Soccer besides Olympics and World Cup - What else should I watch?

The European Championships are coming up early in June. Lots of good soccer every day. All on ESPN.

You need to watch Euro 2012. That tournament is just as good, if not better then the World Cup. It starts on June 8. ESPN has the broadcast rights in the U.S.

There are many games that will be great to watch during the European championships. You'll have to follow the so called Group of Death, which includes Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, and Denmark.

Another good tournament to watch is Copa America. The next Copa America tournament won't happen until 2015.

Well, at the club level, 8 days ago you missed the last day of the EPL season. And one of the greatest endings of a game I've ever witnessed, in any sport:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report/_/id/318011?cc=5901

And the Champions League Final was last Saturday:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match/_/id/341104?cc=5901

The best place to see european soccer is Saturday early afternoon, and Sunday morning on Fox Soccer channel, occasionally also broadcast FOX and ESPN.

The US team can sometimes be seen on Spanish language broadcast TV when they aren't even carried on cable in English.

Euro 2012 starts next month on ESPN... This is the European World Cup.

Starting in August / September:

English Premier League - Fox Soccer Channel, sometimes ESPN / ESPN2
Italian League Play - GolTV, Fox Soccer Channel.
La Liga - Spanish League - GolTV, Fox Soccer, ESPN2
Bundesliga - German League - GolTV, Fox Soccer.
Brazil League - GolTV
Argentinian League - GolTV
Mexican League - GolTV, Telemundo
Asian Leagues - GolTV
Other South American Leagues - GolTV

Competitions:

World Cup Qualifying - US, Mexico - ESPN, ESPN2, Telemundo and Fox Soccer.

Spring, Summer and Fall:
US Major League Soccer - ESPN2, local programming stations and Telemundo (I believe).

There's a slew of games that are carried on ESPN3 online, and on subscription services like FoxSoccer.tv.

The quality of the broadcasts varies as you go from country to country, the US, Mexican stations and European broadcasts have probably the best, some others the worst. The HD broadcasts are pretty good all around, some commentary is in the native languages with translation often being done in studio.

The quality of the soccer varies, but enjoyable all around. I think the best quality is in South America, but that's my own opinion.

Hope that helps.

UEFA Champions League is a competition involving the best clubs of each European countries top tier league. I'd say its pretty high up there.

World cup qualifiers won't finish until fall of 2013 (I'm saying that based on the timeframe of the last world cup).

As for quality of HD broadcasts, well I just upgraded to a Mits 73" TV. Fox Soccer channel on Dish... uh pretty horrible. Broadcast FOX has this weird ghosting effect, and micro stuttering. Strangely during the Champions League broadcast they had some issues with the transmission I guess and went to some sort of backup broadcast with the international announcers and no score board, and suddenly it look much improved, but then they went back to the fox-box and it was back. Wonder where we can complain?

Unfortunately GolTV and Fox Soccer lost the rights for La Liga and Italian Serie A. Al Jazeera won the broadcast rights for La Liga and Serie A in the United States. Al Jazeera will be launching 2 new sport networks in August called beIN Sports USA.

The majority of teams playing soccer in the Olympics use a very young squad and not their regular national team starters. Sometimes a few good players do play in the tournament. Messi played in Beijing. The UEFA Champions League is probably the best competition for club teams in the world. UEFA Champions League qualifying starts in July. The teams in the qualifying rounds are trying to make a spot in the group stages. The big teams like Barcelona and Manchester City don't participate in the qualifying rounds since they automatically qualified for the group stages.

Besides World Cup qualifying still going on in 2013, there is also the Confederations Cup. That's basically the warmup tournament for the World Cup. The Confederations Cup is worth watching. There will be 8 teams in 2 groups in the Confederations Cup. The teams are the winners of the regional tournaments around the world, the previous World Cup winner, and the World Cup host. So for example, the winner of Euro 2012 will be in the 2013 Confederations Cup. The teams that are already qualified for the Cup are Brazil (world cup host), Spain (2010 World Cup winner), Japan (Asia Cup winner), Mexico (Gold Cup winner), and Uruguay (Copa America winner). The last 3 spots will be the Euro 2012 winner, Africa Cup of Nations winner, and the 2012 OFC Nations Cup winner.

