One weekend, three games, Worldwide. All the information.
Football travellers, prepare your passports, we are about to take our weekly flight around the globe. This week we will check out the race for the title in Morocco, the Malaysian scene and, of course, the real reason to go back to Brazil. And no, it's not the Carnival. Fasten your seat belts, here we go!
(All the times are in CET)
Friday, 20:00, Wydad Casablanca – Kawkab Marrakech (Moroccan Botola)
Last week we saw some very close races for the titles, but nothing compared to the Moroccan Leauge. A league with only 16 teams, is always tight, and in Morocco, even more so. After 19 games, there is a difference of only 6 points between the first place and the eighth place. On Friday, the top two teams, Wydad Casablanca and Kawkab Marrakech play each other with both teams on 33 points.
The league leaders, Wydad Casablanca, could have won the title easily, as they have been in 1st place in the league since the sixth matchday of the season. Their results are far from impressive, as they have won just 8 matches since the beginning of the season. Their fans, who are known as one of the world's craziest audiences, demand immediate success.
In order to be in the race for the title, Wydad appointed a very experienced coach, the legendary Welshman, John Toshack. In the squad there are Moroccan players who grew up in Europe such as Kamal Chafni, who made 200 appearances in the French league, Fouad Idabdelhay, who played in the youth teams at NAC Breda and who also played for the Holland U-21 team, and Naïm Aarab, who has played in Belgium and Greece. More local key players include Mohamed Berrabeh, the current captain who was part of the last Wydad team that won the title, and Abdelatif Noussir, who played for the winning squad of the Moroccan U-23 team in the continental championship.
Kawkab Marrakech are often a surprising team. Their return to the top division last year saw them finish in 4th place. This season, the current manager Hicham Dmii, who has already led Kawkab to promotion, wants to be the manager who will lead the team to their first title since 1992. The team’s top players are Luis Jefferson Escher, a Brazilian has who played in Morocco since 2008, Ismaïl Koucham, who was part of the Raja Casablanca squad at the 2013 Club World Cup, Khaled Sekkat, who won two national titles with Wydad, and Soufiane Alloudi, who has 17 caps for the Moroccan national team.
In such a close table, every win could be decisive for the title. Which team will win and get one step ahead in the title race?
Saturday, 13:45, Selangor – Johor Darul Ta'zim (Malaysian Super League)
When a new season begins, you can always feel the excitement. Usually, after two weeks, you don’t usually find any optimists among the teams which finished in the 1st and 2nd places the season before. This is the exact situation in Malaysia right now.
The champions, Johor Darul Ta'zim, have only 3 points and they are 5th in the league, while the runner ups, Selangor, have just 1 point and are in 10th place. As it’s the third matchday of the season, it is still too early to analyse, but both team needs the victory badly, in order to improve on their bad starts.
Selangor are considered to be the greatest team in Malaysian football history. Since the establishment of the league in 1984, they have won 6 championships, along with 32 domestic cups. They even qualified for Asian Champions Cup final in 1967. The current manager, Mehmet Durakovic from Australia, is a former Selangor player and even won the Malaysian cup three times with the club as a player. The key players of the team are Mohd Hamsani Ahmad, who has played 36 matches for the Malaysian national team, Abdul Hadi Yahya, who was the leauge’s top scorer in 2011 with 20 goals in 26 matches, and Andik Vermansyah, a 23 year-old talent who is believed to be the best paid Indonesian athlete (his salary is 150,000 dollar per year, according to the local media).
Johor Darul Ta'zim produced a huge sensation last season and now they want to win the title again. As well as their poor performance in the local competition, they were also eliminated in the AFC Champions League qualifiers, so they will play in the AFC Cup group stage. Their Croatian coach, Bojan Hodak, is well-travelled in East Asia, as he has already trained teams from China and Cambodia and he has won two Malaysian league titles. The leading players are Luciano Figueroa, the top scorer and gold medalist from the 2004 Olympics with Argentina, Mohd Amri Yahyah, who moved to the team after 13 years at Selangor, and Mohd Safee Mohd Sali, who has played 67 times for the national team. After such a bad start to the season for both clubs, they will do anything to get the victory.
Expect some real attacking play in this one.
Sunday, 22:30, Coritiba - Atlético Paranaense (Campeonato Paranaense)
These days, it is the Carnival season in Brazil. While the samba rhythm passionately decorates the Brazilian streets, we will travel to another emotional state league. In the state of Paraná, where the local league is one of the oldest in Brazil, it is the 101st edition of the championship. After the surprising title win by Londrina lastseason, the two major teams in the state, Coritiba and Atlético Paranaense, will try to get back on the horse and win the title back. This match is an extra-hot derby match in the city of Curitiba and it also has a nickname, Atlé-Tiba.
Coritiba was one of the first teams to be formed in Brazil. The team was established by group of German immigrants in 1909, and since then it has become one of the strongest team in Paraná, with 37 titles in the state league. Coritiba plays in the top division, the Brasileirão, and last year they finished in 14th place. The coach, Marquinhos Santos, has already won the state title with Coritiba in 2013, and is not only trying to win his second title with the team, but also his third consecutive state title, after winning the Campeonato Baiano with Bahia in 2014. Notable players include Leandro Almeida, the former Dynamo Kyiev player, Rosinei, who won the Copa Libertadores title with Atlético Mineiro in 2013, Keirrison, who Barcelona once thought of as one of its wonder kids, and Negueba, who won the 2011 U-20 World Cup with Brazil.
Their opponents are Atlético Paranaense, and it's really hard to say which team is better. Atlético have won just 22 state titles, but they have spent more seasons in the Brasileirão, finishing in 8th place last year. For the coach, Claudinei Oliveira it’s his fourth season in the league since 2013. Look out for Wéverton, who is considered to be one of the best goalkeepers in the league, Lucas Olaza, who was part of Uruguay’s 2013 U-20 World Cup finalists, and Cléo, who has returned to Brazil after grand tour in Portugal, Serbia, China and Japan.
There are people who think that Brazilian state league games are just a preparation for the Brasileirão, but this game is going to be hot and the stadium in Curitiba will be on fire.