Athletico Madrid are perhaps -along with Villarreal- fast becoming the revelation of the season. They are currently in fifth position and just one point from a Champions league spot. They are winning matches they would have lost last year and scoring goals too. Lots of goals. Even without Fernando Torres. They now have thirty three goals from the league and the UEFA cup in just fourteen games and have lost just twice so far, away at Barcelona and Real Madrid. Much of their success comes from the strike partnership of Diego Forlan and ‘el Kun’ Agüero, who have netted eighteen goals between them this season already. Not to be outdone, Sevilla have an even better goal scoring machine in Kanoute and Luis Fabiano. These two have gone on the score sheet twenty times so far. Sixteen in the league and four in Champions. When these two clubs meet at the Calderon stadium on Wednesday expect a lot a goals if both partnerships are true to form. New Sevilla coach Manolo Jimenez made an excellent start to his reign by beating Valencia by three goals to nil to home on Sunday, although he hasn’t really done much so far as Juande Ramos left last Friday. Still, it’s always good to start your career winning and he will be taking the victory to Madrid. A curious fact is that both teams have won their last two league games where both scored five goals without conceding any. Historically, Athletico have the upper hand as they have only lost to Sevilla at home four times in the last thirteen years, winning five others and drawing three. This is a difficult game to call. Both teams are doing well now. Sevilla seem to have gotten past their recent drop in form and are now back to (or nearing) last season’s best. The only chink in their armor seems to be in the form of their new manager. It will be interesting how he copes with the pressure now that his first game is out of the way. If I have to choose a winner here (and I’m sure it’s not going to end in a draw), I would have to plump for Athletico Madrid. They are firing on all cylinders at the moment, especially ‘el Kun’, who seems to be finally breaking into the limelight and taking some of the shine form his Argentinean compatriot Leo Messi. Prediction: Home win (3-2)

After a promising start to the season with an away win to Espanyol, Valladolid have gone from bad to worse. Since their opening game they have failed to pick up three points from a game, and have only managed to draw three. That leaves five defeats –including four consecutive ones- and the prospect of playing host to second placed Barcelona. The Valladolid players are clinging on to the fact that they managed to get a draw at home to leaders Real Madrid. Maybe that will serve as a base with which to mount a serious attempt at gaining something from the game, but I doubt it. They have only kept a clean sheet on the first day of the present season and have conceded nineteen goals in nine games. Not too good when you are about to receive Messi, Ronaldhino, Henry and Co.

Valladolid coach José Luis Mendilibar, who surprisingly signed an extension to his contract to keep him at the Jose Zorrilla stadium until 2009, is expected to make some changes from the two - two draw at the weekend away to Osasuna. Whether these changes will do anything to stop a Barcelona team -who aren’t playing particularly well but nevertheless keep getting the right results- remains to be seen.

Barcelona won their last match against Almeria with a lot more suffering than expected. They were clearly helped by a referee who first gave Thierry Henry his second league goal from an off side position, then invented a penalty for Leo Messi to score which keeps him as the league’s top scorer on six. It was also interesting to see Brazilian sensation Ronaldhino substituted for the umpteenth time this term with plenty of boos too. It wasn’t clear if the crowd was directing its anger to the player or coach Frank Rijkaard or both, but it does give a sign that the paying public are far from happy with the team. There is a rumor going round that AC Milan are about to make Ronaldhino an offer he can’t refuse when the winter transfer window opens and I’m pretty sure he’ll be off.

For all Barcelona’s current problems I don’t think they will have too many problems to overcome a Valladolid side who don’t have a squad to maintain their category for more than a season. I’m going for a Barcelona victory but don’t expect an historic goal fest.

Prediction: Away win (2-0)

Real Madrid go into this match still heading the table after their three one win over Deportivo at the weekend, but the big news in this game will be the fan’s reaction to the sacking of Valencia coach Quique Sanchez Flores. The sacking came just hours after Valencia had lost their league game away to Sevilla by three goals to nil. In today’s world of high stakes football, losing two games on the run is now grounds of losing your job. You have to feel sorry for Quique Sanchez Flores. He hasn’t had an easy time of it in Valencia, where the coaches very seldom have it all their own way. The name now on the thoughts of all the Valencia supporters is a certain Portuguese who has recently been put out of work as well. Whether Jose Mourinho will accept the position knowing Valencia’s bank account and the president’s liking of control is another matter. Most likely they will appoint Valencia’s second team coach for the mean time. Valencia are still in a Champions league place in the league, and have won six of their nine league games –including four away from home which is the best form in the league- and really didn’t need to change coaches at this stage of the season. Something tells me that Valencia have shot themselves in the foot with this decision, but we’ll have to wait and see. Certainly, facing Real Madrid at home (where their form is much worse) is not going to be an easy task for the new coach, whoever is turns out to be. There is a lot of talk in the Spanish sports media about Real Madrid’s poor football, but as coach Bernd Schuster points out, the statistics come first then nice football. They have dropped just five points from a possible twenty seven and are also the league’s top scorers with twenty. Their defense is constantly criticized but remain the best this season with only six games conceded. Mestalla is also a good stadium for Madrid, where you would have to go back to 2003 to find their last defeat. In team news, Schuster expects both Heinze and Diarra to be fit again, but can’t still can’t on Pepe and injured himself in the first game of the season. A win here for Valencia would put them just one point behind Real Madrid, but it really depends on how the fans get behind their team. They have been pretty aggressive towards their team’s players and coach, even booing when Valencia have won games. I’m going for an away win here. Madrid enjoy playing at the Mestalla stadium and are certainly going to go all out to make life for the new Valencia coach difficult. Raul, who has scored six goals in both competitions so far this season, is looking better than he has in years and I can see him scoring again here. Prediction: Away win (1-2)

Now the Colorado Rockies are in a lot of trouble. They returned home with hopes of recapturing the magic they had in the last few weeks of the season and the first two rounds of the playoffs. But what happened in Denver was the same as what happened in Boston.

