January has to be the strangest month on the European club soccer calendar.
Aside from stubborn old England, most leagues and countries bake in at least a little bit of down time as the calendar flips to the new year, and just about everyone leans into cup play. That means a lot of big clubs visiting minnows in Spain and France, and it means some particularly delightful later-round matchups in England, where Middlesbrough and Fulham have both reached the Carabao Cup semifinals, and Germany, where the DFB Pokal, or German Cup, has gone so thoroughly off the rails that only three of eight quarterfinalists are top-division teams.
We’ve got some big-league matchups here and there, but January is a month for wet weather, odd cup spectacles, and a potentially incredible couple of matchdays in the Women’s Champions League. Let’s lay out the most important January matches in Europe.
England
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Jan. 6: Newcastle at Sunderland (FA Cup, live on ESPN+)
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Jan. 7: Liverpool at Arsenal (FA Cup, live on ESPN+)
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Jan. 9 and 23: Middlesbrough…
