Champions league groups sorted!
Here´s my take:
Group A: Atletico and Juventus, that´s gonna make for a couple of good matches. Don´t expect much of Olympiacos and Malmoe.
Group B: Real Madrid and Liverpool, good footie! I would think Basilea and Ludorogorets bow out early.
Group C: Benfica, Zenith, Bayern Leverkussen, Monaco. Nice group all around, fairly level? BL to dominate.
Group D: Arsenal, B. Dormunt, Galatasaray, Anderlecth. Another fairly balanced group.
Group E:Bayern, Manchester City, Roma, CSKA Moscu. The group of death?
Group F: Barcelona, PSG, Ajax, APOEL. No idea if Ajax can mount a credible challenge here, haven´t seen them play in a while.
Group G: Chelsea, Chalke, Sporting, Maribor: My “meh” group, tho it seems Chelsea is playing better this year.
Group H: Oporto, Shakthar, Athletic, B. Borisov. Will probably be dominated early and easily by Atlhetic.
Last couple of weekends have had Barclay’s Premier League matches shown on broadcast TV here in the US. Everton vs Arsenal last week and Everton vs Chelsea this week. NBC trying to capitalize on Tim Howard’s popularity, I presume. Everton drew against Arsenal after leading by 2 in the late going before giving up 2 late. And lost to Chelsea 6-3 in what looked to me like a massive defensive collapse, with Chelsea scoring early and often. Probably not what NBC was hoping for, but I doubt just putting Timmy on TV was going to buy them a lot of additional viewer eyeballs anyway.
He was also providing punditry for the MC v LFC match and features in their Premier League commercials.
Germany - Argentina 0-2 at half-time. It’s an unimportant friendly. A transitional game to say farewell to the old guard before the EURO qualifier starts.
The Angel Di Maria show! And RM just let him go…
Meanwhile in the Copa Centroamericana (being played in the US) Honduras is beating Belize (2 autogoles…yay?). Costa Rica already won their match against Nicaragua 3-nil.
Edit: team looked bad despite the win against what should have been a much easier opponent. I fear our strikers aren´t up for the task, but still, new coach, whole new team right? gotta give them time right? grrr, hope Costa Rica doesn´t hang 5 on us.
Well, that went horrible.
Drama already started, coach must go etc. sigh
1st day of Champions league! The results:
Real Madrid 5-1 Basilea
Olympiacos 3-2 Atlético
Dortmund 2-0 Arsenal
Liverpool 2-1 Ludogorets
Mónaco 1-0 Leverkusen
Benfica 0-2 Zenit
Juventus 2-0 Malmo
Galatasaray 1-1 Anderlecht
Jeez, Liverpool gave me a damn heart attack.
It took me a while, but I finally was able to see my Portland Timbers in person. Went with my brothers during our little mini-family-reunion this week in the Pacific Northwest. Turns out the stadium they play in is a refurbished minor league baseball park, which we’d actually gone to 20+ years ago as kids. Nice little nostalgia trip there. It’s been nicely redone as a football ground, though, so it doesn’t look like a temp job. It’s all about the soccer now. Sadly, I forgot my camera so I have no photographic evidence to share, but rest assured it’s a nice place to watch a match.
The fans are all about the soccer, too. Big section, maybe 1/4 of the park which would make it about 5000 people, that is labeled the Timbers Army section and contains the rowdy folks. Probably still not anywhere near what you get across the pond, but they were certainly plenty loud and looked to be enjoying themselves all game. The place holds 22000 and I’d say at least 90% of it was full, maybe even a sellout if the empty seats I saw were just people looking for more beer.
The match itself went well, too, since the Timbers beat the shorts off the San Jose club. Not only was the score 3-0, but the Timbers had something like three times as many shots on goal and controlled the ball most of the time. Three Portland goals meant three hunks of wood chopped off the end of the log below the Army section with the chainsaw, which wasn’t quite as impressive as I’d hoped (perhaps I was too far away), but afterward the guy picked up the slab and carried it around the stadium followed by cheers, which was pretty cool.
Look, a reason to use this thread! Today was the MLS Cup final, in which my Portland Timbers defeated the Columbus Crew 2-1. I actually turned it on a few minutes late and thus missed the first goal which was only 27 seconds in. All the scoring ended up being in the first 20 minutes, but there was plenty of excitement anyway. Several very close near-misses, mostly taking place in the Columbus end, including one uncalled handball literally on the Columbus goal-line. Congrats Timbers on their first-ever MLS Cup!
Swansea are in a bad place :( Wheels truly fallen off, and it is hard to say what exactly has been the real cause of it. The ex-Manager was doing great with the team then suddenly not. Might not even be in the Premiership next season, results and recent form have been that poor.
Arise, thread! I think we have another soccer thread or two floating around, but nothing about the leagues here in the USA, or the women’s game. I may post something on those topics now and then, just to hear myself talk.
Tonight the USWNT is playing a friendly against Thailand, first match after they got bounced from the Olympics on penalties. A terrible mismatch, the #1 ranked side in the world against #32. Even so, I don’t think anyone foresaw 3-0 in the first 5 minutes. It’s 4-0 as I type this at halftime.
It’s also the last international match for Heather O’Reilly. She has well over 200 caps and has won just about everything possible: NCAA championship, Olympic gold, World Cup, NWSL championship. Got one of those three early goals tonight, a fitting send-off.
On another subject, the NWSL playoffs start in a couple of weeks. My Portland Thorns will be playing at home on Oct 2. Not going to be able to attend in person since it’s a cross-country trip, but Fox Sports will be airing the match so I’ll be watching.
The NWSL finals were today, sadly without the Portland Thorns (lost in extra time in the semis). So it was the Western New York Flash and Washington Spirit, and the fans certainly got their money’s worth. Tied 1-1 after regulation, and the Spirit took the lead with an early extra time goal. I thought the Flash looked done, just barely avoiding several opportunities for the Spirit to get another goal, and had very few opportunities of their own. But in stoppage time, the 124th minute, they got one last run on goal and scored on an incredible clutch header by Lynn Williams. Came down to penalties, which honestly looked fairly sloppy…but then, I’m not the one under the pressure of an entire season. One missed the frame completely, and three were saved, including the last chance for Washington to tie. After trailing almost all of extra time, then scoring at the last possible second to force the penalties, the Western New York Flash won the championship. One of the craziest finishes I’ve seen in any championship game.
Last night on 60 Minutes, they had some of the USWNT members on to talk about their lawsuit against US Soccer. They’re suing for equal pay to the men. I certainly think the women have gotten a raw deal in the recent past, not just on pay - remember the artificial turf in the World Cup? Hope it can be worked out in such a way that there’s no work stoppage, since the women’s game is still a lot more fragile than the men’s game.
And speaking of the men, they’re looking for a new coach. Klinsmann is out after five years and a lot of recent disappointing results.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/10/523303357/u-s-canada-and-mexico-declare-combined-bid-to-host-the-world-cup
Sounds like a good idea to me, especially with the field expanding to 48 teams that year.
Just about game time! NWSL, Thorns vs Houston Dash in Portland at Providence Park.
Edit: And all is well with the world as the Thorns won 2 - nil.
US loses to last-place Trinidad & Tobago, finish 5th and are out of the World Cup.
Ouch.
I was just reading about that match this morning. The fact that they even needed to win this last game tells you a lot about how poorly the US men’s program is faring. Their failure doesn’t much surprise me. Probably gonna cause a new round of screaming for the heads of various officials.
Forget the men’s side, the women are better anyway.