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After a bruising week of European quarter-finals first legs, clubs focus on getting to next season's competitions.

Seven great matches to take you from Friday to Sunday. It’s the Sound of Football Weekend Boxset.

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All times are UK

Friday

Championship: Burnley v Norwich City

20.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
Scott Parker is potentially five games away from a third promotion to England’s top tier as a coach. Having previously achieved the feat with Fulham and Bournemouth, next season’s inevitable relegation will see the sartorially blessed Englishman sporting his fitted jackets and roll-neck sweaters in the Bundesliga by the following year. That’s quite the incentive to get a result tonight. Indeed, this season’s performance will sit impressively on his CV as he steers the Lancashire club back to the Premier League. Most impressive is his defensive organisation which boasts only twelve goals conceded all season and an unbeaten run stretching back to early November. However, a 0-0 at Derby in midweek opened the door to (dirty) Leeds who retook top-spot with a win at Yorkshire rivals, Boro. Thankfully, Sheffield United floundered for the second game in succession meaning Burnley remain in control of their own destiny. However, the Clarets still have to play the Blades which potentially gives (dirty) Leeds the edge in the title race. As I mentioned, Burnley’s run stretches back to before Bonfire Night, however, tonight’s hosts can boast no such record. Over the same period, the Canaries have lost twelve and conceded forty! Norwich boss, Johannes Hoff Thorup, who is precisely what you’d get if you asked central casting for a Danish head coach, has failed to build on last season’s play-off finish under David Wagner. While they ultimately lost in the semis to beaten finalists, (dirty) Leeds, they were a formidable side, but have disappointed this term. While they still have fire-power in Borja Sainz and Josh Sargent, who have thirty-one goals between them, I can’t see them getting past Burnley's defence which, as we’ve seen, is harder to prize open than my wallet. A clean sheet tonight will be Burnley's thirtieth of the season, which has to be some kind of record. 1-0 Burnley. JB

Saturday

A-League: Sydney v Auckland

08.00 on TNT Sports 1
This will be an interesting match to tune into before the whistle is even blown for kick off, as Steve Corica returns to the club he managed to two A League championships. Those who regularly watched the dying days of his time in the Sydney FC dugout with slow, predictable and quite tedious football will have been surprised at just how all conquering Auckland have been this season, with Corica building a side from scratch that’s both brutally effective and can dig in when the going gets tough - two phrases rarely associated with his time at Sydney. It would be a huge surprise if the new New Zealand team failed to take the Premiers’ Plate (or regular season league title to you and I), but with both Western United and Melbourne City still fancying their chances, Auckland can’t afford to let up. You’d fancy them - or anybody - against Sydney’s defence right now. The Sky Blues leak easy goals regularly and rely on Douglas Costa and Adrian Segecic to routinely bail them out of problems of their own making. They’re also in the middle of a gruelling run of season-defining matches, requiring points to stay in the A League finals, as well as needing to overturn a 2-0 deficit next week against Singapore’s Lion City Sailors in the Asian Champions League 2 (AFC’s version of the Europa League). Ufuk Talay tends to largely stick with an unchanged side, so you suspect tiredness might be an issue after a midweek trip to Asia. Auckland are the type of team to pounce on any weakness, and it’s hard to look beyond the league leaders for this one. GA

Premier League: Manchester City v Crystal Palace

12.30 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
It seems hard to believe now that when these sides met at Selhurst Park, in early December, Palace had just two wins to their name and were below Leicester in the table. City had just previously ended their worst run of results in years with a comfortable win over Forest, but the 2-2 they ground out (they had to equalise twice) showed that their problems hadn’t gone away and that Palace were better than the table suggested. City go into this one looking to get back into the top five (now that fifth place is assured the extra Champions League spot) while Palace have genuine ambitions for a first ever European qualification, with the sides immediately above, Bournemouth and Brighton, both struggling for form. Reports emerged yesterday that Tottenham have opened discussions for Oliver Glasner to replace Ange Postecoglu as their manager. That said, Spurs are also reportedly in the hunt for Marco Silva or Andoni Iraola. All three of those are coaching clubs that are playing better football than Spurs but also happen to be far better run than Spurs. The biggest rumour linked to Glasner has been a return to the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig but Como’s Cesc Fabregas seems to be the new name in the frame for that one. Any move for the Austrian would see Palace being compensated as he is contracted until the end of next season, but would see the club starting yet another season in a state of flux. Palace are without Eddie Nketiah and Marc Guehi, both serving a one match suspension for picking up two yellows each in the win against Brighton last weekend; a game that saw three red cards but in which only four players were booked. GS

