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World Soccer XXX: We Have Men Too!

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Mexico beat Suriname 3-0 in their Nations League opener and their fans are not happy. Good thing they just reportedly signed their manager to a long extension!

Personally, I blame CONCACAF for actually making Mexico play their Nations League games in Mexico…
 
The Head Coach of NYCFC Ronny Deila has decided to celebrate his team’s MLS Cup by moving Belgium and becoming the manager for Standard Liege.
 
Kepler said:
Liege is one of the loveliest cities in Europe.

That's a big ol' no contest to me.
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Oh I wasn’t trying to drag Liege, more of a comment that NYCFC is now on their fifth coach in seven years.

Also, another Eastern Conference team thrown into disarray along with New England (who’s losing their starting goalie and star player this summer).
 
Australia v Peru World Cup Playoff on FS1 right now.

Interestingly former Mark Clattenburg is on the broadcast as rules analyst which means:

1. Hopefully no more Dr. Joe (JFC he was the worst).
2. Clatts is no longer working for ESPN anymore (he was their rules analyst last summer during the Euros and some MLS/USMNT stuff).
 
Australia beats Peru in kicks from the mark to go to the World Cup after a, uh, “entertaining” 0-0 draw.

People love to talk about how difficult CONMEBOL qualifying is and how “deserving teams” like Chile miss out and then the fifth place Peru team can’t even score on an Australian team that has, to be generous, looked godawful the last 6 months.
 
A bit of panic in Canada as Canada loses to Honduras 2-1 in CONCACAF Nations League play.

Is it Canada finally coming back to Earth after huge run of form or just merely a small slip on the road?

Canada does have a huge problem though: They need some tough friendlies to prepare in the September window but the CSA is inept at best and their contract situation makes them a very unappealing opponent right now.
 
The Canada-Honduras game is getting better by the day as the Canadians are in full meltdown mode.

First, it was raining so the already terrible field was in worse shape and the Canadians are complaining loudly about that. Casual reminder that Canada made teams play WCQ matches in brutal winter conditions and on frozen turf despite indoor venues being available.

Second, they’re unhappy with the officiating as Canada got multiple cautions and had a player sent off. They went so far as to go after the door to the referees locker room. On a totally unrelated note, Canada used rough, physical tactics during WCQ and that is credited with helping them qualify.

On a non-passive aggressive note, it’s just funny to see a team meltdown over stuff they do themselves. They have succeeded in uniting US and Mexico fans against them though.
 
So there’s going to be a separate subscription service for the full package but some games will be available with a regular AppleTV subscription.

No more local tv. Honestly, this is so much better because the vast majority of MLS regional broadcasts sucked.

Still going to be national TV games, ESPN, Fox and Univision are still negotiating apparently though Apple will still have the streaming rights.

MLS (and Apple I assume) will be handling the technical side in house it seems. Basically sending out a single feed.

The financials seem to be $250 million a year though that’s a minimum as it can grow based on subscriptions.
 
Athletic article.

Couple of more notes:

Local radio broadcast audio will be available for selection.

Matches are going to be largely centralized to a Saturday evening schedule so there can be a preshow plus a Redzone style whiparound show.
 
Did not watch but apparently the US played at El Salvador on an embarrassingly poor pitch, and tied the game in the 2nd 1-1 while down 1 player.
 
Slap Shot said:
Did not watch but apparently the US played at El Salvador on an embarrassingly poor pitch, and tied the game in the 2nd 1-1 while down 1 player.
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Jordan Morris with the goal in the 90’. At the same time the Sounders beat Vancouver 4-0, so pretty good night for Seattle!

Nobody has any thoughts on the Apple deal though?
 
Slap Shot said:
Did not watch but apparently the US played at El Salvador on an embarrassingly poor pitch, and tied the game in the 2nd 1-1 while down 1 player.
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I watched. It was actually 10v10 when the US scored, and yes, the pitch was laughably miserable. El Salvador created almost no chances; on their goal, our backup keeper played the pass instead of the shot and left the near post wide open for the direct strike. I’m pretty sure he ended the match with zero saves.
 
