Soccer Source Saturday Summary: Spanish Favorites Fall

Spanish rivals Real Madrid and FC Barcelona fell from the ranks of La Liga's unbeaten, succumbing to Espanyol Barcelona and Villareal, respectively. Espanyol's Raúl Tamudo scored his second big goal in a week's time. Neither loss is a major upset as both Espanyol and Villareal are top level teams this year--and both were playing at home--but I imagine there will be consequences when Soccer Source's Top 25 rankings are released Monday morning. ("Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow," as my 10th grade English teacher used to say.)

Spain's was the only league that saw major upsets today. Elsewhere in Europe, top-of-the-table clubs Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Olympique Lyon and Arsenal all booked clear victories in their respective leagues. Rangers won the latest version of their friendly neighborhood competition with Celtic by three goals.

In Mexico, America continued their return to form, beating Pachuca 2-1, while Chivas yielded a last-minute equalizer to Atlante. The player who scored that goal, Alain Nkong, is a Major League Soccer castoff, if you can believe that. The Cameroonian was waived by the Colorado Rapids--twice (in 2005 and again the following year).

Speaking of MLS, guess who scored again for Benfica? That's right, Fredy Adu. His volley in the closing minutes salvaged a tie for the Lisbon side. Fredy was a second half substitute again. When is Jose Antonio Camacho finally going to start him? Thanks to Yanks Abroad for alerting me to this.

Finally, what is going on with German champions VfB Stuttgart? They had their asses handed to them today by Hamburg and have now slipped to 13th in the Bundesliga. They are dead last in their champions league group with zero wins and two losses. But they haven't only been losing to quality competition, either. Karlsruhe, Rostock and Hannover have all beaten Stuttgart over the past weeks. Figure Armin Veh to be on the short- short-list of managers whose jobs are in peril. Who will go first, him or Martin Jol? Now taking wagers...