https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup

starts this Thursday, July 20th, and runs for the next month.

here is a schedule that will automatically convert match times to your local timezone:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/schedule/_/date/20230720/league/fifa.wwc

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who lives in Australia or NZ. what have the preparations been like? are you planning on attending any matches?

or, anyone who is travelling from other countries to attend - what has your experience been like?

I'll be watching on YouTube TV. it's one of the more expensive streaming options (currently 73 USD/mo) but I've used it for men's and women's world cups since 2018 (as well as several years of live & time-shifted American football). they've had one glitch in all that time, during a 2018 semi-final match, but otherwise it's been damn near perfect. I'd definitely recommend it if you can afford it.

please limit discussion of other streaming options to legal ones only - linking to pirate streams could get Tildes and Deimos into copyright trouble.

like probably a lot of people, I'll be time-shifting matches because I'm on the US west coast and many will be inconveniently timed (but you better believe I'll be awake at 3am on Sunday Aug 20th for the final)

to avoid spoiling matches for people who haven't seen them yet, please use <details> tags:

<details>
<summary>spoilers for Foo vs Bar match</summary>

wow I can't believe so-and-so scored 15 goals

</details>

turns into:

So, Liga MX and MLS have all their clubs participating in a mid-season tourney called the Leagues Cup. The reigning champions from each league get a bye to the round of 32 leaving 15 groups of three teams to compete across three matchdays for the remaining 30 KO round spots.

This does an interesting thing. The winner and runner-up from each group move on. That means the final matchday of the group stages determines second place in each group. It doesn't matter how poor the clubs in question are (and there are some stinkers in the mix), everyone playing on matchday three is playing for something meaningful.

Is the Leagues Cup title a serious thing in the big picture of global football? I have no clue. I'm really American. I'm pretty proud of myself for understanding the offside rule and knowing the difference between a 433 and 4231. What I do know is that from a spectator's perspective, elimination games are exciting. In home/away round robins like UEFA club tourney group stages, the fourth and first place teams might not have anything to play for on matchday six. In the Leagues Cup group stage, matchday three is already a knockout round.

Now, I'm not saying Leagues Cup is on par with CL/EL/ECL. It's definitely not. That's what makes its structure so important. The game theory baked into the way different competitions are organized can decide whether they are interesting enough to watch.

Say what you will about CONCACAF, but they understand and welcome chaos the way all North American sports do. I think the Leagues Cup structure will give fans a reason to tune in even if the results of the tourney mean almost nothing to 44 of the 47 clubs participating. I'm interested to see how TV ratings and ticket sales perform for this tourney compared to league matches.

Do we have any football fans here that are following the Champions League? Who do you folks think will win?

For how successful Man City have been this year, I am hoping that they can secure the Treble. I still feel like Inter is going to give them a lot of issues.

I’m thinking a 2-1 win for City.