Bundesliga: Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund

17.30 on Sky Sports Football
Despite the reduced circumstances of one of the participants “Der Klassiker” remains the Bundesliga’s showpiece fixture, at least internationally. Borussia’s decline has been arrested under coach Niko Kovac and as Graham pointed out in the podcast, the loss of form of teams above them on the table have left the door ajar for a return to the top four at just the right time in the season. Wins against Mainz and Freiburg have put Dortmund within four points of a Champions League place and while there are a few teams between them, the club have the players to finish the season strongly despite the absence of defender Nico Schlotterback for the rest of the season. Any Chelsea fans interested in Carney Chukwuemeka; the young Englishman has suffered illness and injuries since joining on loan in January. But he scored against Freiburg on Saturday and could be something of a wildcard at the Allianz. Both teams suffered Champions League defeat this week, with Bayern 2-1 loss to Inter being less decisive that Dortmund’s 4-0 thrashing in Barcelona. Bayern have not been entirely convincing in recent weeks. They struggled to beat St Pauli and Augsburg in their last two outings and a 3-2 defeat at home to Bochum in early March caused shockwaves through the league. But the club are on the home stretch to the title and something calamitous will need to happen to blow the six-point gap at the top of the table. Bayern will be anxious not to repeat the outcome of this fixture just over a year ago when they lost at home to Dortmund 2-0. A scoreline that broke an eight-match run of wins over the Ruhrpott club in Munich. TD

Sunday

Scottish Premiership: Aberdeen v Rangers

12.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
This weekend’s round of fixtures in Scotland’s top flight is the last before the division splits in two for the run-in. It could also be the weekend Celtic win their 55th title (drawing level with Rangers’ record) if they beat Kilmarnock on Saturday and Rangers lose here. Barry Ferguson’s side go into this on the back of a resolute display against Athletic Bilbao in the Europa League, a match that saw them reduced to 10 men after just quarter of an hour, and survive a siege on their defensive third to keep the score 0-0. Their obdurate low-block may not have physically taxed the players as much as going for a result, but it will still be a stern test to recover mentally for this game against an Aberdeen side with their own European ambitions. Despite Rangers doing well in European competitions in recent seasons, the pressure is on Scottish sides to improve. Scotland have lost their automatic place in the league phase of next season’s Champions League but have retained five European places, for now at least. In a bid to help their teams in Europe, the SPFL announced this week that from next season teams involved in qualification play-off rounds will be allowed to postpone their weekend league matches to aid their preparation. GS

Women’s FA Cup semi-final: Manchester City v Manchester United

15.00 on BBC Two & iPlayer
Another weekend, another Manchester derby, hopefully this one will be better than the dreary display the men put on last Sunday. United are the Women’s FA Cup holders and looking to reach a third consecutive final. City meanwhile are looking to salvage something from another disappointing season. The club’s “Hail Mary” move of replacing manager Gareth Taylor with Nick Cushing immediately before the four consecutive matches against Chelsea, yielded nothing. They lost ground in the WSL, were eliminated from the Champions League and lost the final of the League Cup. Cushing was in charge of City the last time they won the cup in an empty Wembley in 2020. Maybe his return can inspire his injury-ravaged but still strong squad to victory over the holders, but then it’ll be Chelsea again in the final. As it is, winning the cup does nothing for City’s European ambitions. The introduction of the new Europa Cup does not create any additional European places for domestic cup winners. Maybe in time this will change. GS

Serie A: Lazio v Roma

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and OneFootball
Lazio were the only top half side to win in last weekend’s round of Serie A fixtures, allowing them to leapfrog their city rivals who drew against Juventus (in the match I covered last week). However, they go into this derby after a long trip back from the Arctic Circle where they lost their Europa League quarter final first leg 2-0 to Bodo/Glimt. After a promising start for Marco Baroni, his Lazio side have struggled to find any consistency since December, but given his career path up to now you’d still say he’s done better than what would reasonably be expected. Before signing for Lazio last summer, the 61-year-old’s career was a litany of short stays at sides either looking for promotion from Serie B or trying to stay in Serie A; this is his first head coach role at what you could describe as a big club. Both his predecessors, Maurizio Sarri and Igor Tudor, struggled to keep the squad together so maybe the decision to give the club over to a steady hand on the wheel makes sense. It certainly looked that way in December when, with Lazio top of the Europa League table and looking at Champions League qualification, he had his contract extended (he’s never been in charge of a side for more than 16 months). With Atalanta hosting Bologna earlier in the day this is a perfect opportunity for either side to draw closer to the Champions League places. GS


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary