Fútbol chatter

[NWI_Irish96]

So the Champions League kicked off yesterday, and while the big news was Chelsea's surprise loss and the firing of their coach, what caught my attention was Dortmund's opponent, FC Kobenhavn, and their rather unfortunate acronym in the list of scores.

[Bruce]

For the first time in their MLS history, the Seattle Sounders will not be in the playoffs. 13-year streak snapped by a combination of injuries, fatigue from a deep CCL run in spring, inability to hold onto leads, and bad luck. The West has been ridiculously competitive this year, so the Sounders being in the hunt until the penultimate matchday is remarkable.

Now that all inter-conference games are finished (as Decision Day is an intra-conference affair), an insane stat: East and West shared the same record against each other and scored almost the same number of goals against each other.

https://twitter.com/OptaJack/status/1576605426434514945

[Bruce]

From July to August next year, MLS will pause regular season action for the Leagues Cup, a tournament with all teams from Liga MX. It should be interesting.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/leagues-cup-2023-dates-and-structure-announced

[JayhawkCO]

Crazy that they're showing a Wrexham vs. Blyth Spartans match this morning on ESPN2. It's crazy what the Welcome to Wrexham documentary and Ryan Reynolds' and Rob McElhenny's ownership overall has done to the exposure of the club. Also, if anyone hasn't watched Welcome to Wrexham, I'd highly recommend it.

[Bruce]

Los Angeles FC will host the MLS Cup on Saturday against either Philadelphia or NYCFC. I'm obliged to support Philadelphia or NYCFC.

EDIT: Philadelphia advance with a comeback win. Match looked electric.

[JayhawkCO]

Time to revisit how I did:

Group A
Ajax
Liverpool
Napoli
Rangers

Nailed it on group A. Ajax doesn't have the fire power of previous years.

Group B
Porto
Atletico Madrid
Bayer Leverkusen
Club Brugge

I don't think anyone saw Brugge getting out of this group. Atletico has to reexamine a bit under Simeone.

Group C
Bayern Munich
Barcelona
Inter Milan
Viktoria Plzen

Got this one perfect as well. Barça has to be one of the favorites for Europa League.

Group D
Eintracht Frankfurt
Tottenham Hotspur
Sporting Lisbon
Olympique de Marseille

Was easily the most balanced of all of the groups, but I got Spurs winning the group right. On the last match day, at various points throughout the day, every team was advancing.

Group E
AC Milan
Chelsea
FC Salzburg
Dinamo Zagreb

Got this one perfect as well. Milan destroyed Salzburg on the last day to advance.

Group F
Real Madrid
RB Leipzig
Shakhtar Donetsk
Celtic

Obviously was way off with Celtic, but Shakhtar lost most of their non-Ukrainian guys and Leipzig is in 6th in the Bundesliga, so I'm surprised they didn't have more fight.

Group G
Manchester City
Sevilla
Borussia Dortmund
Copenhagen

Bellingham played well for Dortmund and got them past Sevilla. Spanish teams were very disappointing in this year's group stage.

Group H
Paris Saint-Germain
Juventus
Benfica
Maccabi Haifa

Juve was terrible, which is surprising since all the other Italian teams did very well (as I predicted). Portuguese teams were great and Benfica pipped PSG for the group winner.


I got 11/16 teams right, 6 of the 8 group winners correctly predicted as the winner, and only Benfica a group winner I didn't have advancing at all. Not too bad.

[NWI_Irish96]

A: Liverpool, Ajax
B: Atletico, Leverkusen
C: Bayern, Barcelona
D: Tottenham, Marseille
E: Chelsea, Salzburg
F: Real, Celtic
G: City, Dortmund
H: PSG, Benfica

Sticking with City over PSG in the final (assuming they're able to meet in the final)

Looks like I have more confidence in Italian teams than you do. I have four advancing, you have zero. And you're a bigger fan of German clubs as I only have Bayern but you have three advancing.

There ended up being 4 German clubs advancing, but I clearly underrated the Italian clubs.
Wishful thinking on my part having more countries represented in the final 16. In the end, only one participant outside of England/Spain/Italy/Germany/Portugal.

[JayhawkCO]

A: Liverpool, Ajax
B: Atletico, Leverkusen
C: Bayern, Barcelona
D: Tottenham, Marseille
E: Chelsea, Salzburg
F: Real, Celtic
G: City, Dortmund
H: PSG, Benfica

Sticking with City over PSG in the final (assuming they're able to meet in the final)

Looks like I have more confidence in Italian teams than you do. I have four advancing, you have zero. And you're a bigger fan of German clubs as I only have Bayern but you have three advancing.

