Málaga vs. Real Madrid Barcelona vs. Sevilla 

It cannot often be said that Barcelona and Madrid are the warm-up act. But from the perspective of world television this weekend, the mighty Spanish teams will have to go some to come close to the shootout Sunday between the Manchester clubs in England. 
Barça is still, game on game, playing the most beautiful soccer on earth. And Sevilla is one of the opponents that might dare to attack it in Camp Nou. 
Real, however, has the more intriguing challenge. It travels to Málaga, whose team has been pumped up by the spending of the Qatari Abdullah Al-Thani. The sheik didn’t get the top targets he sought — Raúl, Samuel Eto’o and Wesley Sneijder. But his €50 million, or nearly $70 million, did enable Manuel Pellegrini, a former Real Madrid coach, to bring in Santi Cazorla, Joaquín Sánchez, Jérémy Toulalan and a couple of discarded Real strikers, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Júlio Baptista. 
“I won’t celebrate if I score against Madrid,” van Nistelrooy promised. Yeah, right. 
Sunday 
Manchester United vs. Manchester City 
The four miles, or 6.4 kilometers, between them seemed for so many decades to be a chasm in class, in spending power, in trophies won. But City, now owned by the richest Arab benefactor in world sports, is today at the top of the Premier League, two points and two goals ahead of United. 
The taunts and the bragging rights in England’s second city are turned on their head, at least temporarily. “Everyone believes we can go there and win,” said City’s Dutch midfield ball-winner, Nigel de Jong. “We’re going there as No. 1 and the aim is to stay No. 1. We’ve shown our quality throughout the season. We don’t need a game against United to show how good we are.” 
In the comparative quiet down the road, United manager Alex Ferguson admits this is the most intense Manchester derby in his 25 years in the community. He changed nine players in United’s usual starting lineup for its midweek Champions League match to keep some of his key men fresh and energetic for Sunday. 
“It really builds up into a fantastic prospect for everyone,” Ferguson says. “I’m looking forward to that.” He, and about a billion TV viewers. 
Past form favors United. It has won its last 19 league home games against all opponents. Its record against City at Old Trafford is just one defeat in 35 league games since Ferguson took charge. And the Red Devils’ full record against the light blues since their rivalry began in 1881 reads: United 67 victories, City 43, with 50 games tied. 
Over the years, a united nations of strikers have played the hero in this parochial contest. The onus Sunday is on Wayne Rooney and Chicharito Hernández for United versus Sergio Agüero and Edin Dzeko, or Mario Balotelli. 
Lille vs. Lyon 
This has been a chastening week for the French clubs in the Champions League. Three teams — Marseille, Lille and Lyon — all lost, all without scoring. 
Now Lille, the defending Ligue 1 champion, plays Lyon, the former champion. Neither is in first place, but they are within striking distance of the leader, Paris Saint-Germain, which is yet another team enhanced by the injection of Qatar fuel money. 
Perhaps the key to the match, at Lille Métropole stadium, is whether Lisandro López can regain fitness to take his place in the Lyon attack. 
Lecce vs. A.C. Milan 
Hard times in Italy’s two major cities, Rome and Milan, while the heavily reinforced Juventus is first out of the traps in Serie A. But the champion, Milan, is stirring, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic is never far from scoring when that happens. 
The tall Swede was reported to be disenchanted with soccer, but he insists that the Italian news media are misinterpreting comments made by him in his homeland. “I’m not sad,” he said after scoring in Milan’s Champions League win over BATE Borisov on Wednesday. “I’ll have to teach people Swedish because they didn’t understand what I said in that interview. I’m fine, and I think I’m showing that on the pitch.” 
Ajax Amsterdam vs. Feyenoord 
Once the biggest match of the calendar in the Netherlands, a clash of cultures, of styles, and an extreme challenge to police, this has become an event burdened by memories. 
Johan Cruyff, no less, is trying to breath new life into his first club, Ajax. Cruyff talked up the prospect of Marco van Basten returning to Amsterdam in an executive role, but negotiations fell through this week. 
Still, Frank de Boer is staying as coach, and saying he would not leave even if he was offered the Barcelona coaching role. And Christian Eriksen, a Danish product of the Ajax youth system, got back to scoring in the 2-0 Ajax victory in Zagreb. 
Club América vs. Chivas Guadalajara 
Guadalajara of Mexico fined two players for a goal celebration in which one pretended to shoot the other in the head. Marco Fabian de la Mora, who scored a hat trick, and Alberto Medina were each fined 50,000 Mexican pesos, or $3,700, for the incident last Saturday. 
“I greatly regret what happened,” de la Mora said Thursday after donating a million pesos to an orphanage in the northern border town of Ciudad Juárez. “When I saw the video I was filled with anger and regret for playing around with something as sacred as the life of a human being,” 
