There’s a lot of confusion right now as to who’s carrying what and where you can watch tomorrow’s Arsenal match over here in The States. I know previously I have been both railed upon and hailed for my position on ESPN carrying games in America and no doubt this current confusion will only add to the haters. But, if momentary confusion is the price to pay for getting to watch the EPL in high definition, then I’ll gladly pay that price. As Benjamin Franklin once famously said “Those who would give up their high definition for a little temporary understanding deserve neither understanding nor high definition football.”
The kind folk(s?) at Soccer TV Listings have managed to do what I failed to do last week; pull together a single listing for all the football broadcasts in the U.S. Sadly, they are listing the Arsenal match as tape delay and in Low Def on Fox Soccer Channel.
That said, this is where it gets confusing. If you go to msn.foxsports.com and check out your local listings you might find something that looks like this:
See that “FSN 37” and “FSN 537?” Those are my local Fox Sports Network channels. Normally they play things like Seattle Supersonics games and since the Sonics have left, all we have left to show on that channel is the Little League World Series from two years ago, Competitive Dominoes, Eric’s Little Heroes All 26 Episodes, and The World Series of Watching Paint Dry.
But it looks like, maybe, JUST MAYBE, they’ll be showing some “soccer” tomorrow. I’m being cautious here because I’ve been down this road before with live television broadcasts of football matches here in the U.S. There was an FA Cup match a few years ago that was supposed to be on Setanta, well I was at home and going through the listings, and lo and behold it was on pay-per-view. Well, rather than go to the bar, I thought, eh fuck it, and ordered the match. When the screen was still black 30 minutes into kickoff I knew something was seriously wrong. It turned out that the local TV company had listed a pay-per-view that they didn’t have rights to list.
See, this isn’t a football (American football) game so the TV Guides have a loose editorial policy toward these things and they sometimes list games that they don’t have the rights to actually play. Now, I know that these are both Fox channels, and I know that Fox DOES have the rights to play these matches which is what’s giving me hope that this listing is true. But if it is true, then why is it that when I go to the Fox Soccer web site, they don’t tell me to check my regional Fox Sports station for the Celtic v. Arsenal match live and in high definition?
You’d think that someone might want to advertise the fact that they are carrying a huge Champions League clash live and in high def. It is, after all the only Champions League clash that anyone outside of Sheriffville or Greece gives two fucks about.
That’s why I’m being cautious and saying that in all likelihood the game is going to be shown exclusively on Fox Soccer Channel at 3pm on tape delay. Because the brainchildren at Fox Soccer Channel decided that there was a more important Champions League match that day; FC Sheriff v. Olympiacos. And if they can’t get that right, well then no doubt they’ve screwed this listing up as well.
Cautiously op(tim)istic, that will be on my gravestone.
There isn’t any Arsenal news this morning and that’s just fine. After Saturday’s festivities a nice quiet day of rest, or two, is exactly what’s needed. Nope, I’m not going to write about it if there’s a story or two about some quotes from some former Arsenal player who polished a turd on Saturday and then went bleating on about how Arsenal supporters didn’t support him, blah blah blah. You’ll have to suffer with the foreknowledge that the Champions League and Premier League’s most offsides man will eventually get an earful from the Moneybags City “faithful” when they see that his price is too high.
Me, I’m going to take advice from Fabregas who said “We are a team, and you either want to be part of it or not. If you don’t, it is best you go.” That lad seems to know what he’s talking about.
As for the transfer news, or lack thereof, there’s still some rumblings about Lescott joining Adebayor in the treasure bath at Man City. I’ve said it before, I think Lescott is a linchpin to a transfer merry-go-round involving Arsenal and Senderos and someone Arsene has his eye on as Senderos’ replacement. It looks like Everton are lining up Steven Taylor from Newcastle as Lescott’s direct replacement and then would want Senderos as cover. Who Arsenal are eyeballing is anyone’s guess, though I am almost absolutely certain that it will not be some Indian fellow as reported on Goal dot com.
Oh hey, one last thing: remember when I told you that if Tony Cascarino says something that Arsenal should do just the opposite, and Arsenal supporters should think just the opposite? Well in today’s column he’s decided to stick to his Guns (har har) and is still claiming that Arsenal will be, how do the Brits say it, bare shit (?). His logic is that Arsenal play well on nice days but can’t compete when it’s raining, in February. The problem with that logic is that it was February when Arsenal played Sunderland to a 0-0 draw at home and that was a magnificent day, I have the pictures to prove it!
Moreover, it was from December until March that Arsenal went on their unbeaten streak and despite the one week of fine weather that I suffered during my stint in London, the weather was hardly conducive to Arsenal’s supposed fair-weather dandies.
Like I’ve said before, Tony Cascarino is one of the least bright footballing minds and if you ever get advice from him, do the exact opposite.
UPDATE
My local Fox Sports Channel is now listing it on my DVR as “LIVE: Celtic v. Arsenal” and others are confirming that the talking heads on Super Sunday Pus (who incidentally I turned off after the third minute when they started talking about how only teams that spend huge have a chance to challenge for the league, in spite of the fact that the most dominant team on Saturday was the team who spent the least)
uhhh… where was I… oh yeah Super Sunday Pus… those guys were promoting tomorrow’s match on your local Fox Affiliate. Fingers and toes crossed now!
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