English Clubs

108 days after Liverpool lifted the Champions League trophy in Madrid, we’re set to do it all over again with a competition that’ll reach its conclusion on May 30 in Istanbul. Matchday one begins tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 17) with a couple massive group stage encounters before carrying through to Wednesday with a couple more. 

Below, we’ll highlight those four games while also breaking down the Champions League TV schedule on TNT. 

Champions League USA TV Schedule 2019-20 (Matchday One)

Tuesday, September 17

It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.

Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.   

Maybe you were distracted by Neymar’s epic return to PSG or a huge early clash in the Bundesliga between RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich. Perhaps you were watching college football or taking a break after a long morning of Premier League.

First, we gotta get this out of the way: Christian Pulisic was an unused sub for Chelsea against Wolverhampton on Saturday. 

But wait!

Before you leave, you gotta read about this insane Tammy Abraham statistic.

Abraham, Chelsea’s No. 9, became the club’s youngest player ever to score a hat trick. At 21 years and 347 days old, he is the youngest Englishman to score a hat trick in the Premier League since Raheem Sterling four years ago. 

In time, the coaching tree that expands out from Pep Guardiola is going to be massive. Some will fail (like if Mikel Arteta had taken the job at Newcastle), but the Spanish tactician’s otherworldly training methods will almost certainly be absorbed and even expanded upon by some future coaching Übermensch that worked under Guardiola for a long period.

Manchester United legend Andy Cole has confirmed Man U fans’ worst fears by saying the team is “genuinely” still a few years away.

While this arguably is a common consensus of fans of every other team, we had to rip the Red Devil Band-Aid off at some point.

NISA (National Independent Soccer Association), the first major soccer league with a promotion/relegation system, kicked off its inaugural season recently, with the opening match between California United and the Oakland Roots ending in a thrilling 3-3 tie.

The evidence for Belgium and Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne being the finest passer of the ball on the planet is mounting. He’s opened his Premier League campaign with an assist in four straight matches — including two against Tottenham — while becoming the quickest player in EPL history to reach the milestone of 50 career dimes; it took him 18 fewer appearances than Mesut Özil.

Today, the Belgian recorded a hat trick of assists against Scotland in Euro 2020 qualifying, and it only took the 28-year-old 32 minutes to accomplish the feat in Glasgow.