There ended up being 4 German clubs advancing, but I clearly underrated the Italian clubs.
Wishful thinking on my part having more countries represented in the final 16. In the end, only one participant outside of England/Spain/Italy/Germany/Portugal.

I was down on Germany when I should have been down on Spain.

[Bruce]

The most memorable MLS Cup final, and perhaps the best one of all time. Just insane at the death.

[JayhawkCO]

Champion's League Knock Out Draw and Picks

Liverpool vs. Real Madrid
Paris St-Germain vs. Bayern Munich
RB Leipzig vs. Manchester City
Borussia Dortmund vs. Chelsea
AC Milan vs. Tottenham Hotspur
Inter Milan vs. Porto
Club Brugge vs. Benfica
Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Napoli

[NWI_Irish96]

Borussia Dortmund vs. Chelsea

The Christian Pulisic Darby.

[JayhawkCO]

Borussia Dortmund vs. Chelsea

The Christian Pulisic Darby.

And the Thomas Tuchel.

[Buck87]

Of the 27 28 teams currently in MLS, there have now been:

- 14 15 teams that have won an MLS Cup
- 13 teams that have won a Supporters Shield
- 19 teams that have won at least one of the two trophies
- 8 9 teams that have won both trophies
- 5 6 teams that have won both in the same season (2 of which have done it twice)

note: the total number of SS winners is actually 15, but two of those winners are defunct franchises

Here's an update to these stats I posted a year ago, to now reflect LAFC's double.

[Bruce]

MLS Cup drew its highest U.S. ratings since 1997. Still a bit behind the 3.5 million pulled in by Seattle-Toronto in 2016 (which had lots of help from Canada).

https://twitter.com/SoccerInsider/status/1589982630514073600

[Bruce]

MLS has announced its new TV deals that will run concurrently with the Apple TV+ streaming service (MLS Season Pass): Fox and Fox Deportes in the US, TSN and RDS in Canada. 15 matches on mainstream Fox, 34 total across Fox and FS1.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-on-linear-tv-fox-sports-televisaunivision-tsn-rds-reach-multi-year-deals

[Bruce]

The 2022 Club World Cup will be held in February and hosted by Morocco. This will be the first time that an MLS team will participate, since the 2001 edition (set to feature the LA Galaxy) was cancelled.

In 2025, the competition will be expanded to 32 teams to fit into the Confederations Cup as previously planned.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/seattle-sounders-learn-dates-location-for-2022-fifa-club-world-cup

[Bruce]

The Club World Cup is now underway. The Sounders will enter in the next round on February 4, with the winner of that match playing Real Madrid.

MLS season starts February 26, with all matches broadcast without blackouts on Apple's MLS Season Pass. The service has already been rolled out with free episodes of various shows as well.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Too bad the Sounders didn't get to play against Real Madrid. Surely that would have been nice.

[Bruce]

The 2023 MLS season kicks off today, with the first match in about 12 hours. All opening weekend games are free to watch on MLS Season Pass with an Apple account (which does not need to have Apple TV).

T-Mobile subscribers can get a free MLS Season Pass code through the T-Mobile Tuesdays app. No blackouts, no pirating, and so far the preseason tests have yielded better picture quality than what we're used to from ESPN/Fox/Univision.

(Also the big game at the Rose Bowl got delayed to July 4 due to the weather, but that might end up being a better date anyway.)

[Bruce]

First weekend of MLS yielded 0 draws, 35 goals (averaging 2.9 per match), and the Sounders at the top of the standings.

The new whiparound show is pretty good, Apple's audio is not good, some things need to be worked out with the commentary, but overall a promising start.

[Buck87]

I attended the Crew's home opener on March 4th, a 2-0 win against DC Untied.

That was a lot of fun, really cool atmosphere. Was my 2nd time at the new stadium and 5th Crew game overall.

[Bruce]

The United States and Mexico will bid to co-host the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup: https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2023/04/us-soccer-and-mexican-football-federation-will-launch-joint-bid-to-cohost-2027-fifa-womens-world-cup

If the bid manages to win (competitors include Brazil, South Africa, and Benelux), then the US will be drowning in international soccer over the next few summers. Already confirmed are the 2024 Copa America, 2026 World Cup, and 2028 Summer Olympics, with potential to add the expanded Club World Cup in 2025.

[JayhawkCO]

you all want Chelsea out of the top 4 so bad, no way

Who are going to score the goals? Losing Marcus Alonso hurts too.

Chelsea with the 6th worst goals scored in the Premier League this year. I knew it'd be bad, but not this bad. That club is in shambles.

[Bruce]

San Diego will have an MLS expansion team that begins play in 2025. This brings the league up to 30 teams and evens out the conferences.

https://twitter.com/MLS/status/1659256288809820171

[Big John]

Messi to join the Miami MLS team.