This thread is about Euro and American soccer!

The EPL season officially starts on Saturday, with a bunch of games, a few on Sunday, and then one on Monday. Aston Villa, my arbitrarily-selected team, just fired their coach, so if I root for these guys during what could be a calamitous season, I will be a Real Fan (tm).

La Liga (Spain) and Serie A (Italy) both start their seasons the weekend of August 28th, look for Barcelona and AC Milan to dominate both of those leagues, and the Bundesliga (Germany) gets going next weekend. Bayern Munich is probably the misinformed favorite for that league, but Hannover 96 and TSG Hoffenheim have looked really good in preseason play, so that could be a good race.

Currently the Champions League situation is still kind of in the early stages of the new season, but there are a lot of games coming up in the middle of next week, so you may want to keep an eye on that (hint: you don't). Europa (Champions League for teams that didn't make that cut) has a TON of qualifying games next Thursday, all happening at the same time, so you can watch one and then a replay of probably several others later (you won't anyway).

And we're actually getting to the back part of the MLS season, I've been to something like 5 FC Dallas games this year and just renewed my season tickets for next year (about $22 a game for front row aisle seats behind the away bench, bam). We got a good result against Philadelphia (3-1) fresh off our hard-earned draw versus Champions League winners Inter Milan (who literally played all of their players, not just the B team touring dudes). Things are looking up for my boys, even if the MLS representation in the CONCACAF Cup looks pretty awful right now.

So I'm going to post ITT with shit that literally no one else cares about and get zero replies that aren't from me, it's going to be great.

Games coming up that you may see on TV and not watch at all (home teams listed first, that's how they do that shit over there):

08/14 - Aston Villa v. West Ham United
08/14 - DC United v. FC Dallas
08/14 - Chelsea v. West Brom
08/15 - Liverpool v. Arsenal (pretty sure this one will be on ESPN unless there's an NFL preseason game)
08/16 - Manchester United v. Newcastle United

Share your soccer stories.

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Real Madrid > Barcelona

Kaka just needs to stop playing like shit (see what I did there?) this year. He was terrible last year.

Kaka's out for like four months to start the season with injury, so Barca's going to Literally Destroy Lives, even without Fabregas as the #2 LM. Two words: David World God Damn Cup Villa

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Oh yea, forgot about that. He's my boy!

The LA Galaxy just played Real Madrid and the final was 3-2. I thought it was a good game, and some interesting scoring as well.

Here are the video highlights from the game:

Highlights: LA vs Real Madrid

Aston Villa beats the lowly West Ham 3-0, Chelsea absolutely stomps West Brom 6-0. DC/Dallas game tonight, which I will be watching on a painfully small TV at the Gingerman Pub in Fort Worth, Arsenal and Liverpool tomorrow morning probably before I wake up. Sweet.

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No bars in the outer-downtown Fort Worth area had the overflow Fox Southwest channel, so I ended up just getting drunk with some friends and watching another shitty Rangers game that I only moderately care about. But FC Dallas wins over a horrible HORRIBLE DC United team 3-1, Jeff Cunningham comes within 5 of breaking the single-season MLS goals record. Also Liverpool scores two goals on Arsenal (one in their own net, sadtrombone).

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Ozil sold to Real Madrid.

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Chelsea owning a shit team again this week, currently rocking a +10 differential after two matches with zero conceded. Big game on ESPN2 Monday, City vs. Liverpool at 3pm eastern. Check it out.

Also Aston Villa gonna own some hoes tomorrow, FC Dallas gonna extend that unbeaten streak (no losses since May 20, what up) against shitbag Chivas.

edit: Chelsea finished 6-0 about five minutes after I posted this, these guys are retarded good.

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Yup. Manchester whonited?

LA Galaxy lost to the San Jose Earthquakes 1-0 today. It was a good game and LA did have a few chances to tie things up.

I still enjoyed watching the game and the MLS fans seem like they really do like the sport of soccer. Good times

lol@a third 6-0 game in two weeks. what is happening in this league

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La Liga starts this weekend too!

Here are games you (I) might want to watch out for (you will not watch out for them).

