La Liga US TV Listings for Jornada 15: Dec. 19 and Dec. 20

Christ­mas Dec­o­ra­tions in the Cen­ter of Mar­bella, Spain

This week­end sig­nals the last round of fix­tures for the 2009 cal­en­dar year.  As the play­ers are yearn­ing for the Christ­mas break to earn some much needed rest and the man­agers and own­ers are fill­ing out their trans­fer wish list for Papá Noel, Round 15 pro­vides inter­est­ing if not nec­es­sar­ily mar­quee matches.  The game of the week will be the last game of 2009 as Deportivo La Coruña hosts Valen­cia at El Ria­zor on Sun­day night.  La Liga will return on Jan­u­ary 2, 2010, but until then, hol­i­day in Mar­bella sounds like a per­fect idea.

The times listed are East­ern Stan­dard Time (EST) and include the pregame pleas­antries, although some­times the matches on the DIRECTV La Liga spe­cific chan­nels may not go to match cov­er­age until right before kickoff.

Dec. 19

Ath­letic Bil­bao vs. Osasuna — 11:45 AM on DIRECTV chan­nel 456

Sevilla vs. Getafe — 1:55 PM on GOL TV

Real Madrid vs. Real Zaragoza — 3:55 PM on GOL TV

Dec. 20

Vil­lar­real vs. Rac­ing San­tander — 10:45 AM on DIRECTV chan­nel 456

Málaga vs. Mal­lorca — 10:45 AM on DIRECTV chan­nel 457

Espanyol vs. Almería — 10:55 AM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN 360

Tener­ife vs. Atlético Madrid — 12:55 PM on GOL TV

Deportivo La Coruña vs. Valen­cia — 2:55 PM on ESPN Deportes/ESPN 360

Unfor­tu­nately, the Real Val­ladolid — Sport­ing Gijón match will not be shown on US TV.  Also, the Xerez — Barcelona match that would have been played this week­end was already played two weeks ago because of Barcelona’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the FIFA Club World Cup.  Barcelona won 0–2 in a strug­gle against the cellar-dwellers from Jerez de la Frontera.

FIFA Club World Cup

As expected, the Copa Lib­er­ta­dores win­ner will matchup with the win­ner of the UEFA Cham­pi­ons League in the final of the FIFA Club World Cup.  After early scares from Pohang Steel­ers and Atlante, the class of the two final­ists even­tu­ally bloomed, although for Estu­di­antes, the lack of dis­ci­pline dis­played by Pohang Steel­ers cer­tainly helped their cause.  Pep Guardi­ola will hope to con­tinue his win­ning streak as man­ager of FC Barcelona: five com­pe­ti­tions entered and five com­pe­ti­tions won to this point.  Club cham­pi­ons of the world will put a nice bow to fully close out the accom­plish­ments of the 2008–2009 FC Barcelona team.

FC Barcelona vs. Estu­di­antes de La Plata — Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 19 at 10:55 AM on Fox Sports en Español (For those who do not receive Fox Sports en Español, Fox Soc­cer Chan­nel will air the final on delay at 9:00 PM on Sat­ur­day night)