On the Eve of the new Season...

Champions League Draw:

Group A

Liverpool / Porto / Marseille / Besiktas

Group B

Chelsea / Valencia / Schalke / Rosenborg

Group C

Real Madrid / Werder Bremen / Lazio / Olympiakos

Group D

AC Milan / Benfica / Celtic / Shakhtar Donetsk

Group E

Barcelona / Lyon / Stuttgart / Rangers

Group F

Manchester United / Roma / Sporting Lisbon / Dynamo Kiev

Group G

Inter Milan / PSV Eindhoven / CSKA Moscow /
Fenerbahce

Group H

Arsenal / Sevilla or AEK Athens* / Steaua Bucharest / Slavia Prague

Thoughts?

dont have a dog in this fight, but man u's group looks fairly tough. rangers dont have a prayer (not that they ever do) which makes me happy

United are in the group of death, Chelski and scum get it relatively easy yet again. You have to beat the best to win the final anyway, so bring em on early.

Saturday, Sept 1

10am Liverpool v Derby County (Set)
10am Fulham v Tottenham (FSC)
12pm Manchester United v Sunderland (FSC)
2:30pm Reading v West Ham (Set)
4:15pm Middlesbrough v Birmingham City (Set)
4:30pm Newcastle v Wigan (FCS)


Sunday, Sept 2

8:30am Arsenal v Portsmouth (Set)
11am Aston Villa v Chelsea (FSC)

Originally posted by Roadbike Mankie:
United are in the group of death…

How about this schedule for United:

Saturday Sept 15 at Everton
Wednesday Sept 19 at Sporting Lisbon
Sunday Sept 23 Home to Chelsea

That's a brutal week.

when do they go to kiev? in the winter??

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
when do they go to kiev? in the winter??

Late October…could have been worse as Kiev play at Old Trafford in early November.

I see Arseholes signed another frog!

VILLA!!! VILLA!!! VILLA!!! VILLLLLAAAAAA!!!

:D :D :D

Originally posted by Roadbike Mankie:
VILLA!!! VILLA!!! VILLA!!! VILLLLLAAAAAA!!!

:D :D :D

OWEN!!! OWEN!!! OWEN!! OWEN!!!!!


forget it.

HEY SMACKIE

how the hell do i watch england tomorrow :(

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
HEY SMACKIE

how the hell do i watch england tomorrow :(

Sorry. It was Pay-per-view only. You had to order it from DirecTV or go to a bar that will charge you $20 to see the match.

Or you can do what I did, which was download this BBC HDTV torrent:

http://www.isohunt.com/download/25690512/england+israel

Wednesday September 12

12pm Euro: Finland v Poland (PPV)
12:30pm Euro: Slovakia v Wales (FSC)
1pm Euro: Norway v Greece (PPV)
2:30pm Euro: Albania v Holland (FSC)
2:30pm Euro: Czech Republic v Ireland (PPV)
3pm Euro: England v Russia (PPV)
3pm Euro: France v Scotland (Set Live - not a pay-per-view event)

Thursday September 13

ALL REPLAYS:

8:30am Euro: Iceland v Northern Ireland (Set)
10:15am Euro: Turkey v Hungary (Set)
12pm Euro: Slovakia v Wales (Set)
1:45pm Euro: Portugal v Serbia (Set)
3:30pm Euro: Finland v Poland (Set)
5:15pm Euro: Czech Republic v Ireland

If you could kindly refrain from discussing the Czech/Ireland game until late Thursday I would appreciate it as I will be watching the replay and NOT paying for the PPV.

you think at $180 a year, setenta would let me watch ireland and england, but no

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
you think at $180 a year, setenta would let me watch ireland and england, but no

Setanta's offices are here in SF and I had the pleasure of meeting one of their employees at a business mixer. When I asked him about that, he said that Setanta started out as a Premium option for bars and signed a lot of long term deals.

When the option of being a home provider emerged, the bars were upset at paying the fee and spending the money on ads to drive business when many folks would stay home or record the game instead of coming to the bar, so they had to back off the home offerings for the international matches. He expected it to be this way through Euro 2008 and then it will be negotiated again.

Oh, and I turn Setanta off May 15-Aug 15 to save $50. This year I may not as Euro 2008 may be on Setanta.

i'm going to do that too, unless i get sucked into rugby or something. i think euro 2008 is at least partially on espn

although if i start watching rugby on top of steelers, newcastle, penn state, pens and wiz, my wife may divorce me

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
although if i start watching rugby on top of steelers, newcastle, penn state, pens and wiz, my wife may divorce me

Do what I did - send her to medical school!
You wouldn't believe the free time I have to watch all of those sports and play video games…

ESPN did buy the rights to Euro 2008. Now, whether they'll dump it on ESPN Deportes or ESPNU or some other channel no one has, is another question.

Originally posted by You go, Judge Alito:
ESPN Deportes

That could only be used for Spanish speaking rights, but you are correct and somehow I missed it. Now if they'd only do it in HD:

ESPN acquires U.S. video rights to UEFA Euro 2008

December 8, 2006

European soccer governing body UEFA has announced that ESPN, Inc. has acquired exclusive video rights in the U.S., in English and Spanish, to UEFA Euro 2008, the European soccer championship.

All 31 matches of UEFA Euro 2008 will air in the U.S. in English, with 2 matches to be broadcast over-the air on ABC and the other 29 matches to air on either ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPN Classic.

ESPN Deportes will air all 31 matches in the U.S. in Spanish.

ESPN outbid the incumbent, Setanta Sports North America, for the video rights in the U.S. Setanta had presented UEFA Euro 2000 and 2004 in the U.S. mostly on pay-per-view with a handful of matches sublicensed to Univision (in 2000) and FOX Sports World (in 2004) for live or same-day delay broadcast.

UEFA also announced that ESPN Latin America will have the pay video rights to all 31 matches of UEFA Euro 2008 throughout Latin America.

UEFA has awarded the video rights to UEFA Euro 2008 in the Indian Subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, Bhutan, and Nepal) to Singapore-based ESPN STAR Sports (ESS), which is managed by NewsCorp's STAR Television under a joint venture agreement with Disney/ESPN. ESS will sublicense a required number of matches to terrestrial broadcasters in the region, which has a population of 1.3 billion.

In the Middle East and Northern Africa, UEFA has awarded the video rights to UEFA Euro 2008 to Arabic-language broadcaster Al Jazeera.

In Hong Kong, UEFA has award the video rights to PCCW (formerly Pacific Century Cyberworks), which operates the NOW Broadband TV service using Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) technology. PCCW had recently outbid incumbent i-Cable for the video rights to the English Premier League (EPL).

In all other countries and territories outside Europe, UEFA has chosen Germany-based sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE to handle the sale of media rights.