By MICHAEL KLINE
This is shaping up to be one of those kinds of dream weekends that soccer fans circle the calendar for. With top clashes in every top league in Europe headlining the schedule, and Major League Soccer kicking off the 2013 campaign, there will be more than enough soccer action to keep fans satisfied this weekend.
Serie A leaders Juventus will head on the road to face second-place Napoli, in one of the more highly anticipated matches of the season. Napoli have the opportunity to blow the Scudetto race wide open, while a victory from the Old Lady will steer them nine points clear at the top and into cruise control.
In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona will face off for the second time in less than a week. Madrid will look to hand Barcelona their third loss in ten days, while Barcelona attempts to halt their poor form and go 19 points ahead of their rivals in Spain’s Primera División. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a double against Barça on Wednesday, giving him a perfect 39 goals in 39 matches in all competitions this season. Lionel Messi has a streak of his own, however, and a goal against Madrid will give him 16 consecutive league matches where he has found the net. The only negative about this weekend’s Clasico is the fact both teams could be tempted to rest players ahead of very important Champions League matches next week.
Tottenham and Arsenal are taking a page out of the rivalry notebook this weekend as well, with the two clubs meeting at White Hart Lane on Sunday. With the race for third and fourth coming down to the finish line between Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea, the stakes for the North London Derby are as high as ever. Gareth Bale enters the match in astonishing form. Unfortunately for Arsenal, Bale’s work may have gotten slightly easier on Sunday, with Bacary Sagna ruled out of the match, and Carl Jenkinson set to start in the French international’s place.
Finally, opening weekend for Major League Soccer kicks off on Saturday, when Philadelphia hosts Sporting KC at PPL Park. Later in the day, Houston welcomes D.C. United to the BBVA Compass Stadium in the first high-profile match of the season. Sunday brings three more MLS matches to your television, including Caleb Porter’s MLS debut as the Portland Timbers and New York Red Bulls face off on ESPN2.
Here is a rundown of This Weekend’s Soccer on TV:
THIS WEEKEND”S SOCCER ON TV
FRIDAY
2:30pm – GolTV – Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Borussia Monchengladbach
2:45pm – beIN Sport – Napoli vs. Juventus
8:30pm – ESPN Deportes – Jaguares vs. Santos Laguna
Saturday
10am – Fox Soccer Channel – Chelsea vs. West Bromwich Albion
10am – Fox Soccer Plus / FoxSoccer2Go.com – Everton vs. Reading
10am – ESPN Deportes – Manchester United vs. Norwich City
10am – FoxSoccer2Go.com – Southampton vs. Queens Park Rangers
10am – FoxSoccer2Go.com – Stoke City vs. West Ham United
10am – FoxSoccer2Go.com – Sunderland vs. Fulham
10am – FoxSoccer2Go.com – Swansea City vs. Newcastle United
10am – beIN Sport – Real Madrid vs. Barcelona
12:30pm – Fox Soccer Channel – Wigan Athletic vs. Liverpool
12:30pm – GolTV – Bayer Leverkusen vs. StuttgartÂ
2:45pm – beIN Sport – Milan vs. Lazio
4pm – MLS Direct Free Kick/MLS Live – Philadelphia Union vs. Sporting KC
6pm – Univision – América vs. Cruz Azul
6pm – Univision Deportes 2 – Querétaro vs. MonterreyÂ
6:30pm – MLS Direct Kick – Vancouver Whitecaps vs. TorontoÂ
8pm – NBC Sports Network – Houston Dynamo vs. DC UnitedÂ
8pm – Univision Deportes – Pachuca vs. San LuisÂ
8pm – UniMás – Tigres UANL vs. Morelia
8:30pm – MLS Direct Kick/MLS Live – Dallas vs. Colorado Rapids
9:05pm – Telemundo – León vs. Puebla
10pm – Univision Deportes – Atlas vs. TijuanaÂ
10:30pm – MLS Live – Seattle Sounders vs. Montreal Impact
10:30pm – MLS Direct Kick/MLS Live – Chivas USA vs. Columbus Crew
SUNDAY
9am – beIN Sport en Español – Catania vs. InternazionaleÂ
9am – beIN Sport – Fiorentina vs. Chievo
9:30am – GolTV – Hoffenheim vs. Bayern Munich
11am – Fox Soccer Channel – Tottenham Hotspur vs. Arsenal
11am – beIN Sport en Español – Málaga vs. Atlética MadridÂ
1pm – Univision – Pumas UNAM vs. GuadalajaraÂ
2:45pm – beIN Sport – Roma vs. Genoa
3pm – beIN Sport en Español – Real Sociedad vs. Real Betis
5pm – UniMás – LA Galaxy vs. Chicago Fire
7pm – Univision Deportes – Atlante vs. Toluca
7:30pm – ESPN2/ESPN3.com/ESPN Deportes – Portland Timbers vs. New York Red Bulls
10pm – MLS Direct Kick/MLS Live – San Jose Earthquakes vs. Real Salt Lake
I wanted to do a success kid meme:
Whole season of MLS Live streaming
Only cost me $50
Promo code: DAL2013
Or HOU2013
Or KC2013
Whatever your favorite team is, try putting 2013 after it!
