SATURDAY

LA LIGA – REAL MADRID V LEGANES:  Live on beIN SPORTS from 6AM ET / 3AM PT

West coasters face Sophie’s Choice for latest Bernabeu battle

The biggest decision of involving Real Madrid’s latest challenge will not be from Zinedine Zidane as he ponders what to do with the Karim Benzema v Alvaro Morata civil war that is raging over the internet. Nor what odd job to keep James Rodriguez busy this week. Nope, it will be the Madridista posse on the West Coast deciding whether to stay up until five in the morning to watch the game, or make it a very early start to the day with a mid-morning nap to make it through what will be a bleary Jack Bauer-style 24-hours.

Viewers can’t even rely on the idea of Real Madrid scoring a couple of early goals and wrapping the game up, seeing the back five of the current La Liga leaders has more leaks than a DNC email server. Madrid have managed just one clean sheet in 14 games in all competitions. The supposedly fortress Bernabeu is not much use either considering the mighty Eibar held Madrid in their home to a 1-1 draw last month.

Weirdly, the clash will be quite historical in nature as it is the first time that these two clubs have met in the top flight due to previously lowly nature of Leganes, a club almost literally a stone’s throw from Getafe on the outskirts of Madrid’s capital city. Even more reason to brave an early rising or make it a really late night.

SUNDAY

SERIE A – INTER V CROTONE: Live on beIN SPORTS from 11:55AM ET / 8:55AM PT

Can football life get any tougher for Inter Milan?

The cold facts of this particular Serie A clash reads as a Sunday stroll between a midtable outfit and an opponent whose survival goose will be cooked by Christmas. But Inter v Crotone is more like a meal cooked by a Brit – an unappetizing shell, but surprisingly tasty in the end.

Normally, Inter’s San Siro sisters are the crisis club to be spied upon, just to see if footballing life can worsen for them. But on this occasion, it is Inter who wear the basket case crown. And then some. A week ago, the board gave their seal approval to Frank de Boer as coach. However, a defeat to Sampdoria saw that decision reversed four days later and the Dutchman dispatched after just 14 games in charge.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a bit of a difference of opinion between the local Inter regime and the owners on who to appoint. Former Lazio boss, Stefano Pioli is the current favorite but a decision is not expected until Monday. Meanwhile, 12th placed Inter are hosting bottom-of-the-table Crotone who celebrated last weekend’s maiden Serie A win with the same enthusiasm as Mauro Icardi welcoming a new signing who has a supermodel wife.

LA LIGA – SEVILLA V BARCELONA: Live on beIN SPORTS from 2:40PM ET / 11:40AM PT

Sevilla looks to overturn history book in Barcelona battle

It’s one of those matches where football reality trumps a perceived perception. The immediate thought over this particular fixture is that Barcelona will be in stark jeopardy of losing the team’s third league game of the season, which would be a just over a third of the total. Sevilla are always up for bring their ‘A’ game against bigwig opponents, instead saving the sucky performances in more bread-and-butter affairs. But the cold hard stats show that Sevilla have been quite useless against Barcelona in recent history with just the single win from the past 18 league encounters. It’s just that the victory in question happened last season in the Sanchez Pizjuan.

Sevilla are certainly going into Sunday’s game with their Andalusian tails very much up in the air and waving around after a pleasing 4-0 victory over Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League and a recent victory over Atletico Madrid in the same stadium. Barcelona are on a relative downer after an uphill struggle to beat bottom-of-the-table Granada and a second-half collapse against Manchester City combined with a newly bad boy Leo Messi showing some ‘tude. But the joy of La Liga this season, is that the division is as mad as a bag of spanners and predicting a victory for either of the Big Two is a fool’s errand. But it will be a draw.