Midweek TV Preview: 18 - 20 August 2009

(All Times - UK)

Monday 17th August

9:45 Dundee Utd v Hearts, Scottish Premier League, ESPN
Only Hamilton failed to score in the opening round of the SPL season. While the old firm tend to operate in a league of their own, the rest of the league is set to be pretty finely balanced this season. Football junkies could do worse than spend their Monday settling down to a keenly contested season opener.

Tuesday 18th August

19:45 Celtic v Arsenal, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports 2/HD2
Any question marks surrounding Tony Mowbray's managerial credentials have been laid to rest after Celtic's impressive defeat of Dinamo Moscow in the previous Champions League qualifying round. While Arsenal will be the bookies' favourites to progress, you can be certain that the Glasgow club will prove stiffer competition than the abysmal Everton on Saturday.

19:45 Copenhagen v Apoel, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
This fixture is one from the Champions Route that was introduced for this season's Champions League qualification, the idea being to allow champions of poorer leagues to avoid the runners-up of richer leagues in the hope that this provides a more balanced group stage. FCK are coming into this game off the back of a rare home defeat in the Superliga. The Cypriot domestic season is yet to get underway so there is no way of gauging their form. Let's just say it's going to be close.

19:45 Sheriff v Olympiacos, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
Sheriff did well to get past Slavia Prague in the last round and are tearing it up domestically. English football fans may be keen to learn what the situation is with Matt Derbyshire as he doesn't seem to have featured so far. Any Olympiakos fans reading this? Perhaps you could fill us in.

19:45 Sporting Lisbon v Fiorentina, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
So you see how it works? Either of these teams would fancy their chances against an FCK or a Sheriff but have to play each other to get through. Some may say that the new system stops the best teams from reaching the Champions League proper. Others would argue that teams from the emerging leagues now have a chance to benefit from the Champions League gravy train.

19:45 Timisoara v Stuttgart, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
Runners up in the Romanian League face the third-placed Bundesliga club from last season. Stuttgart have conceded four goals in the last two league games but will be hoping their scoring power will see them through. Timisoara squeezed past the UEFA Cup holders Shaktar Donetsk in the last round and shouldn't be under estimated by rookie manager Markus Babbel. Could be an upset here.

Wednesday 19th August

11:00 Match Day 22, J-League, British Eurosport 2
Eurosport continue their coverage of the J-League. Kashima Antlers are top by 8 points after 21 games.

19:45 Lyon v Anderlecht, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports 2/HD2
Odd to see Lyon having to slum it in the Play Offs. This will be a stiff test for them as the Belgian club have been knocking on the door of the Group Stage for a while now. Good choice as their main game by Sky.

19:45 Panathinaikos v Atletico Madrid, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, ITV4/ITV1/ITV HD
As is this by ITV. Spanish clubs are always worth watching which is why their domestic TV rights are being so keenly contested by Sky and ESPN. A lively Greek crowd should make for a watchable game.

19:45 Levski Sofia v Debreceni, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
The Bulgarians are fairly recent Group Stage qualifiers. There has been no Hungarian team at the top level since 1995 I think? Is that right? Having a bit of a soft spot for Magyar football I'm hoping Debrecini can get the job done.

19:45 Salzburg v Maccabi Haifa, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
Ah Red Bull. Hijackers of Football Clubs, thieves of football's identity and culture but say what you like about them, they are serious investors in sport and have pumped some fairly serious wedge into the club formerly known as Austria-Salzburg. The responsibility of stemming the corporate tide lies with Haifa.

19:45 Ventspils v FC Zurich, UEFA Champions League Play-off 1st Leg, Sky Sports Red Button
The Latvians conquered the amusingly named BATE in the last round and have scored 11 (eleven) goals in their last two league games to no reply. Zurich have had a more modest start to their league campaign so those hard core enough to select this match may be in for an interesting encounter.

Thursday 20th August

02:00 Chicago Fire v LA Galaxy, MLS, ESPN
ESPN's coverage of David Beckham's MLS may have to take a break if the anointed one is suspended. Still, Galaxy's 2-0 defeat to the Sounders in their last fixture aside, this remains a game between two teams in good touch.

