I became a fan of Premier League Soccer after an epic battle with YOShInOn, my smart RSS reader. (I tried to convince it I liked American football and not the other kind of football but in the process of trying to understand why it couldn't learn the difference I changed my mind.)

There's a free Premier League game on NBC OTA TV around 12:30 PM EST and once I got hooked a Peacock subscription seemed like a good idea so I can catch games (somewhat) early on Saturday and Sunday. The university I work at has men's and women's soccer games that I go to (it was fun to go to one where youth players showed up and I felt like we were part of a huge soccer universe) and sooner or later I am going to check out the games of the college on the other hill.

I know there's Major League Soccer here in the US and I understand it's gotten better than it used to be, and I understand you can get an add-on subscription to Apple TV which has all the games. Is there anyone out there who follows MLS?

I try to post a few articles a week about the Premier League and European Soccer and I think it would be great if somebody did the same for MLS, as something interesting has to happen every gameday.

Time zone challenges aside, I’m really appreciating the growth in the competition and the extent that the tournament has grown in popularity, viewership and more importantly recognition.

When I (for the first time) watched the Euro’s last year there was a perceived slower pace of Football and it took some getting used to compared to the pace of, for instance, the Premier League. But after watching a few games I’ve come to realize their game is developing at a high rate - and this World Cup’s excitement, quality of play, and upsets are evident that these players are catching up fast. They really are really putting on a show to be appreciated.

But, like I said in the title, I’m watching Footie from the US.
And, I wish I could say different, but the Fox commentary, in the simplest terms, sucks big time. Their breathless uneducated excitable play by play commentary (especially John Strong’s) detracts to the point that this is not an enjoyable experience at all.

My resolution is to watch the game on Telemundo (in Spanish) so I can appreciate the talent on display, and not suffer the distraction of terrible commentary, but still pick up on the vibe.

If American Soccer wants to evolve, then the TV commentary needs to toned down from overly excitable (and partial) to more informative and educational.

I’m so grateful that the Wall wasn’t built tall enough to not now allow Spanish commentary.

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.