LynahFan said:
I watched. It was actually 10v10 when the US scored, and yes, the pitch was laughably miserable. El Salvador created almost no chances; on their goal, our backup keeper played the pass instead of the shot and left the near post wide open for the direct strike. I’m pretty sure he ended the match with zero saves.
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I don’t know what Horvath was doing on that shot but it certainly was bad.

The Arriola red card was weird, it was certainly justifiable but it was also one that some places would want a yellow.

On another note, I’m curious to what all of you think about the MLS/Apple deal? A lot of strong feelings on other forums.
 
It sounds exactly like the type of deal that MLB fans have been clamoring for, but will not get for the foreseeable future. MLB has been going the opposite way of this deal, with smaller national contracts and bigger regional contracts. This while people are dropping cable or in particular, regional networks are getting in spats with cable companies and dropping service, leaving fans with access to essentially zero games for their in-market team.

Have they come out with a price point for this? It’s a dream service feature-wise (though I imagine some will miss their hometown announcing crew), but I know the issue if MLB ever went this route would be recouping local tv fees, making the price astronomical. It’s a risky move, but it sounds like MLS is doing this at a time when it won’t be a killer to clubs to drop existing local contracts and have to make up that tv money with an insane stream price. The downsides I see are 1) taking away the passive local audience you would be able to bring in and turn into a fanatic and 2) making the price point too high where the fanatics decide they’re more soccer fans than MLS fans and it’s better to stick with Peacock, CBSAA, and/or ESPN+ and just watch international leagues to get their football fix.

I’ll say good on them for trying it. It’s a pioneering move to see a consolidation in rights. To compare it to MLB again, just this season they went exclusive with Apple and Peacock for select games, so now I think to watch every game of your team you’d need the local RSN, ESPN, Fox, FS1, TBS and MLBN through cable and then Apple and Peacock through streaming. Plus Youtube, but that’s free assuming you have fast enough internet, and if you don’t you aren’t getting Apple or Peacock anyway. Even if you’re out of market for MLBTV, you still get blacked out for national games, so MLS is even covering for that scenario.
 
Spartanforlife4 said:
It sounds exactly like the type of deal that MLB fans have been clamoring for, but will not get for the foreseeable future. MLB has been going the opposite way of this deal, with smaller national contracts and bigger regional contracts. This while people are dropping cable or in particular, regional networks are getting in spats with cable companies and dropping service, leaving fans with access to essentially zero games for their in-market team.

Have they come out with a price point for this? It’s a dream service feature-wise (though I imagine some will miss their hometown announcing crew), but I know the issue if MLB ever went this route would be recouping local tv fees, making the price astronomical. It’s a risky move, but it sounds like MLS is doing this at a time when it won’t be a killer to clubs to drop existing local contracts and have to make up that tv money with an insane stream price. The downsides I see are 1) taking away the passive local audience you would be able to bring in and turn into a fanatic and 2) making the price point too high where the fanatics decide they’re more soccer fans than MLS fans and it’s better to stick with Peacock, CBSAA, and/or ESPN+ and just watch international leagues to get their football fix.

I’ll say good on them for trying it. It’s a pioneering move to see a consolidation in rights. To compare it to MLB again, just this season they went exclusive with Apple and Peacock for select games, so now I think to watch every game of your team you’d need the local RSN, ESPN, Fox, FS1, TBS and MLBN through cable and then Apple and Peacock through streaming. Plus Youtube, but that’s free assuming you have fast enough internet, and if you don’t you aren’t getting Apple or Peacock anyway. Even if you’re out of market for MLBTV, you still get blacked out for national games, so MLS is even covering for that scenario.
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There hasn't been a price point set from the information that's out and we likely won't have any more info for a few months. I can't imagine it'll be super expensive (especially if they're giving it to season ticket holders for free), I know back when MLS had the non-national games streaming on their website it wasn't very expensive (~$50 for the season).

I know some fanbases were upset about losing local coverage, at least with teams like Seattle were the coverage was good and actually available, but considering there's been 20+ years of local coverage and it hasn't done fuck all for the league (the Red Bulls have been on MSG since the beginning in 1996 and their attendance is terrible) I'm not upset to be losing it.

I hope this deal succeeds and it becomes the model going forward so other leagues will follow (looks at NHL).
 
Also, I talked about this with some of my baseball fan friends and their immediate thought was "wish MLB could do that".
 
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