Barstool’s Weekend Soccer Preview – The “If you want to crown them, then crown their ass!” Edition
Sam’s Completely Chumptastic Soccer Preview & Pick’em
Hi haters,
It’s damn near May which means it is time to start anointing domestic champions – except in Germany, Italy and France where the titles were essentially wrapped up in March, February and September, respectively. As such, England and – out of nowhere – Spain is where the real action is, so let’s get to gettin’…
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ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Reminder of the weekend that was:
Clubs have only three or four games left in which to improve their place in the table, so if the likes United and/or Chelsea are going to make a run now would be the time to do it.
As it stands, the table looks like this:
With every club’s best- and worst-case scenarios:
A few quick observations about last weekend’s results broken down by groups…
TITLE CONTENDER(S)
– Re-enactment of Swansea playing defense against Leicester:
– Re-enactment of Spurs performance in a vital home game against West Brom
My postgame reaction:
So there you have it. Tottenham is likely going to have by FAR its best season in my lifetime and yet still found a way to finish with a heart-breaking whimper. West Brom had nothing – abbbbbbb-so-fucking-lutely NOTHING – to play for, yet Tony Pulis came into our house, peed on our leg, and told us it was raining. What a dick.
Point being, congrats to Leicester. The title is as good as theirs – almost.
UCL CONTENDERS
– Are you an Arsenal fan? Are you laughing at Spurs’ spursiness? If so, joke’s on you. The Gunners had third place all wrapped up weeks ago but has been dragging ass so hard over the last month – highlighted by the scoreless draw against relegation-threatened Sunderland – that the prospect of falling out of the top four is a legitimate possibility. Not a good lock.
– One might think that City’s run in the Champions League this season might distract them enough that they fall out of top four. Last weekend’s 4-0 statement win over Stoke suggests otherwise.
– United is dependent upon either Arsenal or City shitting the bed coming down the stretch. Not unthinkable, but certainly unlikely.
EUROPA CONTENDERS
– UCL has all but disappearing from West Ham’s horizon, but still helluva season for the East Enders. Maybe they’ll wait a little longer before shitting the bed in Europa next fall?
– Liverpool’s one and only focus needs to be winning this season’s Europa. End of story.
– Southampton has come on strong in the second half of the season and is making things difficult on Chelsea.
– Congrats to Chelsea. They mathematically avoided relegation. Well done, boys.
– Stoke’s summer vacation began in late March.
RELEGATION BATTLERS
– If form holds, Sunderland might just stick around another season. Huge, huge win over Norwich followed by impressive (if boring) draw with Arsenal.
– Newcastle has a LOT of work to do, though they’ve been showing signs of life.
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As for this weekend’s slate:
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PICKS OF THE WEEK
Only choice for game of the weekend…
United (+100)
Leicester (+290)
Draw (+240)
The mighty, mighty Foxes can clinch the title with a win, and where better to do it in the Theater of Dreams®. As for who will come out with the win, here are two schools of thought on this one:
1) The first is based on the popular line of thinking that the moon and the stars revolve around yours truly, Sam’s Army, and the soccer gods would like nothing more than to make me as miserable as possible. If that is the case, United will inevitably win to rub it in my face that Spurs had a legit shot at the title had they just beaten West Brom. At home. In a game they dominated. And took a 1-0 lead. And hit the post 15 times. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
2) The second line of thinking is that this game is Leicester’s season in a nutshell. The consummate underdog, they are on the verge of confirming the league title with two games yet to play…….. and oddsmaker are STILL giving them damn near (+300) odds. Winning this one on the road, without their top goalscorer no less, would only make too much sense.
So which is it going to be? Leicester made do without Vardy against Swansea, but the Red Devils’ defense is a different proposition. United to win 2-1.
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• Who won this week’s Aston Villa [+440] lottery? Watford [-150]! C’mon down! Watford to win 2-0.
• Southampton [+170] has the benefit of welcoming City [+165] to town just three days before their visitors are scheduled to play their most important game in… well… forever, according to some of their fans. A close victory for the undistracted (and more rested/healthy) Saints – all but eliminating Chelsea from Europa contention in the process – sounds about right. Gimme a 1-0 win for Southampton.
• Tottenham [+160] will be without Dele Alli for the rest of the season after he punched human troll Claudio Yacob in the Argentinian’s itty bitty tiny testicles last Monday. The club is fresh off a disastrous draw at home and will likely come in a little off the pace. Chelsea [+170] to win 2-1 (thereby handing Leicester the title through backdoor means).
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WYNALDA’S WEEKLY WITTICISM
Eric Wynalda has had an interesting go at this thing called life. Dude was a great player, and scored one of the more memorable goals of my childhood on a brilliant free kick against Switzerland in the 1994 World Cup.
Then of course there was that “thing” involving his then-wife and John Harkes that ended up submarining the 1998 World Cup for the US team. In the decades since he has spent most of his time being a talking head on ESPN and more recently FOX. His “straight talking” style and the fact he’s a semi-closeted Arsenal fan are reasons I could dislike him, but I’m fine forgiving those trespasses. In fact, I actually tend to agree with a lot of his “soccer takes” (even if the way he says it is like nails on a chalkboard), and I can’t really put my finger on what it is about Wynalda that bugs the ever-loving shit out of me… but this tweet captured the essence of my aversion:
The inanity, the lack of self-awareness, the pettiness… it was all there packed into one stupid little 140-character (or less) message. Suffice to say my 6-year-old niece send more mature tweets than that.
Now whether this becomes a recurring weekly section or not remains to be seen, especially since he could block me at any moment, but I’ll try to be better about highlighting some of Wynalda’s witticisms going forward if and whenever possible, and feel free to send in suggestions if there is a good candidates that I may have missed.
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LA LIGA
Well wouldn’t you just know it, Barrrrrrrrrrrthelona went and metaphorically started giving HJs for crack on the corner the past months or so, turning what had been a cake-walk into the single most interesting title race in the major European leagues.
How did this happen? Well the recent form guide ought to clear that up:
Barça – DLLLWW
Atletico – LWWWWW
Real – WWWWWW
Update: the first tiebreaker in La Liga is head-to-head scores (cumulative total of the goals scores in the home-and-home matchups), meaning that Barcelona has the edge on Atleti (4-2) and Real Madrid (5-2), while Atleti has the tiebreaker over Real (2-1) if it comes down to just those two clubs. Strap in cause this is gonna be one helluva stretch run, and it gets started with a back-to-back-to-back tripleheader on beIN Sports tomorrow…
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REST OF WORLD
Bundesliga: Bayern are one win away from officially wrapping up the title but will at least face a little bit of competition this weekend as 5th place Monchendickbach come to town (8:30am CT on FS2).
Serie A: Juventus already has the title sewn up while Napoli and Roma have the all-important 2nd and 3rd slots all but solidified as well. So ummmmmmmm… I guess let’s just go with Inter vs Lazio on Sunday (1:45pm CT on beIN Sports).
MLS: Two great games on national television on Sunday. You should watch.
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Reminder: The Chammmmmmpionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnns is back next week as it will be time to decide who is heading to San Siro for the final. Get pumped.
Holler,
Sam U. L. Army