The Soccer Thread (Version 15) — I Got 115 Problems But a Pep Ain’t One

Da faq is going on with City? They’ve been in bad shape but losing to United? Good god.

 

United actually played very disciplined and very defensive. Other than a flukish goal off a corner, City didn’t do too much. Of course, United did less and City made two mistakes which they were punished for.

 

Somewhere, Larry Scott is on a mountain shouting, "I TOLD YOU SO!"

The AppleTV deal is a lesson of sorts. There is a limit to how much streaming people will buy and you'd better not be a niche league and find out what life is like on the opposite side of that divide. It's ugly.

It's why smarter leagues - the Big Ten, hell, even IndyCar, wanted their product on network TV, because it still gets the largest amount of eyeballs.

 

What made La Liga huge in the US wasn’t just Messi and Ronaldo/Ray Hudson orgasms, but the fact that beIN was accessible on a bunch of standard cable packages. Same with the EPL on NBC Sports Network/NBC. MLS isn’t nearly those leagues. I have Apple TV+, but there can’t be a crowd for the MLS upcharge.

 

What's also dumb about the MLS deal is that the ESPN deal it had before that gave them very solid exposure.

Most of the matches were on ESPN+. I used to watch the weekly highlight show when it was there. I'd throw on a random match if nothing else was on.

Now? Completely out of sight, out of mind.

 

Consider Spurs. They are second in the Prem in goals scored. They are second in positive goal difference. They sit 10th. They may be the Spursiest Spurs team of all time.

 

Toronto FC was shite this season but there was plenty of bitching from fans who were used to watching their games (particularly on the road) on TSN which only showed a handful this year with the rest jettisoned to Apple.

 

It's kind of bonkers because they're winning in blowouts and losing the close matches. They hung a 5-0 on Southampton yesterday and also beat Everton 4-0, Villa 4-1, West Ham 4-1, MUFC 3-0 and City 4-0. That's six of their seven results.

Six points separate 5 from 13 in the table. I reckon the EPL summoned Pete Rozelle on a Ouija board and are going to (not Ipswich) town.

 

I wish Vermont would commit to the bit and extend the horizontal stripes to the back for the full hoops effect. Still a cool look.

 

A moment after blowing what looked like a golden chance to score with a ball off the inside of the post, Marshall finally scores on a rebound right in front of goal to take a 1-0 lead with 23 minutes to play.

 

Had a brilliant breakaway that looked like it would give them the lead before the Marshall keeper made a fingertip save.