ESPN Acquires Euro 2012 Rights

GO GO ESPN!

Never thought I’d write that caption up, to be honest. ESPN will be your home for Euro 2012 in Ukraine/Poland after they acquired the rights to the prestigious European international tournament along with Euro 2016 in France.

ESPN has acquired U.S. broadcast rights to soccer’s European Championship in 2012 and 2016 and will televise every game of both tournaments.

The Union of European Football Associations planned to make the announcement Tuesday.

ESPN purchased U.S. broadcast and Internet rights in all languages. The network televised the 2008 Euros and has U.S. English-language rights to its sixth consecutive World Cup in 2014.

Plans include broadcasting Euro matches on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3.com, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Radio and ESPN Mobile.

 

ESPN did a splendid job covering the 2010 World Cup after that monstrosity in 2006, and the biggest improvement was their commentators. Ian Darke and Martin Tyler led the charge with Derek Rae and Adrian Healey also chipping in good bits for lesser games in South Africa. Darke is probably going to cover this tournament next year but it’ll be interesting to see who will do the final if they do bring Martin Tyler back.

If there’s anything I can request, DO NOT BRING STEVE MCMANAMAN TO ANY OF THE MATCHES!!! Macca offers no substance at all and cuts off Darke way too often on the Premier League broadcasts.

I’m certain there will be an official PR for this tomorrow, but thank goodness ESPN has it. Could you imagine FOX on this? Their other sports coverage sucks enough already, they could ruin this with practically no effort.

Italy/Serbia Abandoned Due to Fan Violence

Serbia might drop 3 points in Euro 2012 qualifying because once again their fans are a tad rowdy. Today in Genoa a Serbian fan dressed up in a burglar’s mask began cutting the security netting down. The madness did not end there, as the match was officially abandoned once the Serbian contingent threw flares onto the pitch as well as fireworks. Some of the footage is in this video, which has no sound so don’t turn your speakers up.

After 7 minutes of football the referee decided for everyone’s safety it was unsafe to play the game and he called it off. This was all apparently part of a premeditated protest due to their poor start to their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign.

Italy may now be awarded a 3-0 victory by default.

“The referee felt that the players’ security couldn’t be assured. Now it’s up to UEFA and their disciplinary procedures,” Italian football federation general secretary Antonello Valentini said.

UEFA spokesman Rob Faulkner told The Associated Press in a text message that when a match is abandoned for safety reasons the normal procedure is to use the referee and match delegate’s report to open a case before its control and disciplinary panel.

In 2007, the control and disciplinary awarded Sweden a 3-0 default win over Denmark in a similar case.

Tomislav Karadzic, the president of the Serbia football federation, said the protest was likely organized back in Belgrade.

“It’s an attack on the state and the state has to resolve this problem,” he was quoted as saying by Serbian media.

Italy security director Roberto Massucci was upset that the Serbian police didn’t warn of the danger from their fans.

That just seems to be taking it a bit too far, but nonetheless the damage has been done and UEFA should give Italy their 3-0 default win. The teams are responsible for fan behavior and when they resort to acting like savages the team should be punished. A famous case of fan violence occurred hours before the 1985 European Cup Final, when Liverpool fans charged towards Juventus supporters at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, causing the stands to collapse, killing 39 people. The majority of the victims were Italian (32 to be exact) and UEFA banned English clubs from ALL forms of club competition for 5 years.

I’m of the opinion that fan violence and hooliganism, especially when causing harm to the stadium or others in the stadium, is unacceptable and these types of measures should take place. In all likelihood the Serbs will be playing their qualifying matches behind closed doors and their fans will be banned from attending matches for the remainder of this qualifying process.

It is highly unfortunate that a potentially good game between two nations coming off disappointing World Cups was abandoned due to frustration and anger from disgruntled Serbian supporters spilling over to the point of mass rioting.

