At a Ross for Words - Weekend Recap

10:14 AM Unknown 0 Comments

England:
After a comfortable win over Cardiff, Liverpool now find themselves at the top of the Barclays Premier League (at least until Arsenal plays Chelsea tomorrow). City found a way to win at a tough Craven Cottage against Fulham, and Manchester United finally won a home game, this time comfortably over a West Ham team that was riding high coming into the weekend. Unfortunately, poor officiating kind of robbed my boys Southampton at home, and the Saints fell to Tottenham.
But the player who impressed me the most this matchweek was Ross Barkley of Everton. At a ripe 20 years of age, he is an attacking midfielder that plays with the dribbling speed of a 20-year-old and the vision of a 30-year-old. Even before his stunning free kick, I noticed how Barkley was consistently running at defenders, tracking back on defense, and just generally looked like a world-class player. The English national team would be foolish not to invite him to Brazil next summer.

Italy:
Only a few notable results from Serie A this weekend. First of all, Hellas Verona continued their torrid start to their first top-flight season in 11 years by dominating Lazio en route to a 4-1 victory. Some call it beginner's luck, but I call it good chemistry and an underachieving league in general. The only Italian teams you can really count on these days are Juventus and Roma. Speaking of which, both clubs won easily, keeping them at 1st and 2nd in the league, respectively - and Roma is still undefeated.

Spain:
Barcelona won. Yawn.

France:
New rich boys Monaco fell at home to Valenciennes, as their season seems to be slowly unraveling. PSG will be happy about the increased failure of their main competition, and especially happy about the news that their best player - Falcao - is almost certainly prepared for a January transfer to Real Madrid. The Parisians now sit comfortably atop Ligue 1, and will turn almost all of their attention to preparing for the Champions League tie against Bayer Leverkusen in February.

Germany:
Dortmund lost again this weekend, this time at home to Bundesliga newcomers Hertha Berlin. After a season where the black-and-yellow turned their home ground into a fortress (e.g. a 4-1 home demolition of world power Real Madrid), consecutive home losses to Leverkusen and Berlin can't taste very good. Dortmund now find themselves precariously in 3rd place in the league, which I suppose is an indicator of how strong a league the Bundesliga is.

Club World Cup:
Bayern Munich was obviously off from league play this weekend, as they were a bit busy winning their first ever Club World Cup on Saturday. In the third place match, Atletico Mineiro's Ronaldinho got himself thrown out of the game after kicking a Guangzhou player in the thigh. It is a blip in his quest for a World Cup spot, but hopefully it doesn't knock him out of the picture altogether.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I pay attention to the smaller European and South American leagues as well, so if you'd like me to talk about one, just let me know in the comments.

- Cameran