Streaming video available at the following link at 1200 CET (6am New York time) on August 10: http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2013/draws/index.html Not too many "brand names" involved this season. League route: Seeded teams Braga Dynamo Kyiv Panathinaikos Copenhagen Spartak Moscow Unseeded teams Fenerbahçe Udinese Lille Málaga Borussia Mönchengladbach == Champions Route: Seeded teams Basel Anderlecht Celtic BATE Borisov Dinamo Zagreb Unseeded teams CFR Cluj Helsingborg Maribor AEL Limassol Ironi Kiryat Shmona == I expect FOX Soccer to take both matches involving CELTIC.
FC Basel - CFR Cluj Dinamo Zagreb - NK Maribor Malaga - Panathinaikos Helsingborgs IF - Celtic SC Braga - Udinese Borussia Mönchengladbach - Dynamo Kyiv BATE Borisov - Ironi Kiryat Shmona Spartak Moscow - Fenerbahce Lille - Copenhagen AEL Limassol - RSC Anderlecht
England's four clubs all start in the Group Stage because Chelsea is the defending champion, which sends fourth place Tottenham into the Europa League rather than the Champions League Playoff Round. Arsenal was third and third in England lets you start in the Group Stage regardless of the defending champion.
You can thank the Liverpool rule for that one. Can't have the defending CL champ not play because their league standings were crap.
A really, really crappy slate of playoff matches this year. A far cry from Arsenal vs Celtic 3 years ago. Braga vs Udinese looks to be the only decent series on paper with two interesting "names". Celtic should be ashamed of themselves if they can't put away Helsingborg during the 1st leg. Malaga is a shadow of their former self now that Sheik Abdullah Al-Thani has decided to cut his losses and pull out of the club.
Not so crappy, imo, considering this is the playoff round; along with the Braga - Udinese, I can see 3 other games that are worth watching: Spartak Moscow - Fenerbahce Borussia Mönchengladbach - Dynamo Kyiv Lille - Copenhagen
I see Braga/Udinese as a coefficient battle between Serie A and Liga Zon Sagres, thus I think it may be a good one. I have a strange affinity for the Turkish clubs and Fenerbahce/Spartak Moscow is certain to blow off a few lids as Spartak is off to a 3-0 start in the Russian Premier League and Fener has shaken off their first leg slumber at home by winning 4-1 in the second leg in the third round in Belarus.
FSC put up their schedule 8/21 FSC: Helsingborgs vs Celtic 2:30 live VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach vs FC Dynamo Kyiv 5:00 FSC +:FC Spartak Moskva vs Fenerbahçe SK 12:00 live 8/22 FSC: SC Braga vs Udinese Calcio 2:30 live AEL Limassol FC vs RSC Anderlecht 5:00 FSC+:AEL Limassol FC vs RSC Anderlecht 2:30 live Does anybody know when FSC will start showing their Europa League coverage? I saw that Liverpool was on this week but theres nothing on the schedule for any Europa league games for the next two weeks.
FOX Soccer's Europa League package starts with the GROUP STAGE. The two 3rd qualifying round matches require separate contracts. Ditto the two playoff round matches coming up.
Let's fill this out a bit just so we can see what will happen yet again with Fox Rugby +: Spartak-Fener airs on delay on FSC at 1:30am EST Lille-Kobehavn airs on 1-day delay on FSC at 11am. (I assume this one is on DirecTV live) Malaga-Pana airs on delay at 1:30am EST on FSC BATE-Hapoel and Dinamo-Maribor both air on 1-day delay (again, I assume these are on DirecTV) The point is that FS+ offers nothing except the opportunity to see 2 matches live for folks who don't want to wait a few hours or 1 day to see a game. Hardly worth $15.99 per month.
That would be logical, except for cost. If Liverpool FC were to buy the U.S. rights to the away leg as well and then bundle both matches together as a single package to offer to FOX Soccer for a nominal fee (i.e. "$1" plus transmission fee plus bartered advertising time) then FOX Soccer would have no issue with taking both games. Time to let the programming acquisition VP perform his magic to get the rights to both legs for as little cash as possible, preferably for NO CASH, because viewership of Europa League qualifiers don't really sell except to hard core fans.
Precisely. FOX Sports Media Group cannot afford to devalue FOX Soccer further by moving the good UEFA CL and EPL matches from FOX Soccer to FOX Soccer Plus. That means FOX Soccer Plus may have to turn into" FOX Sports Plus" sooner or later, with more Rugby than soccer. Dutch Eredivisie should be coming to FOX Soccer Plus in 2013-2014 unless FOX decides to sublicense the product in the U.S. market to another entity, as it is mostly a filler product that isn't worth much if anything in the U.S.
Just a quick question, Directv will still show the remaining games for each match day as last year, correct ?! Thanks to all
Nobody does. There is no central contract for the Europa League until the Group Stage, so all broadcasting rights in the qualifying rounds are left to the home teams in each match, so it's each team's responsibility to sell their own home game.
On my TWC, FS+ is included in the sports pack, which is $4.99 a month. The sports pack includes GolTV, BigTenNetwork, CBSSports, and a couple others... ALL in HD. Our FS+ is in HD 24/7, or as games allow.
Tuesday, August 21st - B. M’gladbach (GER) v Dynamo Kyiv (UKR) Wednesday, August 22nd - Málaga (ESP) v Panathinaikos (GRE) SA www.soccertvblog.com
Thank you!!! Very happy to see they are showing the Moenchengladbach match! Hopefully they show the return leg too!
If you have the equivalent of the Sports Pack on DirecTV, I recommend recording/watching on an FSN with nothing really happening in big 4 sports. MSG+ is usually good. A FSN or other RSN is quick to interrupt with so-called important news about a baseball trade, some football player who has been arrested for beating up his wife, an NBA player who got a new tattoo, or some FSN reporter who will be promoted to anchor duties (i.e., any excuse to interrupt). And of course there's always the chance that Michael Jordan might come out of retirement. (Yes, I'm still bitter about ESPN moving the CL from ESPN2 to ESPN only to have the game moved back because MJ was done with baseball and ready to return to the NBA, yet my VCR was set for ESPN.)
FoxSoccer2Go is starting to make me nervous. They've had the CONCACAF CL games listed on the Upcoming page for over a week but still nothing confirming the UEFA CL games.
DirecTV channels for 1st leg of Playoff round: Tuesday, August 21, 2012: 481...Basel (SUI) v CFR Cluj (ROU) 482...FC København (DEN) v Lille (FRA) Wednesday, August 22, 2012: 481...BATE Borisov (BLR) v Hapoel Kiryat Shmona (ISR) 482...Dinamo Zagreb (CRO) v NK Maribor (SVN) Channels 483 and 484 will be mirrors for FSC and FSCPlus, respectively. SA www.soccertvblog.com