tried to give MLS a go a couple years ago. Very uncomfortable with how MLS structures the league – pointless regular season because over half the league makes playoffs makes for a regular season that is just meh. Teams don’t give it there all because they know they can coast into the playoffs. This is soccer not the NBA.
I wonder if the TV ratings this year are again as bad as they were last year if they will consider changing the system and becoming more like 99% of the soccer world.
The playoffs are not going away for a while, I’d think. I actually like the tournament aspect of it at the end of every season. They have the Supporters Shield for the best team in points.
It’s not peculiar to MLS either. Liga MX has a playoff tournament as well.
they would benefit from separating the competitions and marketing it that way. The Supporters Shield is not the league title winner.
In MLS the regular season and playoffs is all one competition to see who is the MLS League Champion.
If you went to one table and the team with the most points was the league title winner and then separated that from the MLS cup you would get more soccer fans in this country to tune in.
There are still a very large % of American soccer fans who won’t support a single entity league, but i think you’d get better TV ratings than you do now.
Nobody is watching this league on TV
No
The return of the days of Premiership in the morning and MLS in the evening – love it!
Herculez is tearing it up tonight.
Anyone know if MLS Live will have live matches all week, every week like MLS Direct Kick?
I read from unhappy subscribers in the recent past that MLS Live only had full games on a delayed basis? Thanks.
It would be rather silly to call your product “Live” only to not have the actual broadcasts be live. I ordered it last year on my laptop and all of the games were live, even had a nice lil “watch 2 games at once” feature.
There is a slight delay, but is still considered live for your location. MLS monitors the location based on IP address or Location Services on Apple devices before you get the feed. The delay is to process the video images and compress to a digital format used by the MLS Live player. I don’t know exactly how long that takes. Probably around 1-5 mins. I was happy with the service last year and re-upped this year. I use my ipad or computer outputed to TV.
The blackouts are absurd.
Where do you live? And what team are you trying to watch? Let me guess, LA? For $60, it’s a good deal. But, yeah, it depends on how you’re going to use it .
Arlington, TX — FCD. $60 is worth it for the casual fan, but not a supporter who wants to watch their team play. The 3 hour round trip to and from the stadium plus ~$20 in tolls (4 hours if you avoid tolls) is hard to swallow on most days. It pains me that the Cowboys stadium and Rangers ballpark are literally a 15 minute walk.
And you have to be in Frisco.
Noticed the Seattle v Montreal on MLS Live. Anyone know I can access it?
Yeah, get MLS Live. Here.
Don’t do it. I have bought it for the past 5 years and it has become progressively worse in terms of blackouts. It is definitely not a good idea for those of us without TV/cable.
#killyourTV
The increasing blackouts signal that MLS is improving their TV contracts. That’s a good sign for the league. But it’s not good if you want to watch a match that is being televised in your market and you hate TV. Isn’t that ironic?
Do it. There are definitely blackout issues, but it’s still a high quality service at a very reasonable price.
Hey Ives,
you left out USA vs Cuba.
Will be interesting to see Portland try to play Porter’s possession brand of soccer against NYRB who has such a high skill level. Most teams last year packed it in and played NYRB to counter, making for relatively dull games.
US U-20s play Cuba today fyi…
Sunday too.