Buchanan, Larin in La Liga action on TSN+ this weekend
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A pair of Canada stars and title-chasing Real Madrid are in action this week in TSN+'s slate of La Liga action.
On Saturday, Kylian Mbappe and Los Blancos host Leganes before Tajon Buchanan and Villarreal visit Getafe and Cyle Larin and Mallorca are on the road against Valencia.
Real Madrid (18-6-4, 2nd) vs. Leganes (6-9-13, 18th), Saturday at 4pm ET/1pm PT
Two teams in very different kinds of races meet at the Bernabeu when title-chasing Real Madrid host Leganes, who are looking to avoid the drop. Much of the talk this week surrounding Los Blancos has not been about a player on their roster. According to multiple reports, the team appears to be close to landing Liverpool and England right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold on a free transfer. It would be yet another shrewd piece of business by the club who have also added Kylian Mbappe, David Alaba and Antonio Rudiger and Bosmans in recent years. With Alexander-Arnold being a Liverpool-born player who joined the club at age 6, the news is not being taken well by Reds fans. As for players on the roster, Real got encouraging news on the Dani Carvajal front. The Spain right-back tore his ACL in October against Villarreal. The 32-year-old Carvajal says his recovery is going according to plan. "It has been five and a half months since the surgery, I have already put on my boots, and we are accumulating sessions on the field to try to be back as soon as possible, but with the assurance of being ready," Carvajal said. After an injury crisis gripped the Real backline in recent weeks, the team is now relatively healthy. Outside of long-term injuries to Carvajal and Eder Militao (ACL), only Ferland Mendy (hamstring) and Jesus Vallejo (muscular) are expected to be unavailable against Leganes. Midfielder Dani Ceballos (muscular) will also miss out. Leganes is in their first season back in the top flight following a four-year stint in the Segunda Division. They head to the Bernabeu on a two-game losing streak and have never beaten Real in La Liga competition before, going 0-2-7, with both draws coming at home. Leganes could be buoyed by a victory at the Camp Nou over Barcelona earlier this season.
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Getafe (9-9-10, 11th) vs. Villarreal (12-8-7, 5th), Sunday at 8am ET/5am PT
Brampton, Ont.'s Tajon Buchanan and Villarreal look to end a two-game losing streak with a visit to Getafe and a spot in the Champions League appearing to be unrealistic, but still not out of the question. The Yellow Submarine has dropped back-to-back matches — 2-1 away to Real Madrid and a 1-0 home defeat to lowly Alaves — that leaves them in fifth. Sitting on 44 points with 11 matches remaining, Marcelino's side trails Athletic by eight points for the final Champions League spot with a game in hand on Bilbao. The team is level on points with Real Betis in sixth, but own a superior +8 goal differential. Since joining the Yellow Submarine on loan from Inter this past February, Buchanan's transition to La Liga football has been a slow one. The Canada winger was handed his first start in the loss to Real, replaced at the 64-minute mark by Yeremy Pino. In his five matches with the team, thus far, Buchanan has only played 115 minutes. Buchanan, still looking for his first goal and assist, could be handed another start against Getafe alongside Santi Comesana, Pape Gueye and Alex Baena. The Yellow Submarine is likely to be without its captain, Spain forward Gerard Moreno, who has three goals in six starts this season. On the other side of the pitch, two wins in a row for Getafe, including one over Atletico, there is some daylight between them and the relegation places. In 11th, the team is nine points clear of Leganes in the first danger spot. The story of Geta's season, though, has been an inability to score goals. The team has scored more than two goals just once in league action and has been held off the scoresheet 10 times. Only Valladolid (18), dead last in the table, has scored fewer goals than Getafe's 25.
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Valencia (6-10-12, 16th) vs. Mallorca (11-7-10, 7th), Sunday at 12:30pm ET/9:30am PT
There are still 10 games to go in the season and a lot can happen, but Brampton, Ont.'s Cyle Larin and Mallorca are undoubtedly happy where they are right now, especially compared to last campaign. While they ended up seven clear of the drop in the end, Los Piratas spent much of the latter stages of last season in a dogfight to stay up. Things are markedly different this year where Mallorca is pushing for a European place. The team currently trails Real Betis by four points for a Europa Conference League spot. Larin, in his second season with the club, has already surpassed his goals total from last year with five league goals on the campaign. But the CanMNT's all-time goal-scoring leader is not exactly in a rich run of form in recent weeks. Larin has not scored since before Christmas. His last marker was in a 1-0 win over Getafe and Dec. 21. He's now gone nine games without finding the scoresheet. Sunday would be the perfect time to change those fortunes. But even with Larin not scoring, Mallorca hasn't been losing. They head into Sunday's match undefeated in their last six league games with their last defeat coming on Feb. 1 against Atleti. Their opponents are one of the fallen giants of European football. Six-time La Liga champions, Valencia was a perennial Champions League side for much of the past 25 years, reaching European football's top club competition on 12 occasions, coming in as runners-up twice, and the UEFA Cup/Europa League on five more, winning the UEFA Cup in 2004. But things began to sour in 2019 when owner Peter Lim, who bought the side in 2014, began to run into financial problems. With the club amassing a great deal of debt and selling the likes of Ferran Torres, Yunus Musah and Goncalo Guedes in recent seasons, Valencia has done little to assuage fans' concerns. The team came dangerously close to relegation in 2023, escaping the drop by just two points. A ninth-place finish a season ago now appears to have been temporary respite with the team once again flirting with disaster. Los Ches enter Sunday's game only one point clear of the relegation zone, but there are reasons for optimism. Since former West Brom, Olympiakos and Huddersfield Town boss Carlos Corberan took over in December, the team has only lost four of 16 matches. Continuing that trend will undoubtedly keep Valencia from going down for the first time since 1986.