Saturday
Columbus v. Dallas (MLS)
Sunderland v. Manchester City (EPL)
Wolves v. Newcastle (EPL)
Real Sociedad v. Villarreal (La Liga)

Sunday
Aston Villa v. Everton (EPL - probably the best game of the weekend, really)
Racing v. Barcelona (La Liga)
Mallorca v. Real Madrid (La Liga)

Honestly not a whole lot worth checking out this weekend, but the Columbus/Dallas game could be pretty good. First place in the East vs. third in the West, Dallas trying to keep their 3-month unbeaten streak alive against a pretty good Columbus team.

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About time La Liga gets started.

I saw my first English Premier League game today. It was pretty good and fast paced too.

Everton vs Aston Villa. Aston won the match 1-0 but Everton sure had a lot of chances to tie the game tho. AV's defense was very good locking down the scoring. I will need to see when more of these English Premier games are on the TV.

The soccer thing is growing on me I think. I don't think I will be a hardcore fan, but watching the games so far have been fun indeed.

My boy watching a Villa game. They're my arbitrarily-adopted Premier League team! I always recommend watching Chelsea play to my friends who like soccer but not watching it, because the Premier League is a very fast-paced league and Chelsea scores a million goals all the time.

I just checked out the schedule and by the end of the MLS season I'll have gone to all but two of the FC Dallas home games. I'm pretty proud of that.

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Were there any Spanish games this weekend? The guide just said "soccer" all weekend, so I didn't really check to see who was playing other than a few times (and one game on Saturday was a replay).

No, all of the major European leagues were off this weekend for the first match day of the Euro 2012 qualifiers. Everyone comes back this weekend though, and Champions League has the first matches next week.

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Barca embarrassed at home.

God that was ugly too. Newly-promoted Hercules takes down the best club in the world.

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DirecTV needs to fix their shit. "Soccer" is not an acceptable guide description!

Villa currently up 1-0. Listening to soccer on the radio is thrilling as hell.

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Champions League group stage starts in like 30 minutes, woot.

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WTF is a Panathinaikos?

Greeks are weird.

Also everything in the world needs a group stage. This is awesome.

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The LA Galaxy vs Columbus Crew was a good game I thought. LA is back on top as the best record in MLS, and I'm looking forward to this weekend's game against D.C. United

Looks like they heard me. The guide has been corrected. By the way, the Galaxy play tonight on one of those soccer channels.

Illustrating how dumb the MLS playoffs are:
Dallas and LA playing for Western Conference Championship
San Jose and Colorado for Eastern Conference Championship.

Also Dallas woot.

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Gratz to Dallas for beating LA Even if it's a bit late haha

Good luck tonight in the MLS Cup.

The MLS Cup 2010 is over and the Colorado Rapids are the winners! It was a very good game I thought...enjoyed watching it and glad Dallas did not win

You would have no clue that FC Dallas was in the MLS Cup playoffs, let alone championship, unless you are a die-hard soccer fan in the DFW area.

Wow really Krby71? Well Texas is a Football state tho. So I guess it would make sense that no one would really care about the MLS Cup.

Yeah the only regional coverage it got was on Friday when Galloway & Co. were making fun of it. I guess on ESPN Deportes you might have seen something, but I don't speak Spanish well enough to know.

Either way, I hate Colorado and Conor Casey forever now. Glad Dallas had such a great season, hopefully they can keep the same squad together (may lose David Ferreira, league MVP) and do the same or similar next year. It was a great season to become a fan, and now my fiancee and I will never be without soccer tickets where ever we live (not Colorado).

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Yeah Conor Casey pretty interesting last night that is all I can say lol

yeah, I didn't realize that FC Dallas was in the MLS Cup game until the Musers (morning drive on The Ticket) talked to guy covering the team for DMN.

Uggh, I can't stand listening to Galloway.

Speaking of Dallas sports radio, why in the hell do all three Sports talk stations do Dallas Cowboys postgame? I can understand the fail (err Fan) doing postgame because they actually carry the game. I can sort of understand why The Ticket has Norm doing postgame (number one station in the market and all...) but why doesn't 103.3 ESPN Radio Dallas stay with their network NFL Gameday show? Dallas is such a mixed fan market that there has to be more people over all that want to hear updates and stuff about other games than the suck ass Cowboys?!!?!?!

Oh I know what you mean, Krby71 haha. Football gets most of the coverage here in LA and we don't even have a team.

We need a new thread for the new season of soccer, Randy! The MLS season is about to start