Contenders in several major league races will be in action this week as European action resumes with the round of 32 of the UEFA Cup.
Defending UEFA Cup champion Sevilla, which is in second place in Spain’s La Liga, travels to Steaua Bucharest, and Werder Bremen, which is second in the German Bundesliga, faces Dutch club Ajax.
Steaua Bucharest made last year’s semifinals and was only denied a berth in the final when it blew a 3-0 lead on aggregate against Middlesbrough and lost, 4-3. Sevilla led the La Liga standings at the Christmas break but has fallen three points behind Barcelona, which also has a game in hand, after winning one of six league games in 2007.
“Soccer teams aren’t machines and have their ups and downs,” said Sevilla coach Juande Ramos. “We aren’t doing as well as we were earlier, but the important thing is that while we strive to recover our form we are still in a privileged situation.”
Werder Bremen has lost two straight games and fallen six points behind Schalke 04 with which it shared the Bundesliga lead going into the second half of the season. Bremen is one of eight teams that moved into the UEFA Cup after finishing third in their UEFA Champions League group last fall.
Brad Friedel is only the American whose team is still alive in the competition. Blackburn travels to Bayer Leverkusen for the first leg of their series on Wednesday. Oguchi Onyewu is cup-tied, having already participated in the UEFA Cup for Standard Liege and thus will miss new club Newcastle’s game at Belgian club Zulte Waregem on Thursday.
Russian club CSKA Moscow, the 2005 UEFA Cup champion, will host Israel’s Maccabi Haifa in Vladikavkaz, a three-hour flight from the Russian capital and located in the volatile Caucasus region near Chechnya, because of the cold in Moscow.
Livorno will meet Spanish club Espanyol behind closed doors on Wednesday after its Picchi Stadium failed to meet security regulations just laid down in the Italian government’s tough anti-hooligan plan.
UEFA has also gotten tough on violence, kicking Dutch club Feyenoord out of the competition and awarding its round-of-32 series with Tottenham to the London club. Feyenoord was punished for the behavior of its fans who rioted during the Rotterdam club’s game at French club Nancy last fall.
UEFA CUP PAIRINGS
Wednesday
AEK Athens vs. Paris SG
Bayer Leverkusen vs. Blackburn (Setanta Sports USA, live, noon ET)
Benfica vs. Dinamo Bucharest (PPV-Setanta, live, 2:55 pm ET)
Bordeaux vs. Osasuna
CSKA Moscow vs. Maccabi Haifa
Fenerbahce vs. AZ (Setanta Sports USA, delay, 5 pm ET)
Hapoel Tel Aviv vs. Rangers (PPV-Setanta, live, 2:40 pm ET)
Livorno vs. Espanyol (Setanta Sports USA, live, 2:40 pm ET)
Shakhtar Donetsk vs. Nancy
Werder Bremen vs. Ajax
Thursday
Braga vs. Parma
Lens vs. Panathinaikos (Setanta Sports USA, delay, 1:30 pm ET)
Spartak Moscow vs. Celta
Steaua Bucharest vs. Sevilla
Zulte-Waregem vs. Newcastle