main

Schedule

Our Sweet 16 Starts Today…UEFA Champions League Knockout Phase

February 15, 2011 — by Suman

Round of 16 - Feb 15/16 & 22/23; March 8-9 & 15/16

Yet another advantage of being a soccer fan–our March Madness arrives a month early. The knockout phase of the Champions League starts today, with a sweet collection of 16 teams remaining. If you were one of the fans that was caught up by the World Cup last summer, but haven’t watched a game since Spain-Netherlands, now is the time to tune back in.

See below where and when to tune in. US-based fans, set your DVRs accordingly–or make plans to duck out of whatever responsibilities you may have in the afternoons (all matches kickoff at 20:45 CET = 2:45pmET/11:45amPT).

For tomorrow’s two games, see here for a preview of Milan-Tottenham by our resident Spurs fan, and here for a preview of Valencia-Schalke by Sean (who honestly didn’t know much about either side until researching this piece).

(A rather detailed aside on the structure of the tournament: there are four games this week, two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday, featuring 8 of the 16 teams that advanced from the group stage; and four more games next week (again two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday) featuring the other 8 teams.  Together these 8 matches constitute the first leg of the Round of 16.  Each round of the tournament from here until the championship game (Saturday May 28 at Wembley) consists of home-and-away legs.  So we’ll see these same 8 matchups again in a few weeks time (on March 8-9 and 15-16) for the return leg.  For instance, Tottenham Hotspur play AC Milan tomorrow in Milan; in three weeks AC Milan will travel to London to play Spurs at White Hart Lane.  Which team advances to is determined by aggregate goals, with away goals as the tiebreaker.)

Here are details regarding this week’s four fixtures (pulled from UEFA.com–click thru for club/match pages), followed by next week’s four fixtures, and for good measure the eight fixtures of the 2nd leg of the Round of 16 following that:

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Milan AC Milan 20:45 Tottenham Hotspur FC Tottenham FSC, Fox Deportes
Referee: Stéphane Lannoy (FRA) – Stadium: Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, Milan (ITA)
Valencia Valencia CF 20:45 FC Schalke 04 Schalke MSG Plus, FoxSoccer.tv, Fox Sports Network
Referee: Aleksei Nikolaev (RUS) – Stadium: Estadi de Mestalla, Valencia (ESP)

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Roma AS Roma 20:45 FC Shakhtar Donetsk Shakhtar Donetsk Fox Soccer Plus, FoxSoccer.tv
Referee: TBD – Stadium: Stadio Olimpico, Rome (ITA)
Arsenal Arsenal FC 20:45 FC Barcelona Barcelona FSC, Fox Deportes
Referee: TBD – Stadium: Arsenal Stadium, London (ENG)
The four matches next week which complete the first leg of the Round of 16:

NewsSchedule

Yet More Champions League Fixtures! Matchday 4.2

November 3, 2010 — by Suman

With yesterday's first eight games of this Matchday completed (Matchday 4.1, if you will)--highlighted by Spurs demolishing defending champion FC Internazionale Milano by a score of 3-1 (which in turn was highlighted by young Welshman Gareth Bale "terrorizing" Inter with his streaks down the left side of the pitch)--we move on to Matchday 4.2. Eight more matches later today! We'll be gathering at CultFootball headquarters to watch Real Madrid playing Associazione Calcio Milan in the San Siro (though I'll also be lobbying for live look-ins on Arsenal playing FC Шахтар Донецьк in the fancy new Донбас Арена--which will host a number of Euro 2012 games, including it seems one quarterfinal match and one semifinal match).

Schedule

Champions League Matchday 4 Underway! Get Your Fixtures Fix Here

November 2, 2010 — by Suman — 2

Matchday 4 - Tues Nov 2 & Wed Nov 3

UEFA Champions League Matchday 4 has already started, with Panathinaikos v Rubin Kazan already underway in distant Kazan (Russia), then 7 more matches later today, and 8 more tomorrow.  With the first 3 Matchdays completed (on September 14-15, September 28-29, and October 19-20, respectively), we’re now at the halfway point of the Group Stage, i.e., halfway thru the home-and-away round robin schedule within each of the 8 groups, with every team having already played the 3 other teams within its group over the course of those first 3 Matchdays. Now they turn around and play each other again, but at the other location. (For example, Barcelona hosted Panathinaikos on Matchday 1, played at Rubin Kazan on Matchday 2, and hosted København on Matchday 3. For Matchdays 4, 5, and 6, they play at København, play at Panathinaikos, and host Rubin Kazan.)

Without further combinatorial ado, here are the fixtures for today and tomorrow, pulled directly from UEFA.com (luckily copying-&-pasting is a link-preserving operation, so you can click thru below to UEFA’s group, team and match pages!  Very handy for checking group standings; lineups once matches are underway, and results once they’re finished.)

NewsSchedule

UEFA Europa League – Matchday 2 Fixtures

September 30, 2010 — by Suman

Balon d'Europa

As we admitted a couple weeks ago (here), we don’t understand the how or why of the Europa League. And after 16 Champions League games over the past two days, we’re not particularly jonesing to watch more pan-European club matches today. But if you are, there are 24 games today (48 teams in the league, recall).

The ones we would watch, if we were forced to sit down and do so, are the following (pulled from UEFA’s Europa League page, “all times are CET“–you do the math for your timezone)

Dortmund 19:00 Sevilla Sevilla FC More »
Referee: Mike Dean (ENG)
Stadium: BVB Stadion Dortmund, Dortmund (GER)
Utrecht 19:00 Liverpool Liverpool FC More »
Referee: Duarte Gomes (POR)
Stadium: Stadion Galgenwaard, Utrecht (NED)
Atlético 21:05 Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen More »
Referee: Paolo Tagliavento (ITA)
Stadium: Estadio Vicente Calderón, Madrid (ESP)
Man. City 21:05 Juventus Juventus More »
Referee: Eduardo Iturralde González (ESP)
Stadium: City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester (ENG)