2013-14 Club Soccer/Football Discussion Thread

[Lief 🗽]

So NBC bought the rights to show the Premier League in the USA (it's been shown on Fox Soccer Channel for the past few years), so for the first time EPL matches are going to be regularly shown on broadcast TV. To advertise this, NBC released this pretty hilarious little promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeG_i8CWE8

[Keystone Phil]

Predictably, people have been mentioning this promo to me. I wanted it to be funny but it wasn't that amusing, in my opinion. 

Now that FSC doesn't have the rights, what the hell are they going to show now? That was their bread and butter. Can they show replays? And what is this new Fox Sports 1 or whatever going to show? I thought they had Premier League matches mentioned in their promos...

[Keystone Phil]

Looks like I found some answers...

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/july/nbc-unveils-the-first-130-games-of-its-inaugural-english-premier-league-schedule.html

"NBC Sports Group will place 69 games on television. NBC Sports Network will get the bulk of the matches with 57. NBC will air ten games with CNBC taking 2. NBCUniversal's Spanish language networks, Telemundo and mun2 will air a total of 27 matches, many being simulcasts of NBCSN or NBC games.

PREMIER LEAGUE EXTRA TIME

This will be the equivalent of Fox Soccer Plus, but with more games being shown on extra spillover channels each week. However, unlike Fox Soccer Plus which cost extra for cable and satellite subscribers, participating providers including AT&T U-Verse, Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Suddenlink and various smaller cable companies through the National Cable Television Cooperative will offer 61 English Premier League games at no extra cost to you. So you won't have to pay and those matches that were offered either through Fox Soccer Plus or FoxSoccer2Go will now be part of your cable subscription.

...

So in the first three months, all of the EPL games will be made available in some fashion through an NBC platform. For soccer fans, it's a huge smorgasbord that may cause sensory overload. For fans who were used to getting two or three live games a week through Fox Soccer, this will be a huge increase in the access to the most popular soccer league in the world.

If NBC finds loyalty from viewers paid back through increased numbers on both TV and online, the investment to wrest the EPL away from Fox and ESPN will have been worth it."

[Lief 🗽]

I don't think Fox Soccer is going to exist anymore. I think they're renaming it Fox Sports. It'll still have the Champions League though, and some other things (the FA Cup?).

[Keystone Phil]

I don't think Fox Soccer is going to exist anymore. I think they're renaming it Fox Sports. It'll still have the Champions League though, and some other things (the FA Cup?).

Oh, I thought that new network was going to be in addition to FSC. Well, whatever. My main concern is getting Serie A back on a more mainstream network. The upcoming season is expected to be one of the best in recent time so that might help. I just watch the Prem as an appetizer each weekend. Though I might be watching more of it for other personal reasons.

[Keystone Phil]

Well, if there is one good thing to take from this competition it's that the need for a defensive reinforcements is obvious (as if it wasn't before). So enough talk about more forwards, Rafa. Also, we need a better second half mentality. We've controlled the first half in both matches only to have things disastrously unravel late.

[Lief 🗽]

Drogba's still terrorizing Arsenal defenses. He's a huge c**nt obviously, but a great, great player.

[Lief 🗽]

Looks like Gala wins the Emirates Cup? I don't really understand the scoring system in this thing.

[minionofmidas]

Hessians (Eintracht, FSV, Darmstadt) all win their first round cup ties - Darmstadt eliminating Gladbach on penalties.

[Tender Branson]

Well, it's time to beat Fenerbahce Istanbul in the coming hours !

[Franknburger]

The short-list for Europe's footballer of the year is out. Choice is between Messi (1), Cristiano Ronaldo (2) and Franck Ribery (3). Runners-up included Arien Robben (4), Robert Lewandowski (5), Thomas Müller (6) and Bastian Schweinsteiger (7). The Bayern players obviously split up too many votes among them to allow any other than Ribery to make it into the final three.

