In this weekend preview we summarise the best five games to follow on your match feed. And make a couple of suggestions for matches that you may otherwise miss.
🏆 Gold Cup Final: Mexico vs. Panama
The 17th Gold Cup tournament held in the CONCACAF region comes to a close, on Sunday, with something of a surprise final. The bracket suggested nothing but the coming together of the federations two biggest sides – Mexico vs. the United States, but unlike the last two editions of the finals, that wasn’t to be the case this year.
On one side of the draw, Mexico did their bit – albeit they started the group stages with unconvincing but ultimately winning performances against Honduras and Haiti before suffering a lacklustre defeat to Qatar. In the knockout stages they did for Costa Rica, and in Wednesday’s semi-final, Jamaica, by three goals to nil. They now have a chance to extend their record number of wins (eight) on what is CONCACAF’s biggest stage.
The nation standing in the way are Panama who over came the odds to beat the US by virtue of a penalty shootout in the other semi-final. They were good value for the result too, frustrating the hosts and defending champions in normal time before taking the lead, through Ivan Anderson, in the first period of extra-time. In the shoot-out, both sides missed one of their initial five kicks but Orlando Mosquera saved the sixth from the US and Adalberto Carrasquilla, who plys his trade in MLS, cooly converted to send his nation to the final.
This is just Panama’s third appearance in the final having finished runners-up back in 2005 and 2013. A win would be a major coup for the side currently 57th in the world (according to FIFA).
🇺🇸 MLS: St. Louis City vs. Inter Miami
For Inter Miami, and indeed a lot of casual MLS observers, it’s all about the impending arrival of Lionel Messi, one of the greatest ever to play the game. But without his contract formally signed (at the time of writing) and ahead of Sunday’s massive unveiling event that the club have been trailing all week, there’s the small matter of an away fixture at new franchise club St. Louis City.
This is a cross-conference raid as far as Miami are concerned but one that they might not expect to get anything from, even if new manager Tata Martino has stopped the rot, in terms of defeats with draws in each of their last three outings. St. Louis, the new boys in the Western Conference, sit top of the table after 22 games – pretty much unprecedented stuff for a new club and they’ll be keen to bounce back from the midweek defeat to second placed LAFC when they come up against the Eastern Conference’s bottom club.
Ultimately, the season is going to be a case of pre-Messi and post-Messi for Inter Miami, plus the impact that the other big stars that follow him to Florida will bring to the line-up.
🇺🇸 MLS: FC Cincinnati vs. Nashville SC
At the other end of the Eastern Conference, Saturday also sees a meeting between two of the sides who’ve been faring a lot better so far this season: leaders Cincinnati against third placed Nashville.
Cincinnati are currently on a run of games where they have lost just once in 18 across all competitions. And they boast a healthy eight point lead in both the Conference, and across MLS as a whole, sitting pretty in the race for the Supporter’s Shield. That’s a position that backs up last season’s 5th placed finish and run to the quarter-finals of the play-offs – the club’s best performance since joining the league in 2019.
The club have managed to maintain that form despite missing key striker Brandon Vazquez, who has been away representing the USMNT at the Gold Cup. In fact, a lot of the responsibility has fallen on Argentine no. 10, Luciano Acosta, who has weighed in with 11 goals and five assists so far this season. And with an average rating of 7.79, he’s currently our fourth best rated player in the league.
Nashville do have a star player of their own, of course, with 2022 league MVP Hany Mukhtar leading the way in terms of individual stats again this season – the German already has 13 goals and 7 assists to his name.
As a club, Nashville come in to the weekend’s game on a poor run with just one win in their last five. In fact, they’ve lost the other four games without scoring a goal.
🇧🇷 Brazil: Fluminense vs. Flamengo
The Fla-Flu, or for this week, the Flu-Fla is one of the biggest derbies in the Brazilian league, it being between two Rio sides based at the mythical Maracanã.
You might think familiarity will have dulled this rivalry but that doesn’t appear to be the case – Sunday’s meeting in the 15th round of the new Brasileirão season might be the first derby in the league, but it’ll be the sixth in 2023, after previous games that came in the various Rio state competitions that run for the first part of the year.
On the year, the head-to-head record is even. But with Flamengo’s strength in recent times (they won the league in 2019 and 2020, the Copa do Brasil and the Copa Libertadores in 2022) that should tell you that Fluminense are in something of a renaissance. Indeed, they go in to the weekend sitting fourth, just two points and two places down on the South American champions who, in turn, trail runaway leaders Botafogo by 10 points.
Flamengo’s defence of the Copa do Brasil continued during the week, with Gabigol on hand to wrap up a 4-1 aggregate win over Athletico Paranaense, in the second leg of the quarter-finals.
🏆 U19 Euros Final: Portugal vs. Italy
Following swiftly on from the U21 European Championships, won by England’s Young Lions last weekend, the tournament for the next age group down is also coming to a head – with the final due on Sunday.
And over the last 10 days or so, it’s Portugal’s youngsters who have dominated proceedings, scoring nine goals across the groups stages, plus another five in the solitary knock-out game that sees them line-up as the favourites in the final. Those five semi-final goals came against Norway and included a third goal of the tournament for Benfica’s Hugo Félix, the younger brother of João.
In the other semi-final, Italy, who finished second in Portugal’s group, won a five-goal thriller against Spain, a game in which they had to take the lead three times before it finally stuck.
And the Italians will surely be on the hunt for revenge after the shellacking that Portugal dished out to them in the group stages just a week ago.
Plus two hidden gems from a little deeper in your match feed…
This week, various Super Cup finals tell us that football in the European ‘winter’ leagues is about to spring back to life!
🇭🇷 Croatia: Dinamo Zagreb vs. Hadjuk Split
There can’t be a more fitting way to start the new campaign in Croatia than a meeting between the country’s Eternal Rivals.
Dinamo Zagreb come in to Saturday’s Super Cup as the six-time reigning league champions having finished the last campaign 10 points clear of Hadjuk Split. But, for their part, Hadjuk will be participating as the two-time defending champions of the Croatian Cup!
All that means this is, of course, a repeat of last year’s season opener, a game that remained scoreless after 120 minutes and was decided by penalties, in favour of Dinamo. In fact, Hadjuk haven’t beaten their northern rivals in six meetings dating back to April last year.
🇵🇱 Poland: Raków Częstochowa vs. Legia Warszawa
Kicking off at roughly the same time on Saturday night is the Polish version of the Super Cup. Here, first time league champions, Raków Częstochowa are looking to win this particular title for the third consecutive year. They had previously only qualified by virtue of their back-to-back wins in the country’s main cup competition.
Their opponents, Legia, unsurprisingly have a stronger Super Cup legacy due to their position as Poland’s most decorated club, but they haven’t actually lifted the trophy since 2008.
The two clubs dominated last season – Raków beating Legia to the Ekstraklasa title by nine points but Legia coming out on top in the Cup final, again, by way of a penalty shootout.
Raków’s status as league champions means that their season has already started – they were 1-0 winners over Estonian club Flora in the first leg of the first round of Champions League qualifiers during the week.
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Cover Image from IMAGO