Schedule Help for a New(ish) Soccer Fan
by studbucket on Jun 8, 2010 1:23 AM EDT
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American Football and basketball have been and always will be #1 in my heart, but I've grown to appreciate soccer since I began watching in 2005. In fact, the first 2 games I ever watch were absolutely thrilling:
Game 1: Liverpool beat A.C. Milan match during the 2005 EUFA Champions League Final 3-2 on penalty kicks after coming back from a 3-0 deficit at half to tie it 3-3.
Game 2: 2 Scandinavian teams I don't remember (one Swedish, one Danish) go to 13 penalty kicks to decide the game.
Since then, I've appreciated the 2006 World Cup, enjoyed the late US run in South Africa last year, have somewhat followed the Sounders since I've moved to Seattle, and I am really pumped for the 2010 World Cup.
Now that I've decided to get more into soccer, I figured I needed some teams to follow, since that will keep me more invested. The teams I am following (passionately or not), is as follows:
1) Team USA (since..ummm, I was born?) - Cheering for them will be more fun than any other team I can cheer for, and as an American, how could I cheer for anyone else?
2) AIK Solna (since 2005) - My sister lived in Solna when I visited Sweden and I have 2 AIK jerseys. However, it's near impossible to follow them since the Allsvenskan is not that great and all the coverage is in Swedish. I hope they do well, but that's about all I can do.
3) Seattle Sounders (Since 2009) - Since moving to Seattle, I've noticed how the Sounders have become very popular and somewhat filled the void the Sonics left. I might as well have an MLS team to cheer for, though I don't have very strong ties to them yet.
4) Everton (Since yesterday) - I have heard over and over again that the best soccer in the world is played in the EPL, and with ESPN showing games and it getting more popular, I decided to choose a team. They have never been relegated, aren't one of the bandwagon teams, and they currently have 2 Americans, so I went with Everton.
My Request
From the research I've done (various internet queries and wikipedia articles), it appears there is soccer happening almost all year round involving the 4 teams and their leagues I listed above. What I want is an easy-to-follow schedule for when everything is. I am counting down the days until the NFL starts and I know the NCAA Football schedule, and I want to have a similar familiarity with soccer schedules.
Specifically, I'm interested in the following things, but any supplementary material would be fine. Answers are good, nice sites, graphs, or charts are awesome.
1) When is the MLS season?
2) When is the EPL? Is there an EPL for American Idiots site?
3) When is the Allsvenkan? Is there anywhere I can follow it in English?
4) When are the the various champions leagues like EUFA, SuperLiga, and CONCACAF?
5) Is there some awesome central soccer site, kind of like SB Nation I 'spose, where I could mark my favorite teams and read articles about them and see their results? Or is there nothing like that worldwide?
6) Is there anything else I should know or do?
Thanks!
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Comments
1) MLS is held from the end of March until the championship in November. I never want the league to move to a fall-winter schedule.
2) Not sure exactly what the EPL schedule is, but something like September-April, give or take a few weeks. Checkout BigSoccer.com. The forums there will allow you to become an ‘informed’ fan much quicker.
3)Allsvenskan starts at the beginning of March I think. It ends at nearly the same time as MLS, though they have no ‘playoff’ to determine the champion. I’ve never found a good english site to follow the league. I suggest picking a local paper, and using google translate. I follow IF Elfsborg via borastidnig.se. There are of course english sites that will give you a league table and results.
4) UEFA and CONCACAF champions leagues have their group stages in the Fall. They take a winter break and play their knockout rounds in the spring. Concacaf is very far behind in terms of developing this type of competition.
5) BigSoccer.com is your best bet. It won’t work like CBS Sportsline and automatically aggregate stories about your teams, but it is a wealth of information. Goal.com and this blog get honorable mentions for great content.
6) I know being a wikipedia scholar isn’t the most glamorous thing in education, but it gets the job done. I have spent countless hours reading wiki articles. Reading about teams, leagues, confederations, tournaments. I recommend you look into the English football pyramid, FA Cup, AFC WImbledon, for some entertaining material. (I’m no anglophile, I just really am fascinated by those stories).
by SaltLakeKiddy on Jun 9, 2010 10:53 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Nice answer, I have a couple of other additions.
The EPL starts in late August and both the end of the season and the FA Cup final are in May. And the finals of the UEFA Champions league will be a week or two after that.
ESPN.Soccernet has good coverage of the EPL. Si.com has good quality if not a massive quantity for the MLS and goal.com has more quantity but the quality varies.
I don’t know anything about Sweedish soccer, but Everton is a fine EPL team to support. Pinar may play an important role in the first game of the Cup on Friday for South Africa and hopefully Landon Donovan will end up back there next season.
Los Angeles is like Manchester. There is a red team that wins championships and a blue team that doesn't.
by oc phil on Jun 9, 2010 11:43 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Thanks to both of you!
That’s really helpful and a great start. I’ll check out all those sites for sure.
Also, one more thing I don’t think either of you answered, when is SuperLiga?
Any other tourneys or leagues worth following?
I’m glad Everton seems to be a decent choice, I’m happy with it, now I just need to start following them and get invested.
