Tuesday team 2: 02/12-08/12/2014

Tonight, I'm off to see Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock duet with Prince Philip Kiril of Prussia, great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm. So instead of match reports, today I'm going to leave you with my team of the week, compiled from all the football matches that I've already watched this week:

Empoli 2-0 Genoa (03/12/2014)
L'Hospitalet 0-3 Atletico Madrid (03/12/2014)
SD Huesca 0-4 Barcelona (03/12/2014)
Atletico Nacional 1-1 River Plate (03/12/2014)
VfL Bochum 3-3 St Pauli (05/12/2014)
Borussia Dortmund 1-0 TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (05/12/2014)
NK Domzale 0-1 NK Celje (06/12/2014)
Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Crystal Palace (06/12/2014)
Szombathelyi Haladas 3-1 Kecskemeti TE (06/12/2014)
AS Saint-Etienne 1-0 SC Bastia (06/12/2014)
Atletico Huila 1-0 Atletico Nacional (06/12/2014)
Eintracht Frankfurt 5-2 Werder Bremen (07/12/2014)
Olympique de Marseille 3 - 1 FC Metz (07/12/2014)

Here are the best players from those 13 games:

Choosing a stand-out goalkeeper was tricky this week, as there wasn't one. But football teams conventionally have goalkeepers, at least at the beginning of matches, so I opted for Atletico Huila's Ernesto Hernandez, who kept Atletico Nacional at bay to give his team a shot at a Colombian Clausura final match, with one semi-final group game (against Once Caldas) remaining. Hernandez edges Hoffenheim's Baumann, Villa's Guzan, and Nacional's Bonilla, by virtue of having actually achieved something this week.

Great defenders were also at a premium, as shown by the fact Barcelona's teenager Edgar is on the bench, despite having come on as a substitute in a game Barca won 4-0. Niklas Süle was on the losing side for Hoffenheim at Dortmund, but he and Baumann kept the score respectable, and ensured that the Mkhitaryan and his mazy runs had another frustrating game. I've selected another loser on his left, Gaetan Bussmann having a solid game restricting Florian Thauvan, even though his Metz side eventually lost at Marseille. Eintracht Frankfurt's USA right back Timothy Chandler actually won his game, a really entertaining 5-2 match against Werder Bremen.

I opted for two Atletico Nacional players in midfield. Sherman Cárdenas and Orlando Berrio featured in two very different games. The former was a busy, deep-lying playmaker, not quite making it happen in the weekend game against Huila, but nonetheless impressing as the sort of player who can dictate the tempo of a game from a quarterback's position. Berrio, meanwhile, gave Argentinian champions River Plate a really difficult time in the Copa Sudamericana final's first leg, in a midweek game that River were lucky to get anything out of. Juan Carlos Osorio will be hoping he can revitalise the Medellin side in his return to the team on Wednesday.

Inter's Diego Laxalt gave a great performance for his loan side Empoli, in their Coppa Italia first leg victory against Serie A high-flyers (now up to third!) Genoa. At times, he was unplayable. And you could (of course) say the same of Andres Iniesta, who is returning to fitness for Barcelona, and scored a cheeky, nonchalant-seeming goal at Huesca in the Copa del Rey. Yannick Bolasie didn't quite turn the game for Crystal Palace at Tottenham Hotspur, which finished 0-0, but he did have another good game, and he out-tricked Wilfried Zaha and Christian Eriksen whilst doing so.

Finally, up front proved the most difficult area to whittle down, especially given Guillem's performance for Huesca, in which he caused their backline no end of problems. He was unlucky not to get a goal. Jean Carlos Blanco did, so he gets the nod. He was similarly a real handful for the defenders of Atletico Nacional, and was one of the big players in Huila's win, looking strong, quick and determined throughout. Frankfurt's Alexander Meier is placed alongside him, earning a prized starting berth in my Tuesday team for his ruthlessness in dispatching Werder Bremen. The Bundesliga's top scorer may well get a chance for Die Mannschaft soon, if he carries on in this vein.

Subs: Edgar (Barcelona), Oliver Baumann (Hoffenheim), Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid), Guillem Marti (Huesca), Mikael Forssell's Cat Allergy (Bochum).