I'm going to the USA vs Brazil friendly match to be broadcast on ESPN2 next week Wed May 30th 8pm.

Some of the USA games and their broadcast time/station at
http://www.ussoccer.com/schedule-tickets/schedule.aspx

This is much better:
http://www.foxsoccerplus.com/

I'd actually say that UEFA Champions League competion is at a higher level than the World Cup. It's probably the best soccer being played anywhere in the world.

It's amazing the level of soccer being played in Europe. Whenever I watch games from the top European leagues and compare them to MLS, it's like going from college to high school competion.

Yeah even FOX covered the UEFA champions leage on FTA TV..

(although the commentators seemed rather boring, I'll take my yelling latino guys LOL)

Mexican Soccer league is also coveved by Univision/Telefutura networks.

Considering most of the top euro teams have insane payrolls (many over 100 million), and most mls teams are well under 5 mil, it makes sense. Mls is growing and improving each year, but they are nowhere close to being able to compete financially for the best players.

Yes, tons of money involved in Europe teams..

Say like to get into Chelsea Stadium you have to be a Chelsea FC club member (which cost membership money plus the price of the tickets), and only then you can reserve your seat on the stadium, I think there's no tickets to the public at all..

Amen, though I wish that FOX would use the SAP so we could have....

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!

I wrote a song about that was the only word I understood while watching it.

I was in Germany last year, in a gasthaus, watching Bayern - Munich on TV. Bavaria scored! I shouted out Goooooooaaaaallllll.... While I got smiles, mostly I got WTFs.....

Hey, sorry I lost track of this thread. The quality hierarchy is good, there is also the Copa Libertadores in South America, which is the same thing as the UEFA Cup, a club championship for S.A.

If you watch the Champions League, you are watching a lot of South American and African players. The draw for the best players to go to Europe is money, and the European leagues until lately have had the most. Brazil is now beginning to keep some of its best players and is luring some back, since the money there has gone up.

The bulk of the players in the South American leagues are talented, hungry and have great competition. Many of the world's best players were developed and groomed there, so yes - the Brazilian, Argentinian, Uruguayan, Chilean, Colombian, etc. leagues are high in skill and good games. The players there will most likely wind up in Europe at some point, but they are very good now. So yes, I watch all the time and enjoy the sometimes fuzzy show.

I think the Olympic soccer is well worth watching. The players there are 23 and under, with a few over 23 players thrown in. A different dynamic, but what is essentially the Brazil Olympic team just beat a very good US World Cup team 4-1, so the talent is not small there.

To avoid a slagfest, I am a SERIOUS US soccer fan, but just as I enjoyed our win 5-1 over Scotland, I can give props to a very strong, good young Brazil team. It also features one player who I think will inherit Messi's status as the best in the world in due time (IMHO).

I watched the US-Scotland game. Holy CRAP, was that nuts!

You need to watch Portugal vs Germany tomorrow. That should be a great game between two high ranked teams. This Sunday, you should watch Spain vs Italy. Another match between two high ranked teams. On June 17, Portugal vs Netherlands.

You can often find soccer on the FTA (Free-to-Air) satellite channels. Try Galaxy-19.

UEFA Euro cup at full swing, caught some games on TV Azteca HD, they are broadcasted about noon here (8 PM Europe time)

Huge game today, Germany Vs. Netherlands, at 2:30 PM Eastern

I think it's also on ESPN

Yes it is.... as is every single game of the UEFA tournament...

Fox Soccer airs their daily Fox Soccer Report which covers what's going on around the world. They also show Sky Sports News as well so you can catch any English soccer news on that. Our own Major League Soccer here in America has a pretty nicely run YouTube channel that has game highlights, news, and what not that is well worth subscribing to if you want to keep up with our top flight soccer league in America.