The game started off with the pitchers being pretty much in control. It looked at the beginning like the Rockies were going to be able to hold down the Boston offense that had been so lethal lately. However, that quickly fell to the waste side. Once again the Red Sox bats would make the difference and the Rockies would once again lose the game in a rout.

The top of third was when it all fell apart for the Rockies. The Red Sox strung together a ton of hits and sent twelve men to the plate. Before the inning was over, the Red Sox put-up six big runs. The inning was highlighted by Red Sox pitcher, Dice-K, hitting a two-run single. It was the first hit of the year – the first hit in the Major Leagues – for Dice-K. And here is was with two outs in the top of third in the World Series.

The Rockies did fight back – thanks to a three-run homer off the bat of Matt Holiday. The Rockies nearly leveled the score with that homer. They trailed by just one – six to five. But in the next half inning – the top of the eighth – the Boston Red Sox answer with three runs. Then the Sox scored one more run in the top of the ninth and that gave us the final score of ten to five.

So in the end the Rockies were blown out once again. You can make as many excuses as possible and try to explain why the Rockies are being so thoroughly dominated, but in the end it simply comes down to the fact that the Red Sox are playing nearly flawless baseball while the Rockies are playing poorly. And it looks like this World Series may be over in four games.

The Rockies need to tell themselves to take things a game at a time. They have to try to win the next game and then worry about Game Five from there. However, looming in Game Five is Josh Beckett, if it gets that far. So, even if the Rockies win on Sunday night, they will have a very tough test the next game. We will if the Rockies can come back at all.

Friday was a day off for the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies. The two teams had the day off to travel from Boston to Colorado. And the Rockies better hope they find they mojo when they get back home.

Along with getting their momentum back, the Rockies need to stop making mistakes at key points in the game. On Thursday the key mistake happened when Matt Holiday got picked-off first base in the top of the eighth. That simply can’t happen when you are in the World Series, down one game to none, and down to runs to one. Getting picked off to end an inning is simply inexcusable.

But the Rockies can’t focus on the first two games. Now they have to look forward to going home to Coors field and winning the next game. They can’t worry about anything other than winning the very next game. Because if they lose the next game, this series is all but over.

And the Rockies do have a couple factors in their favor.

First, they will be playing in front of their home fans. Secondly, they will be playing in the thinner air of Denver where they are obviously more accustomed than the Red Sox. Thirdly, they will be playing under the National league rules which require the pitcher to bat. So, the Rockies pitchers will be slightly better at hitting than the Red Sox’s pitchers.

More importantly with the pitching rule, the Red Sox will have to make a decision whether they want David Ortiz in the field or not. Ortiz has a great bat but he is a liability in the field – especially with his injured knee. So the question will be, do the Red Sox risk the defense or do they hurt their hitting? We will see if the decision haunts the Red Sox one way or the other.

So the fans in Denver better be ready to scream their heads off and to do everything they can to try to lift the Rockies to victory. Saturday’s game is as important as a game can possibly get. The Rockies win and they are just a game down and right back into this series. The Red Sox win, and the World Series is all theirs. It would take a major miracle for the Rockies to come back.

What a difference a day makes.

On Wednesday night the Boston Red Sox hit anything and everything that was pitched their way. And the Colorado Rockies, well, they didn’t hit anything that was pitched their way. But that was a result of Josh Beckett being on the mound and the fact that the Rockies were coming off a break that lasted better than a week. But I’ll get back to their break in a just a minute. For now, let’s talk about last night’s game.

The Rockies had a very promising start to the game. They put one run on the board in the top of first off Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. Then Jimenez came out and shut down the Red Sox for the first three innings. But during that time the Rockies couldn’t manage to score any more runs. In fact, the Rockies didn’t score any more runs in the entire game. Then when the Red Sox scored on in the bottom of the fourth and one more in the bottom of the fifth, they Rockies trailed two to one. That would prove to be the final score.

Now, there are two ways to look at the Rockies performance in Fenway. You can choose to recognize the Red Sox pitching and say they did a great job by giving up just one run in each of the first two games. Or you could say the Rockies were just hitting the ball poorly.

I choose the latter.

Look, Beckett was nasty in Game One – there’s no denying that. But Schilling was anything but nasty in Game Two. He did get better as the game wore on but the Rockies should’ve been able to light him up in the first two to three innings. Schilling’s fastball in the first couple of innings was topping out at only about eighty-seven or eighty-eight miles an hour. For a pitcher that relies on power, that’s a very good speed… for high school. There’s no way the Rockies should only have scored one run.

Later in the game (when, I assume Schilling finally got his arm warmed-up) Schilling was throwing in the mid-nineties. He also got his split-finger working – it was in the mid-eighties. Schilling can be very difficult to hit when he gets those two pitches going, but he didn’t have them in the first two to three innings.

I don’t want to give the Rockies a pass but they seem to have lost their timing in all those days off. They better hope they find their timing on the trip back to Colorado. Because they are now down two games to zero and Josh Beckett looms in Game Five. So these next two games are must wins for the Rockies.

We’ll see if they can take the next game on Saturday night.