Considered by many the best soccer available, the European Champions League tournament returns today with the Round of 16 1st leg. There are two games, both available on Fox Soccer Channel.
1:45 pm – AC Milan hosts Tottenham Hotspur
5:00 pm – Valencia hosts Schalke (delayed)
Tomorrow’s games include
1:45 pm – Arsenal hosts Barcelona
4:00 pm – Roma hosts Shakhtar Donetsk
Check out the latest news on the UEFA website, my go-to source, the Guardian or ESPN Soccernet
Bayern Munich Celebrate League Title, 2010
Start time is 1:30 pm and I’ll be getting some lunch and enjoying the game at Farmer’s Gastropub for anyone interested in joining me.
Here are a couple of stories previewing the game, including US Today who talked to Munich’s star, Arjen Robben.
MADRID (AP) — Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben expects Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho to employ defensive tactics in the Champions League final, he said Thursday.
Robben said Mourinho is only concerned about winning matches while Bayern, under coach Louis van Gaal, aims to attack.“It’s a little bit maybe defense against attack. (Van Gaal) is a coach who wants to play football, he wants to play nice football,” Robben told a news conference. “Mourinho is a purer winning coach. He has his tactics always ready. He doesn’t think too much about playing nice football.”
And the Champion’s League website can probably answer any question you might have.
Farmer’s Gastropub is located downtown in the building directly South of the YMCA on Jefferson. Parking is available in the lot North of the Catholic elementary school on Elm and Jefferson with an entrance and excellent outdoor seating area directly below the parking lot. From the Farmer’s Gastropub website:
Pubs are meant to be places where anyone from the neighborhood can stop in to have a bite and a pint. A regular pub is sought more for its liquid fare than its fine cuisine. However, a gastropub, like ours, ups the ante on the food side. So, basically, we’re a friendly, unpretentious, neighborhood pub that serves good food.
Really good food, in fact.
It also means we added a talented mixologist behind the bar for signature cocktails. We have ales and lagers with real pedigree and wines that pay attention to the taste from the land where the grapes were grown. For Bill, the Brit, and Christina, the Springfield native, the one thing that drives the creation of Farmers Gastropub is their absolute and passionate resolve that good food is not rocket science and that it does not have to cost the earth.
I’m headed that way because the food is very good and with a Brit for an owner, you know there will be a nice international crowd already in attendance. Come out, enjoy the game and discover an excellent new option downtown if you haven’t already.
I don’t watch baseball anymore so maybe someone who is current can help me out here, but it appears that Fox will not be showing baseball on Saturday May 22nd. Instead we’ll all get to enjoy the Champions League Final that afternoon according to this story
Fox will air its first soccer match on May 22, with the telecast from Madrid beginning at 2:30 p.m. (ET) and kickoff set for 2:45 p.m. The match marks the first time the Champions League final will be played on a Saturday. The story was first reported by the Sports Business Journal.
When Fox Soccer Channel wrested the U.S. TV rights to the top European club competition from ESPN2 last April, it announced that FX, which counts some 95 million subscribers, would host the finale.
Simply put, the UEFA Champions League Final is one of international soccer’s most prestigious and competitive events,” said Fox Sports chairman David Hill in announcing the scheduling change. “There’s no doubt that soccer aficionados in the U.S. will welcome the opportunity to see this game live, and we’re excited to work with our colleagues at Fox Sports International to make it available to every household in America via FOX Sports.”
“This year, for the first time, the UEFA Champions League Final will be played on a Saturday,” said UEFA president Michel Platini. “This is an important change for European football as it is a strong desire for UEFA to engage with more families and children and to see them attend inside the stadium. Outside of Europe we also want to allow the greatest number of people possible the chance to follow the showpiece final of the best club football competition in the world. I am delighted that thanks to Fox Sports this will now be possible, as for the first time ever, the UEFA Champions League final will be live on a nationwide broadcast channel right across the USA.”