20:00 Dinamo Zagreb v Hearts, UEFA Europa League Play-off, 1st Leg, BBC2 Scotland
The Stasi meet the Romanovs... sort of. Viewers in the rest of the UK should check their red buttons. They may find the game covered on interactive.

UEFA Champions League Qualifiers Round Up

The road to the Champions League group stages is long and even more treacherous than Alberto Contador on the mountain stages of the Tour de France.

Of course some clubs are not required to join that road until it becomes a lot wider with tarmac, cat's eyes and those flashing signs warning you against bottle necks at Junction 11. Right now however, we are still at that dusty track stage of the competition where the title winners of leagues ranked between 50 and 53 compete in a two legged round with the reward of a place in the coveted third qualifying round at stake. You'd get pretty long odds on a lot of these teams making it to the big show so let's enjoy them while we can.

Despite what you might think, there are some pretty big names in this round. Last year's heroic underdogs BATE Borisov entered the competition at this stage. They would have made a bob or two from last season's exploits and if they've invested wisely the Belorussians will be confident that they can make a swift return. BATE eased their way past FC Makedonija Skopje from Macedonia 4-0 on aggregate.

Serbian giants Partizan Belgrade may also have their eye on trips to Turin or Madrid later in the year. They are comfortably through after a stonking 12-0 victory over two legs. The second leg finished 8-0 (Cleo scored a hat-trick) and was their biggest ever win in European football. All of which sounds really impressive until you realise that their opponents were Welsh champions Rhyl. Still, you can only beat what's in front of you I suppose.

Winners of the Best Club Name of the Round competition (if there were such a thing) are the Molodovan champions FC Sheriff of Tiraspol. In fact, they are early favorites for the same award in the next round since Inter Turku of Finland failed to shoot the Sheriff, losing out 2-0.

Another recent groupie are Levski of Sofia who, on paper, shouldn't have broken a sweat against the Andorran champions Sant Julia. And indeed they didn't on grass either. 9-0 was the final score. Maryan Ognyanov bagged a brace in the second leg which ended 5-0.

The Slovakian champions Slovan Bratislava are through after beating the Bosnians, Zrinjski. It finished 4-1 overall but Bratislava were a goal down after the first leg and had to pull out some stops to get through. Goals from Juraj Helenar and Gaucho settled the nerves after in the first 20 minutes.

There were some close games. Poland's Wisla Krakow could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Levadia of Estonia in the first leg. The Tallinn club not only held on but manged a last minute winner from Vladislav Ivanov to render the away goal redundant and see the Estonians through.

Another nail-biter was in Kalmar, Sweden, where the Hungarians Debrecen squeaked through. They won the first leg 2-0 with goals by Jozsef Varga and Zoltan Kiss. Varga was on target in the second leg with a precious away goal. However Kalmar stormed back with three goals. It was tense but the Magyars hung on.

While the Swedes crashed out, their neighbours in Denmark are laughing up their sleeves after FC Kobenhavn progressed. Ndoye and Almeida were the goalscoring heroes over the two games for FCK as they demolished Mogren 12 (twelve) - 0.

Fans of rampant commercialism in football will be as delighted as the enemies of romance to hear that Red Bull Salzburg narrowly progressed to the next round at the expense of Bohemians.

The Irish club are strapped for cash and could really use a decent European run. It looked really good for them too after holding the Austrian giants to a 1-1 draw in Salzburg. It was all back to Dublin for the second leg and Bohs almost made it to a second round tie against Dinamo Zagreb. Tragically for them, Patrik Jezek scored for Salzburg with only three minutes on the clock. It finished 2-1 on aggregate. Gutted.

The third qualifying round takes place at the end of the month. This round features the runners-up from Scotland, Holland, Greece, Czech Republic and so on. SPAOTP will be sure to let you know what happens.

Full results are here. Third Qualifying round is here. The story of Red Bull/Austria-Salzburg is here.