Tweeting via @jtkimbell
My priorities in following soccer are
1) The big international tournaments. World Cup and the Euros, but each is only held once every 4 years. Though the qualifying takes up a lot of time for each.
2) The EPL. If you picked Everton based on the American connection, you might also be interested in Fulham as a secondary team to follow. Last year they had 4 Americans and Clint Dempsey is still with them.
3) The UEFA champions league: This is a good way to see the top teams in all the top leagues in Europe. (the number of teams invited depends on how well that
4) The FA Cup. English soccer (like that of most countries) is run differently than American sports. The winner of the league is the team that wins the most games during the season, period. Actually it is points based on wins and ties but the key is there are no playoffs. The playoff excitement comes from running a single elimination tournament that proceeds during the season and starts off with everybody (including “minor leagues”) involved. Fans of a team are delighted with winning either trophy and getting both (a double) means your team has had a very special year.
5) MLS: I try to get excited about it, I really do.
6) The other major leagues in the world: I have Direct TV and between FSC, Fox Soccer Plus, and Gol TV, so I can see most of the major national leagues. I pretty much only watch the games when the UEFA champion’s league teams are playing each other or if a Brazilian game featuring Flamengo is on. But the big games like Madrid-Barcelona or AC Milan vs Inter Milan are great to watch.
That does not leave me much time or interest to follow things like Superliga or CONCACAF CL. When you get into it, there is LOTS more soccer to follow than American football!
Los Angeles is like Manchester. There is a red team that wins championships and a blue team that doesn't.
by oc phil on Jun 9, 2010 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
You Should Go to Some Sounders Games
The atmosphere is awesome. Three thousand people standing up chanting in the brougham end. Go to one of the supporters pubs pre-game and then do the pre-match march to the stadium with the supporters. It’s a lot of fun.
MLS games are more fun to watch for neutrals than the world cup. World cup games can be kind of boring b/c everyone is so afraid of losing that they bunker in and play super defensive like Italy in 2006. Unless you are watching your own country it can be boring. MLS tends to be much more high scoring and wide open style of play. The only leagues that are more high scoring are probably Spain and Holland.
You can change your job, you can change your wife, you can even change your gender, but you can never change your club.
Win or lose, we will always be here for you.
Fear no foe, wherever we go.
by johnjahafanclub on Jun 13, 2010 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions
The Bundesliga (Germany) is actually the highest-scoring of the Big Five
(England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.) Holland beat out all of them, but among those five it’s Germany, England, Spain, Italy quite a ways back, and France a huge distance even behind Italy. MLS ’09 ranked even behind Italy ’09-10.
I'm glad you mentioned the FA Challenge Cup
maybe I am old fashioned but the FA Cup is still a very important competition for me and should continue to be held in high regard. It is the oldest association Football competition in the world. It was first contests in 1871-72 and this past year a record was set as 762 Football teams from all levels of English Football started the FA Cup eventually leading to one winner. Chelsea this past season.
"We love them, We mourn for them, Unlucky boys of Red" - Morrissey
"Giggs gets past Viera, past Dixon, who comes back at him, it's a wonderful run from GIGGS!!!" - Martin Tyler
"He's got a man deep..wait, no that IS Mandeep!!" - Don Taylor
by Section 312 on Jun 9, 2010 2:12 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm pretty new too...
SLK and OC pretty much outlined the methods that I’ve used to learn the game.
Sounder at Heart is my favorite site for following the Sounders. I used to rely on ESPN Soccernet, but have been spending more time on SI.com lately. SI has expanded their coverage and IMHO, now does a better job of covering MLS and the USMNT, which are my primary interests. But, if you really want to immerse yourself in EPL, listen to the ESPN Soccernet podcasts.
SLK is correct, CONCACAF Champions League is still an underdeveloped competition relative to the UEFA tourneys. The Sounders will be participating in the 2010-11 edition, starting July 27.
SuperLiga is a short tournament that runs late July-early August. Here’s an article with the schedule.
UEFA Europa League, comprised of teams that miss the Champions League cut, has decent quality soccer.
If you’re feeling ambitious, I’d recommend the following books on soccer, not necessarily for every conclusion they reach, more for the breadth of information they contain: The Ball is Round; Soccernomics; How Soccer Explains the World; and Inverting the Pyramid.
by 108Ultra on Jun 9, 2010 2:08 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Good on ya', y'all...
Excellent post and outstanding advice.
by DissidentAggressor on Jun 9, 2010 6:55 PM EDT reply actions
Thanks for everything
These have been great recommendations and I think I’m on the right path :)
Tweeting via @jtkimbell
Newsnow.co.uk
Is a great news aggregator based here in the UK. You can narrows down searches to specific teams and brings you the latest stories the minute they are posted. For football news I also always use bbc.co.uk/football, again it is a UK based site but one, if not the best on the web IMO.
For Everton from a fans perspective join the forum over at www.nsno.co.uk and check out Toffeeweb.com, both brilliant Everton fan sites.
An in a selfless act of slef promotion don’t forget to check out my Everton SBNation site royalbluemersey.com and my blog postmatchpint.blogspot.com
Hope that helps!
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