Again, to reinforce this message, it is the local Fox station that will be broadcasting the game, not Fox Soccer Channel. On a related note, FSC will launch premium service Fox Soccer Plus on March 1, and will begin its coverage of the Champions League’s knockout stage, with round of 16 coverage on Feb. 16-17 and Feb. 23-24 (next week!).
I almost left early, since the game seemed to be in Chelsea’s control but I learned my lesson after Porto’s remarkable comeback in the quarterfinal round. Ah Barca!
Barcelona will face Manchester United in the Champions League Final on Wednesday May 27th. Take the afternoon off and come out and join us at a destination to be named soon.
Champions League Final 8 Draw
Holders Manchester United take on FC Porto and Arsenal play Villarreal, with the winners meeting in the semi-finals.
Bayern Munich meet Barcelona in the other tie. The first legs are on 7/8 April, and the return on 14/15 April.
The second leg of Chelsea’s tie with Liverpool at Stamford Bridge will not be on 15 April after Uefa granted the Merseyside club’s request to avoid that date because it is the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy.
For those who missed it, I’ve posted a short video on my Facebook page that gives you a sense of the crowd we had at Coester’s today for the Champions League Final.
I don’t expect nearly as big a crowd but there’ll be a group of us out on Saturday night at 9:30 pm to catch the KC Wizards at the LA Galaxy. HDnet is broadcasting the game, should be a good way to start your evening (if you’re younger than me).
Join us today at Coester’s for the Champions League (EPL) final. Pre-game is at 1:00 pm with kickoff around 1:40 pm. The game is being broadcast live from St Petersburg and features an all English Premier League final. I’m expecting 30 plus folks to be in attendance, it should be an excellent match between a pair of teams that know each other well and always have something to prove.
AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev
Coester’s is located at 631 S Kimbrough, just West of the basketball stadium on the Missouri State campus. It’s a full-service restaurant, smoke free and features 22 big screen HD TV’s, the majority of which will be tuned to the game with the audio broadcast included.
Don’t forget to set the recorders on your way to work today as the knockout round (Sweet 16) begins today with the broadcast of Liverpool vs Inter Milan.
1:30 pm ESPN2 – Liverpool vs Inter
4:00 pm ESPN Classic – AS Roma vs Real Madrid
and tomorrow brings
1:30 pm ESPN2 – Arsenal vs AC Milan
4:00 pm ESPN Classic – Celtic vs Barcelona
I picked this one up from The World Cup blog, who grabbed it from The Sun, a British tabloid who compiled a list of 20 young players to watch in 2008. Ten of them are playing for teams that have made the knock out round (Final 16) of the UEFA Champions League which will begin again in February. Follow the links to see the entire list with background on each of the players.
Karim Benzema (France, Lyon) 20 year old striker
Denilson (Brazil, Arsenal) 19 year old midfielder
Franco Di Santo (Argentina, Chelsea) 18 year old striker joining Chelsea in January
Giovani Dos Santos (Mexico, Barcelona) 18 year old attacking mid/striker in the Ronaldinho mold
Bojan Krkić (Spain, Barcelona) 17 year old wonderkid striker who’s been likened to Johan Cruyff. No pressure Bojan!
Lucas Leiva (Brazil, Liverpool) 20 year old box to box midfielder
Alexandre Pato (Brazil, Milan) 18 year old striker who’s been with Milan since the summer, but can finally play in 2008
Gerard Piqué (Spain, Manchester United) 20 year old defender
Carlos Vela (Mexico, Arsenal) 18 year old striker who will return to England in January after a loan spell in La Liga
Theo Walcott (England, Arsenal) 18 year old striker/winger who famously went to the World Cup despite never playing in the Premier League.
And to stay on top of the calendar of games, just visit my Calendar page where all of the games are already listed, right up until the Champions League Final May 21st at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. There’s a button for subscribing to the Google Calendar feed as well.
