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This Weekend’s Soccer on TV

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Welcome back, Premier League and La Liga.

The new seasons in England and Spain get underway this weekend, with full slates of action featuring some of the top teams in the world. Manchester United's campaign doesn't start until Monday, but Manchester City kicks off its title defense against Premier League newcomer Southampton a week after defeating Chelsea to win the Community Shield.

Barcelona and Real Madrid kick off their quests for Spanish silverware as well, as both are featured on the newest network carrying soccer in America, beIN Sport, which is currently available only on DirecTV and Dish Network. 

In the mood for something non-European? There is a Copa Libertadores semifinal rematch between Brazilian powers Santos and Corinthians that is sure to be promising; the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup kicks off in Japan (the U.S. women begin play Monday); and the MLS slate is highlighted by a pair of regional rivalry bouts, one featuring D.C. United and the Philadelphia Union, who meet just days after swapping Danny Cruz for Lionard Pajoy, and the other a Cascadia Cup battle between the Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps.

Here is this weekend's soccer on TV:

THIS WEEKEND'S SOCCER ON TV

FRIDAY

8:30 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Tijuana vs. Tigres UANL

9:30 p.m. – GOLTV – Correcaminos vs. Universidad de Guadalajara

SATURDAY

7 a.m. – Fox Soccer Plus/FoxSoccer2Go – Ross County vs. Celtic

9:30 a.m. – ESPN3.com – FC Oberneuland vs. Borussia Dortmund

9:50 a.m. – ESPN/ESPN3.com – Arsenal vs. Sunderland

9:50 a.m. – FoxSoccer2Go – West Ham vs. Aston Villa

9:50 a.m. – FoxSoccer2Go – Reading vs. Stoke City

9:50 a.m. – FoxSoccer2Go – Queens Park Rangers vs. Swansea City

10 a.m. – Fox Soccer Channel – West Brom vs. Liverpool

10 a.m. – Fox Soccer Plus/FoxSoccer2Go – Fulham vs. Norwich City

11 a.m. – Univision Deportes – Lyon vs. Troyes

12:30 p.m. – Fox Soccer Channel – Newcastle vs. Tottenham

12:45 p.m. – ESPN3.com – PSV Eindhoven vs. Roda JC

1 p.m. – beIN Sport – Celta de Vigo vs. Malaga

2 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Loreint vs. Montpellier

3 p.m. – beIN Sport – Sevilla vs. Getafe

4 p.m. – MLS Live/Direct Kick – Seattle Sounders vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

4:30 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick – Toronto FC vs. Sporting Kansas City

5 p.m. – beIN Sport – Mallorca vs. Espanyol

5:30 p.m. – ESPN3.com – Fluminense vs. Sport Recife

6 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Queretaro vs. America

7 p.m. – Fox Soccer Channel – Indiana University vs. Chivas de Guadalajara U-23s

7:30 p.m. – MLS Live/Direct Kick – Montreal Impact vs. San Jose Earthquakes

8 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Monterrey vs. Atlante

8 p.m. – Telefutura – Santos Laguna vs. Pumas UNAM

8:30 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick – Chicago Fire vs. New England Revolution

9 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick – Colorado Rapids vs. Chivas USA

9 p.m. – MLS Live/Direct Kick – Real Salt Lake vs. FC Dallas

10 p.m. – Univision Deportes – San Luis vs. Chivas de Guadalajara

SUNDAY

1:50 a.m. – ESPN3.com/ESPNU – Brazil vs. Italy (U-20 Women's World Cup)

6:10 a.m. – ESPN3.com/ESPNU/Univision Deportes – Japan vs. Mexico (U-20 Women's World Cup)

7:30 a.m. – Fox Soccer Plus/FoxSoccer2Go – Dundee United vs. Dundee FC

8 a.m. – beIN Sport – Marseille vs. Sochaux

8:30 a.m. – Fox Soccer Channel – Wigan Athletic vs. Chelsea

10:30 a.m. – Fox Soccer Channel – Manchester City vs. Southampton

1 p.m. – beIN Sport – Real Madrid vs. Valencia

1 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Toluca vs. Pachuca

1 p.m. – GOLTV – Neza vs. Pumas Morelos

3 p.m. – beIN Sport – Barcelona vs. Real Sociedad

3 p.m. – Univision Deportes – Ajaccio vs. Paris St.-Germain

3 p.m. – GOLTV – Santos vs. Corinthians

3 p.m. – ESPN3.com – AC Milan vs. Juventus (Trofeo Luigi Berlusconi)

5 p.m. – NBC Sports Network – D.C. United vs. Philadelphia Union

5 p.m. – beIN Sport – Levante vs. Atletico Madrid

5:30 p.m. – ESPN3.com – Flamengo vs. Vasco de Gama

6:10 p.m. – GOLTV – Tigre vs. River Plate

7 p.m. – Galavision – New York Red Bulls vs. Portland Timbers

9 p.m. – MLS Live/Direct Kick – Houston Dynamo vs. Columbus Crew

Comments

  1. Right, because MLS alone has fostered the massive rise in interest the sport has seen in the last decade. Listen, I live MLS as much as anybody but don’t kid yourself. Americans by nature want to see the best, kids are inspired by the best so having Barca, RM, PSG and so on disappear from view is NOT ok.

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  2. If youre refering to Tommy Symth he hates Barca and overrates the EPL just watch presspass they were making fun of him this week about it again.

