Weekend That Was – February 20

The Weekend That Was is a new article that will post every Monday and will take a look at the weekend that was in the world of football/soccer. We’ll take a brief look at happenings in the English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, and any other noteworthy occurrences in world football. In our second installment we’ll look at the return of the Champions League, FA Cup action, and some other notes from around the world.

While not technically occurring over the weekend, the UEFA Champions League returned this past week and is always a very noteworthy tournament as some would argue it is the second biggest soccer tournament in the world. Benfica and Zenit St. Petersburg gave us a thrilling 3-2 game which the Russian side won and the underdogs from Cyprus, APOEL, remain with a good shot to advance as they enter their second leg tie against French side Olympic Lyonnais down just 1-0. The two big matches of the week featured the defending champions Barcelona, who look to have secured their place in the quarterfinals with a 3-1 win away at Bayer Leverkusen, and Arsenal traveling to the San Siro to take on AC Milan. Most Arsenal fans would love to forget the trip as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho carved up the Arsenal defense and put the Gunners once again in position to capture no trophies in a season. With both Manchester clubs already out of the Champions League it will be up to Chelsea to carry the banner for England as they play their first leg tomorrow against Italian side Napoli.

In England the FA Cup 5th round took place and as always happens in the competition there were some memorable moments. Brighton and Hove scored 4 goals at Anfield against Liverpool, unfortunately for them 3 went into their own net as they were dumped from the competition 6-1. Arsenal’s bad week continued as they were taken out by Sunderland and manager Arsene Wenger’s seat continues to gain heat. The surprises of the weekend took place as two Premier League giants were forced into replays against lower level clubs. Chelsea could only manage a 1-1 draw at home against Championship side Birmingham and Tottenham were held to a scoreless draw at Stevenage. Stevenage has yet to concede a goal in the competition and under former Rapids boss Gary Smith, they remained unbeaten.

While Barcelona is all but out of the title race in La Liga they still have Lionel Messi and he is pretty good, as he showed Sunday against Valencia. To make matters worse for Valencia, prior to the match their star Ever Banega broke his ankle when he failed to set the handbrake on his car and the car rolled on his ankle. You can’t make these kinds of things up.

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Coming back stateside, many MLS teams continue their preparation for the new season by traveling to tournaments. The New York Red Bulls, Real Salt Lake, New England Revolution, and LA Galaxy are headed to Tucson to compete in the Desert Diamond Cup. The Colorado Rapids are heading to Hawaii to take place in the Hawaiian Islands Invitational. The Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps, Houston Dynamo, Toronto FC, FC Dallas, and Sporting Kansas City are going to Disneyworld to take part in the Disney Pro Soccer Classic. The Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire, and DC United are going to Charleston, SC to play in the Carolina Challenge Cup with NASL side Charleston Battery.  All of these competitions get started this week and next week the Portland Timbers will host the San Jose Earthquakes and Chivas USA in the Portland Timbers tournament.

If we’ve missed any big news please let us know. Hopefully each Monday this is a place you will come for your footie fix and to catch up on what you may have missed while doing chores around the house or taking the kids to and from tournaments and matches. Until next week, enjoy more of the Champions League and the continued MLS preseason.

(image courtesy of mirrorfootball.co.uk)