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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A case for the round football

Schalke's Felix Platte, left, and Real Madrid's Daniel Carvajal go for the ball during the Champions League round of 16 first leg soccer match between FC Schalke 04 and Real Madrid in Gelsenkirchen, Germany on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Here in America, we are currently in the bleak wasteland known as Football's off-season. The Super Bowl has been played and won. Calls have been debated over and over again to the point of pointlessness and it has finally started to set in even for the most hard-core fans that football is done until late summer at the earliest.

However there is a much more recognized version of football still being played right now, with one of the most important sought-after tournaments entering into it's final phase. I'm of course speaking of the world's game, soccer, and of organized football's biggest club event, the UEFA Champions League.

Used with permission from billsportsmaps.com

 The UEFA Champion's League is an event held every year that hosts the best club teams from around the world who play each other throughout the season in order to find one "true champion" of the club soccer world. This event while playing throughout the season so far and already now entering it's sixth round of competition, is only today starting to heat up however.

Starting yesterday, the 16 remaining teams who have survived the World Cup style round-robin that starts the tournament play each other in a two-leg tournament style format. That means that while there is a normal bracket that the last sixteen teams play through, with teams being seeded based off of their performance through the round-robin stage, every team is guaranteed a home game every round of the tournament. Teams starting this round play a home-and-home two game series with the team that scores the most goals over the two games advancing.

I'm not saying that soccer will all of a sudden fill that oblong shaped hole left in your heart after the Super Bowl was finally over, but if you are willing to try and give international soccer a chance, and want to see what the absolute best players in the world, playing on the best teams in the world look like, then give the UEFA Champions League a try. You might like what you find.

9 comments:

  1. Hey Lemon Drops haha why did you bring up this sissy sport called soccer. Isn't that a girls game. Just kidding soccer is one of my favorite sports to watch (just during the world cup). There are a few kids in my family who have played soccer and gained scholarships. It really is a grueling sport. Soccer athletes although they have a lot of drama and like biting ech other can't "act" as well as our pro basketball players do.

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  2. I'm not a big sports person, and I wouldn't know if you were wrong no matter what you said. So I'm convinced. Good writing!

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  3. I'm a huge Real Madrid fan. I love soccer I'm one of the few in America. I wish it would grow here because it really is an amazing sport.

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  5. CHELSEA!!! I agree with Chase I hope the sport becomes more popular in the States. MLS has signed some interesting players from across the pond. Even though they seem to be a little older they still are elite players. Look at David Beckham, LA Galaxy picked him up from Real Madrid when people thought he was at the end of his career but he still put on a show when he played.

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  6. Any sports that deals with David Beckham, I'm in.

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  7. I wish soccer was more popular in the U.S. It seems like the only time American's pay attention is during the World Cup.

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  8. I wish soccer was more popular in the US as well. In many, many countries, soccer is the number one sport.

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  9. RICK I AM SO PROUD OF YOU! I'll be the first in welcoming you over to the good side:) Soccer around the world is such a passion filled game, I don't see how anyone could watch it and call it boring or anything else like that. I'm already counting down the days until the next World Cup, if you ever need to know what club team to root for, it's Manchester United ;)

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