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With the premier European football clubs ready to do battle again, fans who watch live online streaming UEFA Champions League football matches will be eager to find out who has the best chance of winning the trophy. The usual suspects are all there again. Manchester United, who won last season’s title, will be among the favorites again. Chelsea, last season’s finalist with the Manchurians, will also figure prominently. With their pedigree in the competition, Liverpool will also be many fans’ sentimental favorite. But perhaps the fiercest challengers to the English trio of clubs will come from their traditional rivals in Spain.

There are three Spanish La Liga teams that will be there when the dust settles. They include Real Madrid, Barcelona and dark horses Villareal. Spanish teams performed terribly in last seaon’s Champions League. Real Madrid were dumped out in the first knockout stages by their Italian rivals AS Roma, while Barcelona left with their tails between their legs, whimpering all the way to their Catalan home. While Spain’s national team won the European Championships in July, their football clubs were floundering in European club football. The summer that followed was one of restructuring and consolidation, with a strong emphasis on teamwork by coaches at all three clubs.

The result has been strong early season form by the three leading clubs in the Spanish La Liga. Real Madrid in their live streaming Spanish La Liga football matches, have successfully melded style with substance, as they climb the league table and close in on the current leaders Valencia. Barcelona have gotten over a jittery early start, and manager Pep Guardiola’s tactics are starting to bear fruit. While Argentinian star Lionel Messi continues to rule the Barcelona midfield, the defence has also grown in quality and strength. Villareal are currently leading the league with Valencia, and this despite not being in the limelight as often as the other two giants of Spanish football.

With such imperious form shown by all three clubs, there is strong optimism from the country that they will fly the flag of Spanish football high. Judging from the makeup of each team, the strongest contender to Manchester United’s crown would be Real Madrid and Villareal. Barcelona might suffer from the lack of managerial experience that is evident on Guardiola’s resume, and their style continues to take precedence over solidity at times.

Real Madrid has a coach of German descent and tactical nous at the helm. Bernd Schuster has quietly shaped a team that will continue to grow from strength to strength. With time, Real Madrid could win Europe’s elite prize in club football again. Villareal does not have any standout stars, a sign of a true team in the making. They have already managed to hold Manchester United to a draw at Old Trafford during their meeting in the group stage. The result was achieved without having to sit back and defend, which is the strategy that lesser teams would adopt when playing the current European club football champions.

While most football fans will expect English teams to be present in the final stages, their Spanish counterparts will also weigh in heavily on the destiny of the trophy. With such a diverse mix of different soccer styles, expect even more twists and turns as the competition unfolds this season with more live Manchester United Champions League football matches.

With another few rounds of qualifiers to be played this weekend in football’s 2010 World Cup, fans will be glued to the various match-ups that might spell the end of many countries’ campaign. Nowhere will this be brought to the fore more so than in Africa, where the reputations and qualifying hopes of many major nations could be destroyed even before they have proceeded to the second stage. If the scenarios end with more upsets than expected results, the World Cup in South Africa could see a very different group of African nations playing for the region’s pride, compared to previous editions.

While the hosts South Africa might end up bottom of their group, they are exempted from having to qualify for the tournament. But their disastrous campaign means that they will now miss the African Nations Cup in the same year, for which the qualifying process is based on the same World Cup setup. It is a complicated and confusing system which perhaps only FIFA can explain, but the countries will comply just the same. It has also exposed the deficiencies in quality and standard in the South Africans, who must now undergo a drastic improvement within two years if they hope to avoid humiliation in front of their own fans.

Giants of African football that are on the brink of elimination this weekend include Angola, Ghana, Algeria, Senegal, and Morocco. Perhaps the countries most in danger are Angola and Senegal, with the former having fallen from grace in such drastic pace. Just two World Cups ago, Angola was considered one of the strongest African footballing nations, with many notable star players gracing some of the most famous clubs around the year 2006. They qualified for the World Cup in 2006, but four years on, Angola are on the verge of a first round knockout in the qualifiers. If they fail to qualify after this weekend, Angola will be left to ponder what next in their national football team's development.

Senegal will always be remembered for their defeat of world and European champions France in the opening game of World Cup 2002. It was a sensational result that was based on a group of honest players who were hardly heard of outside the country, in stark contrast to the numerous household names in the French team, most notably Zinedine Zidane. While they conquered their former colonial masters on the sporting field, Senegal will look back at the past and present French teams to imagine what might have been. Many aspiring Senegalese footballers have gone on to play for France at international levels. This has robbed the African nation of many natural talents, which perhaps partly explains their current decline. While Senegal might still qualify for the next round after this weekend, it speaks volumes of the lack of talent development that they are struggling in a group which includes Gambia and Liberia.

With the potential of major upsets lurking round the corner in the qualifiers this weekend, the world of football will be watching the many live online streaming World Cup football matches as fans keep scores. Who will join the likes of Ivory Coast, Cameroon and African champions Egypt in the next intriguing qualifying round, and who will have to start from scratch and plan for 2014 next? Fans of football cannot wait to find out what happens next.