UEFA Champions League Group Stage Draw

Group A

Inter Milan (Italy)
Werder Bremen (Germany)
Tottenham (England)
FC Twente (Switzerland)

Group B

Lyon (France)
Benfica (Portugal)
FC Schalke (Germany)
Hapoel Tel-Aviv (Israel)

Group C

Manchester United (England)
Valencia (Portugal)
Rangers (Scotland)
Bursaspor (Turkey)

Group D

FC Barcelona (Spain)
Panathinaikos (Greece)
FC Copenhagen (Denmark)
Rubin Kazan (Russia)

Group E

AS Roma (Italy)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
FC Basel (Switzerland)
CFR Cluj (Romania)

Group F

Chelsea (England)
Marseille (France)
Spartak Moscow (Russia)
MSK Zilina (Slovakia)

Group G

AC Milan (Italy)
Real Madrid (Spain)
Ajax (Netherlands)
Auxerre (France)

Group H

Arsenal (England)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
SC Braga (Portugal)
FK Partisan (Serbia)

Very difficult group for Tottenham in their Champions League debut. I can see them finishing 2nd however ahead of Twente and Werder Bremen. Manchester United got a favorable draw and hopefully the knockout round will be in our sights. My favorite group to watch will be Group G, with AC Milan, Real Madrid, and Ajax all in the same group and it will surely produce many fireworks.

The group stage begins September 14th and will conclude in December. There is no better club competition on earth than the UEFA CL and I look forward to another season of electric atmospheres, butchered Fox Soccer Channel coverage, and a Manchester United victory at Wembley Stadium in May 2011.

Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich Live Blog

It’s been a busy day in football already. Toronto FC is having an early game against the New England Revolution and Blackpool are promoted to the Barclays Premier League for the first time ever after beating Cardiff 3-2 in the Championship Playoff Final.

The day is upon us. Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League Final live on FOX from Madrid. I will avoid the pre-game show at all costs so check back after the jump in about 15 minutes time.

UEFA Champions League Final Preview

The UEFA Champions League Final will be held on a Saturday evening for the first time in its history, and for the first time since 2004 there will be no British team involved. It’s Inter Milan (Italy) vs. Bayern Munich (Germany) at the Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain for the right to be crowned champions of Europe.

FOX Unveils UEFA Champions League Studio Team

Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich – May 22nd in Madrid, Spain. Mark your calendars for that one because it’s a very special day. For the first time ever, the UEFA Champions League Final will be aired live on network TV. Fox Sports has the rights, and for the last few weeks on FSN and the Fox Soccer Channel they have used the Sky Sports commentary teams to complement the studio hosts of Eric Wynalda, Bobby McMahon, and Warren Barton.

For the final, and the final only, Fox has put up possibly the worst trio of hosts to ever come up on a soccer broadcast. Brace yourselves, because they’ve kept Wynalda, added Bruce Arena, and Curt Menefee!

This season’s UEFA Champions League Final is being held on a Saturday for the first time in its history, with a 2:30 PM ET FOX on-air time. The event is FOX Sports’ first-ever soccer broadcast and joins a select few major international soccer championships ever to receive broadcast television exposure in the U.S.

The internationally-respected announcing duo of Martin Tyler (play-by-play) and Andy Gray (expert analyst) call the action from Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. In addition to their work on UEFA Champions League telecasts, Tyler and Gray team for Sky Sports’ coverage of the Barclays Premier League in the United Kingdom.

Curt Menefee, a long-time aficionado of international soccer who since 2006 has co-hosted FOX NFL SUNDAY, anchors the network’s coverage from Madrid beginning with a live 15-minute pregame show.

He is joined by analysts Bruce Arena – head coach of Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy and former head coach of the United States Men’s National Team – and Eric Wynalda, a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame and the second-leading goal scorer in U.S. history.

Wynalda retired in 2001 following a lengthy professional career that included time with clubs in Germany, Mexico and the U.S., and currently works as a commentator on several Fox Soccer Channel programs. The trio also provides halftime and postgame coverage.

Menefee, Arena and Wynalda set the stage for a battle between two iconic European clubs who have combined to win 38 titles in their respective domestic leagues.

Wow. This is unprecedented levels of bad. Menefee according to that press release is a soccer aficionado, but I’ll take that with a grain of salt. Wynalda is terrible and Bruce Arena is a horrific public speaker. He’s been used as a studio pundit and TV analyst before and he was a train wreck. Why pick three American guys for Europe’s biggest competition? What was wrong with Bobby McMahon and the (admittedly dull) Warren Barton that they couldn’t just use them for the final as well? Fox better not think that using “familiar” guys is the way to attract the casual viewer to this game, because they didn’t exactly pick the three greatest guys in the world.

I’ll give Menefee the benefit of the doubt for now because he did do NFL Europe commentary so hopefully he picked up soccer knowledge with all of his time spent in England, Germany, and The Netherlands.

All that’s missing is Terry Bradshaw rambling through the highlights and butchering names and scores.

This could be a painful broadcast to watch. Luckily Martin Tyler and Andy Gray will save the day.