The draw was, um, interesting to say the least.
Obviously the buzz in the soccer world this weekend focuses upon the 2010 World Cup draw, and why shouldn’t it. For the past year or so we’ve been forced to take random weeks off of our normal club footy schedule to halfway pay attention to a few games that didn’t really seem to have much impact on the everyday landscape of the sport.
The last few months were entertaining though, finally knowing what a team needed to do in order to qualify, games that might have seemed insignificant were suddenly massive. Some of you had to pack into bars and pay quite a chunk of change to watch the USMNT go to Hondouras and take care of business. Personally I didn’t even get into the bar and had to watch through a window, but it was some of the most fun I’ve had watching this game.
It’s all starting to pay off now though, we get to spend the next 6 months getting excited, learning all about the other three teams in our countries groups, learning their strengths and weaknesses and hoping that our coaches can see these too and that just maybe our country can lift the greatest sporting trophy in the world.
As for what’s going on today though, join me after the jump and we’ll take a look at the TV schedule and a little bit of news.
The big match today is of course Manchester City taking on Chelsea, this would have perhaps been a bigger match 7+ weeks ago when City was still looking like a contender and hadn’t been taken back down to earth by a terrible run of draws. Chelsea looks quite the opposite though as they sit 5 points clear of Manchester United and have been playing extremely well. The beautiful thing about this game though is that after this match is all said and done both of those things could change. City could win by a commanding score and suddenly we’d forget about the 7 draws and put them in the legit discussion for a Champions League spot. Thats why they play though.
Arsenal and Stoke looks like the next best match, but that’s probably due to the fact that Arsenal have lost 2 straight and all eyes will be on them to see if they’re able to pull it together. I feel for any of you who’ve woken up early only to find out that you’ve got Pompey v Burnley on ESPN 2, but the way these things usually work that’ll be the best match of the season.
You’ll probably want to stick around after the Chelsea match and watch Juventus take on Inter as those big time Italian matches are usually pretty entertaining.
For those of you who would rather stay inside and watch games tonight, FSC has the US U-17′s taking on Brazil’s kids in a sort of mini tournament that’s taking place in Phoenix. More info on that can be found here.
That’s about it for us, feel free to talk it out in the comments or harass us on twitter. I’ll probably commandeer the @avoidingthedrop tweet machine, while Mags will be on his feed @MHaaskivi you could harass TYER, but he’s off having fun, whatever that is. Enjoy the games…
TV SCHEDULE (All times EST)
ESPN 2:
7:30 – Portsmouth v Burnley
FSC:
10:00 – Arsenal v Stoke City
12:30 – Manchester City v Chelsea
2:30 – Juventus v Inter Milan
5:00 – AC Milan v Sampdoria (same day replay)
7:00 – Aston Villa v Hull City (same day replay)
9:00 – Nike U-17 friendlies – USA v. Brazil
GolTV:
9:30 – Hamburg vs Hoffenheim
12:00 – Sevilla vs Valladolid
2:00 – Real Madrid vs Almeria
6:15 – Santa Fe vs Nacional (Colombia)
8:15 – Huila vs Tolima (Colombia)
Setanta:
9:30 – West Ham v Manchester United
12:55 – Valenciennes v Monaco (Ligue 1)
2:55 – Bordeaux v PSG (Ligue 1)
5:00 – Blackburn v Liverpool (same day replay)
8:30 – Wigan v Birmingham City (same day replay)
