☕️🌤️⚽️ Good morning everyone! If you’re a French fan, the last player you want to see when your team is heading to a Penalty Shootout, is Dibu Martinez. The Argentinian hero who lead the nation to their third World Cup against France, found himself breaking the hearts of French fans again as Aston Villa knocked out Lille in the Europa Conference League. We also learned something new: Yellow cards showed in the game do not carry over into Penalty Shootout. (Martinez was shown a second yellow during the shootout, but was not sent off because of this rule). Who would’ve thought?

Giveaway: Wake up and smell the coffee. Our giveaway will be a $30 gift card for our favorite coffee brand- Kickoff Coffee. As always, each friend that you refer to subscribe to the newsletter is an entry to our raffle. Best of luck!

European Nights
European tournaments, as they happened

🥊🥊⚽ The knockout stages. Better appreciate them while they are here, because these are the European nights we will miss once the season is over. Let’s catch you up on the key takeaways.

Champions League:

• 67% possession and 33 shots were not enough to send City through. Real Madrid did what they do best, and go through to the Semifinals after a dramatic Penalty Shootout. Highlights here.

• A 63rd minute goal by Bayern’s Kimmich was all they needed to knock out Arsenal setting up another electric Semifinal matchup vs Real Madrid. Highlights here.

Europa League and Conference League

• Liverpool are left stunned by Italian side Atalanta, losing 3-1 on aggreagate. Not a great week for Klopps squad

• Pulisic and Milan crash out of Europa after falling to a 10 man Roma

• Emiliano Martinez, or “Dibu”, breaks the heart of the French again in another outstanding performance in a Penalty Shootout. He’s simply made for this. See highlights here
  

Friday’s ICYMI

UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final

UEFA Europa League Quarter-Final

UEFA Europa Conference League Quarter-Final

AFC Champions League Semi-Final

English WSL

Brazil Serie A

Off the Pitch
The Voice behind the sport

🎙️🎧️All they need is one mic, one pitch, to deliver the script to moments forever etched in our hearts. As they sit in their box, arguably best seats in the stadium, football commentators see and capture it all. Their ability to read the match and put viewers/listeners in the moment. Understanding the sport and knowing what certain moves made by teams mean. Not to mention, having a rich vocabulary. Commentators have to be clear in what they are saying, not get caught up in the jargon or presume too much knowledge from the audience. Instead, they guide the viewer through each step of the match.

🐐👀 Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Legendary football commentator Clive Tyldesley has given us an insight into the vast preparation that is undertaken ahead of a match. Commentators don’t just simply turn up and talk for 90 minutes, they have to do in depth research into everything in order to give the viewers the best possible broadcast experience when watching a match. Tyldesley has been covering football since 1998, voicing some of the best moments in football history including the 2005 Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan, as well as Manchester United’s 1999 final against Bayern Munich. Tyldesley complies a commentary chart that he accesses during the course of the match that includes:

• Teams’ season grind that includes their fixtures, along with statistics, results and goals scored for/against

• Teams’ prior match ups, historic features and run-ins with referees

• Review teams’ previous tapes for patterns and traits

• information on the players, their appearances, types of goals, assists, and yellows/red cards, international appearances and contributions therein, tailored notes for each player

🗣️🔈️The man the myth, the legend, meet Ray Hudson, the magisterial football commentator who covers UEFA Champions League for CBSSports. Hudson is known for his renowned, emotional, and larger-than-life narratives. Hudson was with GolTV until 2012, when the upstart Qatari-funded beIN Sports obtained the rights to La Liga and hired Hudson to lead its coverage. In his more than 15 years with the two networks, Hudson emerged as the defining voice for a generation of American soccer fans, providing the soundtrack to a halcyon era in Spain’s top division headlined by Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Hudson himself, has his own favorite Ray Hudson moments.

• There was Lionel Messi’s 92nd-minute winner against Real Madrid in 2017, which prompted a piercing shriek out of Hudson before he offered up this instant-classic: “Messi, you could drop a tarantula into his shorts and he’ll still be cool”

• There was Ronaldinho’s sensational overhead kick against Villarreal in 2006, which Hudson described as “electrifying as a hair dryer thrown into a hot tub”.

Hudson left beIN last year after the network lost the rights to La Liga to ESPN. In September, CBS announced that it hired Hudson as lead color commentator for its broadcasts of Champions League in the US, marking the first time he’s provided match commentary for Europe’s signature club competition. Two months in, Hudson has already produced some vintage calls. After Bayern Munich’s Leroy Sané sliced through the middle of Barcelona’s defense for a dazzling run and goal in a match last month, Hudson exclaimed that the German winger was “attached to the ball like a teenager to a cell phone”.

Matches to Catch

English FA Cup Semi-Final

English Premier League

LaLiga

Bundesliga

Argentinian Copa de La Liga Profesional Quarter-final

Uber Eats Ligue 1

US NWSL

US MLS

Quick Bites 🍕

Liverpool Crash out of Europa

Schweinsteiger sheds some light on United rift

So, who takes it all?

A Rebuild Is Coming

Banter of the Day

Football, by the fans for the fans

In search of a pub? Ever find yourself in a new city and are desperately searching for a local soccer pub? Who would have thought that the premier league took time out of their day to create a bar finder. There really is nothing better than catching an early premier league game on the weekends with fellow fans of the game, and finding that bar that will actually have the game sound on just got that much easier.

USA Bar Finder. Bar finder, aka Intern Jose’s nickname in college. Easy to use search platform on the premier leagues website. It has most major cities included, and they’re even accepting updates to their list if you email them at [email protected]

Find your local soccer pub here.