Bolivia.

The final part of our round-up takes in the CONCACAF region, Asia and Africa so join us soon for that.

World Cup 2010 Round-up: Europe

With such a huge number of World Cup qualifiers taking place over this last week, we thought we'd split our round-up into three parts so you don't enter a life-threatening torpor via one huge single article. So let's start with...

Europe

...where it was business as usual for most of the top teams. Germany continue to cruise along at the top of Group 4 thanks to comfortable wins over Liechtenstein and Wales (4-0 and 2-0 respectively) but their lead over Russia remains at four points. That's because Guus Hiddink's men also earned a maximum six points from their two games, albeit unconvincingly thanks to a 2-0 win over Azerbaijan and a feeble 1-0 over Liechtenstein.

In Group 5, the double header featured teams playing in home-and-away pairings. Spain's great run of form continued with a 1-0 win over Turkey and a 2-1 win in Istanbul (the latter featuring goals from Alonso and Riera) while Bosnia-Herzegovina moved up to second place in the table thanks to a couple of wins against the Belgians. Despite a promising start, Belgium now slip to fourth place below Turkey.

The Dutch now have a huge eight-point lead at the top of Group 9 and are achingly close to confirming their place in the Finals. A competent 3-0 victory over the Scots and a 4-0 win over Macedonia both featured goals from Klaas Huntelaar and Dirk Kuyt with Robin Van Persie and Rafael Van Der Vaart making single contributions of their own.

That means the Netherlands have won all five of their matches thus far and if they beat Iceland in June, their place at World Cup 2010 will be assured.

Also proudly boasting five wins out of five in Group 6 are England, thanks to last night's 2-1 win over Ukraine. John Terry was on hand to grab a late goal with the game heading for a draw after Peter Crouch and Andriy Shevchenko had scored earlier on. That means England have a five-point lead over Croatia who bagged a 2-0 win over lowly Andorra with Ukraine a further three points behind.

Elsewhere, Italy have opened up a two-point lead at the top of Group 8 thanks to the Republic of Ireland dropping points in their 1-1 draw with Bulgaria at the weekend. With Italy busy beating Montenegro 2-0, the 1-1 draw between the Italians and the Irish last night leaves both team well clear of Bulgaria going into the next round of games.

France finally returned to winning ways this week with two 1-0 wins over Lithuania. Both goals were scored by Bayern's Frank Ribery but the French looked a little unsure of themselves and will be glad to face the Faroes in June having returned to second spot in Group 7. Serbia remain top of the group following their 3-2 win over a fast-faltering Romania.

Northern Ireland impressively took control of Group 3 with a 3-2 win over Poland (who last night beat San Marino 10-0) and a 1-0 win over Slovenia. Dundee United's Warren Feeney was 'Johnny On The Spot' with a goal in both games, although Man United's Jonny Evans was on the spot for Northern Ireland's first goal against Poland. Michael Zewlakov put through his own net for the third in Belfast on Saturday.

Nigel Worthington's men will be pleased with their progress, but Slovakia look set to oust them from their top spot when they face San Marino in June. Northern Ireland's next match is in September when they play Poland once again - this time in Szczecin.

As for the Czech Republic, their dismal run continues after they could only draw 0-0 against Slovenia and lose 2-1 to Slovakia. The remain fourth in the group - level on points with Slovenia.

Denmark and Hungary remained level on points at the top of Group 1 after both teams picked up victories against Albania and Malta. Portugal remain seven points behind them in third having drawn their only game against Sweden (who are fourth in the group) 0-0.

Finally, Greece have been joined on 13 points at the top of Group 2 by Switzerland who picked up a pair of 2-0 wins over Moldova. The Greeks could only draw 1-1 with Israel at the weekend before beating them 2-1 in Heraklion last night, leaving Israel fourth in the group behind Latvia who are third.

Coming up next, our look at what's happening in South America...

World Cup Bid 2018: England

Whenever England have taken part in a major football competition of late, one has usually been left with that feeling of imminent glory having been snuffed out by a distinct lack of professionalism. Unless dealt with promptly and efficiently, the very same thing could scupper England's chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup too.

The country which prides itself on being the home of football unsurprisingly has many of its boxes ticked when it comes to the 2018 bid, not to mention its backup bid for the 2022 World Cup. A wide range of modern and well-equipped stadia are ready for use with, at worst, only slight improvements to be made to a few of them. The transport infrastructure is sound (if not perfect) and the bid has the full support of the government and commercial partners alike.

Around £15 million has been ring-fenced to help bring the 21st World Cup to England and a host of ambassadors including David Beckham, Fabio Capello and Prince William are now in position to convince FIFA's Executive Committee that it should do so.

Yet with other strong bids being put forward from Belgium & The Netherlands, Spain & Portugal and Russia, England's case for the right to host needs to be watertight for fear of splitting the European vote. Whether it can do that depends largely on its ability to learn from previous mistakes and to avoid making more in the future.

England's ability to do the right thing has been at times questionable. Having submitted a bid for the 2006 World Cup when they'd already committed to supporting Germany's, they went ahead and spent vast fortunes on ferrying former players such as Sir Geoff Hurst and Sir Bobby Charlton around the world while assuming the arrogance of a country that thought it had the big prize in the bag. It didn't.

This time, no such assumptions will be made. The English Bid Team will know they've got to earn the respect of FIFA's many and varied member nations in order to live up to its top billing as favourites for 2018. There'll be no cocky swagger, no air of superiority - just a resolve to convey with passion the things English football does best and is most proud of.

Of course the biggest success story of the last fifteen years or so has been the Premier League. Reborn from the crumbling wreckage of the old Football League, it quickly became a huge money-making success and arguably the envy of every other country in the world. It therefore makes sense to include a representative from the Premier League on the England Bid Team, but for the last fifteen months or so there wasn't one. Only last month did Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards accept his worryingly belated invitation to join the team at a time when many were wondering if he'd even be invited at all.

A wise move it may be to include someone so intrinsically involved with the Premier League, but the Bid Team is still rife with political figures, all intent to promote their own beliefs and agendas. It perhaps doesn't bode well to have a team dominated in such a way by politicians when they have such an important job to do, and one can only hope that someone with a real feeling for the game will rise above any in-fighting with a necessary word of reason now and again.

But the Bid Team is now complete and looking all the stronger for it. All that remains is to see whether its personnel can conduct themselves in a professional and workmanlike manner as they co-ordinate a serious challenge for the hosting rights. In the forty years or more that have passed since the last time England held the World Cup Finals, it has become a leading force in the global game, but that reputation alone will not ensure success this time. England needs to show it's mature enough to get everything right before football finally comes home again.