If you look at titles won this year, the winner should be obvious. However, with this sort of elections you never know. I still don't understand why Messi, who did not win a single title last year, became World Footballer of the Year 2012 (it really should have been either a Chelsea player, or one of the Real Madrid players that made Spain European Champion). And this year, my favourite would have been Arien Robben, and if only for deciding the Champions League final.

On other news, Bayern has now officially allowed other clubs to enter negotiations with Luiz Gustavo, and first meetings between Gustavo and Wolfsburg representatives have taken place. Bayern also sold Emre Can, 19-year old captain of the German under-21 national team, to Bayer Leverkusen, with an option to buy him back in 2016. This was expected, they did a similar deal with Leverkusen for Toni Kroos a few years ago.
This means that another two players will have to leave Bayern for them to arrive at their 24 team members target. My bets are on Xherdan Shaqiri (though Bayern has already turned down a Schalke request for him), and one of their youngsters: Mitchell Weiser (19, came last summer from Cologne, and had already been leased out to Kaiserslautern last winter) Patrick Weihrauch (19, came in 2010 from 1860 Munich), or Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg (19, came last summer from Brondby Copenhagen).

[Lief 🗽]

Robben being in 4th doesn't make sense. For most of the season he was second choice to Müller (who is sixth) and only got into the team in like March or April because of Kroos' injury.

Of course the real winner of this thing should be Lahm, but defenders never win these things. Schweinsteiger is the only one on the list who isn't a forward.

[Tender Branson]

Well, it's time to beat Fenerbahce Istanbul in the coming hours !

That didn't work out well ...

[Franknburger]

Arsenal has placed a 40 million GBP offer for Uruguyan Luis Suarez (Liverpool). According to Suarez, his contract includes a clause that he may leave for this price, but Liverpool says they have only agreed to start negotiations if a 40 million GBP offer comes in.

[Tender Branson]

In 2 minutes, the away-game between Austria Vienna and the Iceland-champion of the previous season starts (3rd round of CL qualifiers).

Vienna won the home game 1-0.

[Keystone Phil]

The draw for the CL Playoff round fixtures is tomorrow. I'm hoping Milan get an easy opponent. We need three Italian teams in the CL this season. Schalke must lose.

[Franknburger]

The draw for the CL Playoff round fixtures is tomorrow. I'm hoping Milan get an easy opponent. We need three Italian teams in the CL this season. Schalke must lose.

I think we can agree to disagree here ...

[Lief 🗽]

What Phil said, but switch Schalke and Milan.

[minionofmidas]

EL draw is much more important anyways.

To me. Which is all that matters.

[Lief 🗽]

Has Frankfurt had to sell a lot of their players? I know Freiburg has, which is unfortunate, and I'm worried that both will crash out of the Europa League because of it.

[Tender Branson]

Rapid and Austria Vienna both won their games and the Austria advanced to the play-off round for the CL, while Rapid will play in the 4th play-off round for the EL.

Red Bull Salzburg and Pasching are the other 2 teams playing in the 4th play-off round for the EL.

The draws will be today.

[Tender Branson]

Austria Vienna will play against Dinamo Zagreb in the 4th play-off round for the CL.

All pairings for the CL play-off round:

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[Tender Branson]

The draw for the CL Playoff round fixtures is tomorrow. I'm hoping Milan get an easy opponent. We need three Italian teams in the CL this season. Schalke must lose.

It's the PSV.

Congrats, Phil !

[Tender Branson]

The Europa League draw will start in ca. 30 minutes.

Possible opponents for the 3 Austrian teams:

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My preferred opponents are:

* Tromsø for Rapid
* Elfsborg for RB Salzburg
* either Maccabi Haifa or Tottenham for Pasching

[Tender Branson]

Surprisingly "doable" draws for the 3 Austrian EL teams:

* Rapid Vienna vs. FC Dila Gori (from Georgia)
* Red Bull Salzburg vs. VMFD Žalgiris Vilnius (from Lithuania)
* Pasching vs. Estoril Praia (from Portugal)

So, the CL qualifier game between Austria Vienna vs. Dinamo Zagreb might actually be the hardest game of those 4.