5️⃣ spicy fixtures you must watch this weekend 🌶 | OneFootball

It is time once again to take a look at the most exciting non-Premier League fixtures from around the globe this weekend.

Sporting CP v Portimonense

We are only five games into the new Primeira Liga season but Sporting are already in danger of slipping out of the title race.

A slow start sees Sporting down in ninth, five points behind Porto and eight points adrift of league leaders and Lisbon rivals Benfica. So it isn’t the best time to meet the nation’s in-form side.

Benfica may be top with a 100% record but it is Portimonense who should have people talking. They finished 13th last season, winning 10 games, but have already won four this term, and do so having lost their opening game against Boavista.

Four wins and three clean sheets since suggest they’re worth taking seriously.

The last game between the sides saw Sporting win a seventh meeting in a row, albeit narrowly with the game ending 3-2. The pressure is on them to make it eight.

Spice rating: Mild 🌶

Feyenoord v Sparta Rotterdam

It’s derby day in the fair city of Rotterdam on Sunday, and De Kuip will be the place to be.

Arne Slot’s Feyenoord have made a decent start to the new season and currently sit two points behind Ajax in second place.

And having just avoided relegation last season, Sparta haven’t made a bad start either, with a 4-0 victory over Volendam last weekend giving them encouragement heading into the derby.

Legend has it that this rivalry is based on historical class difference between the two clubs. Sparta are the oldest professional team in the Netherlands and when they were founded in 1888, football was still considered an upper class sport.

Then, 20 years later, another club was formed in the working class district Feijenoord, and the friction began.

To this day, Feyenoord are still know to some as ‘De club van het volk’ (The Club of the People) but with 15 Dutch titles to their name compared to Sparta’s six, it’s fair to say the tables have turned.

Spice rating: Medium 🌶 🌶

Marseille v Lille

Saturday night in Ligue 1 pits two clubs against each other who may not have much hope of pipping Paris Saint-Germain to the title, but can feel confident about their chances of a place on the podium come the end of the season.

After finishing distant runners-up last season, Olympique Marseille parted company with coach Jorge Sampaoli in the summer and brought in Igor Tudor. It has been so far, so excellent for the Croatian former defender, with five wins and a draw leaving them neck and neck with PSG on 16 points.

But OM were beaten by Tottenham in the Champions League on Wednesday, and LOSC Lille will be hoping to kick them while they’re down this weekend.

The 2020/21 champions finished mid-table last term and haven’t made a brilliant start to this one, but coach Paulo Fonseca is still new to the job and a brace from Canadian star striker Jonathan David against Montpellier last weekend reminded us what he’s all about.

Spice rating: Hot 🌶 🌶 🌶

RB Leipzig vs Borussia Dortmund

Football has a funny way of throwing up the most delicious sub-plots and there’s a great one coming our way in the Bundesliga on Saturday.

After a disappointing but not exactly disastrous season last year, Borussia Dortmund made the rather surprising decision to part ways with coach Marco Rose this summer, bringing in former caretaker boss Edin Terzić on a permanent basis as his replacement.

RB Leipzig, meanwhile, finished last season with coach Domenico Tedesco guiding them to the first major trophy in the club’s history when they lifted the DFB-Pokal.

But an underwhelming start to the new season came to a head with Tedesco being given his marching orders after Tuesday’s 4-1 home defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League.

Leipzig have moved quickly to appoint Rose as their new coach, and his first match in charge will be Saturday’s clash with Dortmund, when revenge against his former employer could be on the cards.

It has not been a good week for German coaches, but it could be about to get a whole lot better for at least one of them.

Spice rating: Fire 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶

Boca Juniors vs River Plate

Rivalries don’t come much bigger or more intense than the one between these two giant clubs and, to many, the Argentine Superclásico is the greatest derby on the planet.

On Sunday Boca Juniors’ iconic Bombonera stadium plays host to what is guaranteed to be a great spectacle, with River Plate making the daunting trip from the affluent Buenos Aires suburb of Nuñez and into the enemy territory of the La Boca neighbourhood.

La Boca – the working class dockland area of the city – is where both clubs were formed four years apart at the beginning of the 20th century. And it’s where they both stayed until River moved to Nuñez in 1925, earning themselves the nickname ‘Los Millonarios (The Millionaires)’. Resentment between the two clubs has festered ever since.

Both sides are trailing league leaders Atlético Tucumán by four points, but the table is a mere triviality in this fixture. To the supporters of the two clubs it’s far more than just a football match, but rather a clash of two distinct identities.

As Martin Mazur of El Grafico magazine once put it: “A hundred years ago it was about working class versus aristocracy. Today it’s just about hate.”

This match will be available to stream live for the price of just €1.99 for OneFootball users worldwide except the United States and Canada.

Spice rating: Insane 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