New season TV/streaming

Right, so this one is about the 2020/21 season and TV presence in the US. As it is, French, Portuguese and Spanish football are not legally available here in the states. Well, I’m not sure what’s going on with BEIN sport (holds La Liga and Ligue 1), but it’s not on regular TV, unless something drastically changed in the past 1-2 years. ESPN+ has a pretty decent streaming service, and they’ve taken the Bundesliga off Fox, who were half-assing it last season. For me, the problem with this is they also have Serie A, and limited games from the Championship and Eredivisie. MLS is there, too, but the game times usually don’t overlap. There is an on-demand option, which is clutch, but I find it difficult to balance so many games on the computer, as well as trying to watch the occasional game via other means. The only league televised (properly) at the point is the Premier League, as ESPN will put one random game on per weekend. Even that has changed to a subscription service-based thing. At one point, as the fan base over here was being established, all games were free to watch, whether on TV or the NBC sports app. Starting one or two seasons ago, that disappeared and was replaced by a full-fledged paid app, which was the end of me watching those games. Now, mind you, like Fox did with the Bundesliga, NBC is smart enough to put the most popular clubs on TV. This is something I’ve never gotten with ESPN. They never focused on Juve, Roma and the Milan clubs, when those are by far the most popular over here. Hell, you have an all-time great playing for Juve and they’re rarely on TV.

Now that I’ve addressed the TV situation, I want to outline a few clubs I’ll be watching. These will be from the legally available leagues. I try to watch a decent amount of MLS, mainly because that’s where I’m based and I want to see who’s up and coming. With the Championship, whenever they show games, I’ll try to follow the relegated teams from last season’s PL, Brentford and Derby. Maybe Preston, Stoke, and Swansea, as well. That’s a third of the league. I enjoy Dutch football, so I try and catch as much Ajax and AZ as possible. Feyenoord and PSV, too. What prompted me to write this was the idea of having access to all of the Bundesliga and Serie A games, and I’d be better off having a general idea of who I’ll be keeping an eye on.

The main ones in Serie A are obvious; I’m not incredibly excited for Inter or Lazio, as the former is boring to watch and I see Lazio struggling with more games this season. I’ll keep an eye out, but those aren’t “much watch”. Juve definitely is, as I want to see the new guys (Arthur, Kulusevski, McKennie) and get an idea of what Pirlo is about as a coach. Atalanta are also due for a drop off, and I might write some more about them, but every team has a cycle of success and eventually that ends. Still should be fun to watch, though. Outside the Champions League clubs, I’m excited to see the Milan project continue with squad additions like Brahim Diaz and Tonali, assuming both get over the line. Napoli brought in Osimhen, who I’m hyped to see, and I like what Gattuso is doing there. Roma is under new ownership, and while I don’t think it’ll change much short term, I generally think Fonseca is doing alright and they have some promising talents, mainly Zaniolo. Sassuolo finished right outside the European places, and de Zerbi is one of my favorites. Boga staying would be huge for them, as he’s a unique attacker in that league. The other two projects I’m mainly interested in are Bologna and Fiorentina. I’m not sure on Mihajlovic as the guy to lead that team to anything meaningful, and much less keen on Iachini as a coach, period, but they’re stacked with talent. Chiesa, Orsolini, Milenkovic, Dominguez, Amrabat, Tomiyasu, Barrow, Svanberg, Castrovilli, Kouame, Vignato; all names that spring to mind. I’m sure I’m forgetting some others. Other than that, I have players I like, such as Kumbulla (if he stays at Verona), Nandez, and Belotti.

In the Bundesliga, a number of talents have left, at least two to Chelsea, and Bayern are legitimately good, as was evident in their sixth European Cup triumph. The top four are obvious. I’ll obviously follow my US internationals (Adams and Reyna), as well as pretty much the entire Bayern team, Sancho, Thuram, Neuhaus, Laimer, Upamecano, Konate, and Olmo. Leverkusen has always been a headcase of a club, managing to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory since the turn of the century. They’ve still got guys, though, mainly Palacios and Tapsoba, for me. I like the look of Diaby, from the wingers, though Bailey and Paulinho certainly have the ability. It’s a matter of unlocking the consistency for so many on that team. I “discovered” Florian Wirtz on FM before he made his debut, so that was fun. Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg, two peas in a pod in terms of being “plastic” by German standards, round out the European spots. Neither club is particularly interesting these days, though I like Baumgartner and some other Austrians, including Schlager, Grillitsch and Posch. Brekalo and Maxi Arnold are a couple other names, though I’m not as high on them as I should be, given their talent. Dropping down the table, I have no idea what to expect from the promoted teams, so I’ll leave those out. Frankfurt had that amazing run with Haller, Jovic, and Rebic, which no one has really recovered from. A few guys currently there of interest are N’Dicka, who’s just 21, as well as Daichi Kamada, Djibril Sow, and Andre Silva (loaned from Milan). The team is quite inconsistent, though. Schalke still have talents such as Harit, Serdar and Kabak, though that club is a complete joke. Cologne is probably my “favorite” of the German clubs, and they’ve got a number of interesting young players. I’ll mention Bornauw, Jakobs, Katterbach and Thielmann from this group. The rest aren’t particularly exciting, just excited to be in the league each season. Mainz have some guys that could play for better clubs, as do Bremen. Both were close to going down last season, when they really shouldn’t be, considering the dearth of ability in the bottom half. Hertha is the last one I want to mention. They have the potential to do damage, at least with the talent in the squad, but they could also finish 10th again. The end of the season featured a red hot run of form, followed by a slight tail off that saw them fall well short of Europe. With investment, they actually haven't done much business this window, though it's not over yet. Tousart comes in from Lyon, and I won't lie, this one's puzzling. Arne Maier and Ascasibar both play in that position, and Lyon played much better once Caqueret replaced Tousart in the starting XI. There are a number of Dutch guys in the squad, such as Rekik at CB, who's been there a while, the new arrival Zeefuik (a right back), as well as forwards Dilrosun and Redan, who are at the point of needing to make an impact or get shipped out. It's just a team that lacks leadership and consistency, from what I've seen, and that small sample size under Labbadia isn't sufficient evidence for me to properly rate the team.

Those are my thoughts on the leagues available on ESPN+ for the coming season.