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  3. Raul, preventing the fans from seeing the best soccer leagues in the world is not good for soccer or MLS. I watch La Liga because it offers the highest quality soccer. My kids watch it to see good technique and improve their soccer IQ. There’s plenty of competitive matches in La Liga and at a much higher level than MLS. Atletic Bilbao, which finished tenth, is better than any MLS team. They dominated ManUtd in the Europa league the same year, when ManUtd posted humiliating scores against MLS teams on their preseason US tour. The reality is that MLS, while greatly improved, still produces substandard product. Many teams play physical long ball style and quite a few players lack basic technical skills. You can watch this style for free in a local rec league. Competition is good for MLS – it will push it to improve its product. The soccer fans in Holland can watch both La Liga and Eredivisie, and the Dutch soccer is alive and well. If you are an MLS fan, you should be at the stadium supporting your team and not on your couch.

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  4. Goltv still has Bundesliga. Bein Sport now has La Liga and Ligue 1. With Directv, I get those along with Fox Soccer. With one game a week on ESPN, I’m set. If you can switch providers to Directv, do it.

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  5. MLS is good for soccer in this country, not watching the big money superclubs beat up on most of the teams in their leagues. I would rather watch a competitive game anytime.

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  6. According to ESPN article, BeIN is available to about 8 million homes in this country. It is not a good deal for La Liga fans here.

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  7. People complain because two of the top four leagues will not be available to the majority of soccer fans in the US. Because the rights went from better distributed networks to a smaller network, most US fans will no longer be able to regularly see such players as Messi, Ronaldo, Xavi, Iniesta, Di Maria, Benzema, Pirlo, Ozil, etc. This is not good for soccer in this country.

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  8. Or alternatively, Fox Soccer, Bein, and NBCSports, plus a couple hispanic chanels that show Mexican league soccer and one MLS game a week (no gol TV)are all on Dish network’s 250 package, which costs me $100 a month for two seperate dvr’s and the 250 package, and I know the first year would be discounted from that heavily.

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  9. Yeah, actually I think the NBCSports deal was worse for MLS fans than BeIN is for LaLiga fans. GolTV is not availible on Dish on any package, NBCSports (due to the NBC/Comcast merger and the preferential treatment given to Comcast’s cable division) is only availible on the most expensive Dish and Direct packages (the same ones that carry Bein Actually). Fox Soccer, as an alacart, is the worst of the lot because no casual fan will find it on Direct (on Dish it comes with the upper packages at least). It’s all a mess, but based on what you want you can get it if you want to pay for it.

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  10. Well,Serie A and La Liga sold their international bradcasting rights to agencies for a fixed fee. It will be those agencies who make profits out of bein`s overspending and not La Liga and Serie A.

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  11. Ok… so seriously…

    outside of those of you that simply can’t get DirecTV because of bulding restrictions or line of sight…

    For every other true soccer fan… there is no excuse… DirecTV is the king of soccer… funny thing is… is is still cheaper than those rip off artists at Comcast

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  12. I don’t know what people are complaining about, this is a GOOD thing (even for those who just lost a league or two, in the long term).

    Look at the proliferation of soccer across US television channels, compared to where it was just a few years ago:
    ESPN/2, Fox Soccer, GolTV, BeIN Sport, NBC Sports. And that’s just all the English language stuff like Univision, Galavision, and Telefutura…
    Get DirectTV, with the sports or soccer package or whatever it’s called, you’ll have access to it ALL.

    With ESPN3.com and MLS Live (plus FoxSoccer2Go if anyone has that), there is more soccer being aired each weekend than any person could possibly watch.

    Soccer has made it big time when ABC/ESPN, NBC, Fox, and Al Jazeera are all in the mix, and as they compete for content that can only mean good things for MLS, the US national team, and European leagues, as they bid for the rights.

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  13. i guess if you cant get directv where you live, you will have to move, but all you need is a little southern exposure. this bein tv is basically an ad for barca ball and an extra channel for soccer. way to go directv, you da man!!!

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  14. This is terrible and is much worse than Traffic buying the rights to some of Concacaf games. The rights to La Liga broadcasts were sold to a network, that was launched this work by Al Jazeera, that is not available to the majority of the households in this country. There is an article on ESPN about it. It sounds like the European clubs are having second thoughts because they realized that their exposure to the US market will be greatly reduced. The bottom line is that the majority of the US fans won’t be able to watch the most technical league in the world.

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  15. In an eerily similar manner to how Arab tycoons have bought soccer teams and absolutely overspent on players until the team became relevant, not to mention really good (I’m looking at you Man City & PSG), Bein is backed by Al Jezeera, and from what I’m told the bids they put in to get Serie A from Fox, they outbid Fox by some crazy amount of money that they can’t possibly make back in advertising, but it won’t matter as it puts them on the map. Probably a similar situation with Gol in regards to the La Liga rights. Of course Serie A and La Liga just made a truck load of extra money so it’s all good for them whether or not people can actually see their product…

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  16. I just signed up for RAI International on Verizon so that I could catch the Serie A games. It’s $9.99 a month and commentary is all in Italian, but it should capture my fix for Roma games, at least until BeIN is available on cable.

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  17. Maybe this week isn’t the best timing for this, but just once in this column, I would like to see MLS not take the backseat, after comment on a game like Man City-Southampton. Please.

    Maybe a headline about the 127th meeting of the Sounders and Vancouver, both of whom, unlike Southampton are still in the hunt.

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  18. Ugh. Espn3 was just decimated by beIN Sport. And I doubt there will ever be enough demand for Comcast to add it (can’t get satellite in my building). This is the start of a sad season for many American fans.

    Grant Wahl brought up a great point on Twitter: “Coming to grips with inability to see Spanish & Italian leagues on my provider or online subscription. This is why illegal streams thrive.”

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  19. Just great, no more Serie A and La Liga on Fox.
    Wonder how long before we see one of these games again if you dont have Dish.

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