Bet365 upcoming live matches

10.02.2009
21:00 | SOCCER
Guarani v Deportivo Tachira
23:15 | SOCCER
Defensor Sporting v America de Cali
11.02.2009
01:30 | SOCCER
Aurora v Boyaca Chico
06:00 | SOCCER
Korea DPR v Saudi Arabia
10:20 | SOCCER
Japan v Australia
11:00 | SOCCER
Uzbekistan v Bahrain
11:30 | SOCCER
Iran v Korea Republic
18:30 | SOCCER
Malta v Albania
19:15 | SOCCER
Greece v Denmark
20:00 | SOCCER
France v Argentina
20:45 | SOCCER
Portugal v Finland
22:30 | SOCCER
Libertad v Universitario
12.02.2009
00:30 | SOCCER
San Lorenzo v San Luis
01:00 | SOCCER
El Salvador v Trinidad & Tobago
02:30 | SOCCER
Costa Rica v Honduras
21:00 | SOCCER
Nacional De Montevideo v Deportivo San Martin
23:15 | SOCCER
River Plate v Nacional
13.02.2009
01:30 | SOCCER
Universitario de Sucre v Deportivo Quito

Live matches on digitalb 10 February - 13 February

Tuesday, Feb.10 Listings
07:45 pm SS1 Brazil - Italy, Friendly Match

Wednesday, Feb.11 Listings
06:30 pm SS1 Malta - Albania, WC Qualifiers
07:30 pm SS2 Germany - Norway, Friendly Match
08:00 pm SS3 France - Argentina, Friendly Match
09:00 pm SS1 Spain - Engand, Friendly Match

Friday, Feb.13 Listings
07:30 pm SS1 Hoffenheim - Leverkusen

More digitalb problems

Apparently digitalb had transponder difficulties during the Portsmouth vs Liverpool match last night, causing subscribers to lose picture during the climax to the match in a method that made ITV's problems in the week look trivial.

According to posts on the Alsat forum, the issues are out of their control, but any problems never seem to be digitalb's fault.

I was watching on Setanta with no problems, but Digitalb's prices are putting me off next season - much more likely to go with an ART/Al Jazeera combo, which is cheaper and has a wider range of more exotic leagues.

Live Serie A on UKTV shocker!

The Milan derby will be live on BBC on Sunday 15 Feb, 7.30pm kick-off, no doubt due to the presence of Sir Lord Beckham.

Still, let's enjoy a little slice of Serie A while we can.

Sky win four of six Premier League packages from 2010-2013

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7868759.stm

Sky have won 4 packages so far of the next round of bidding rights, with the other packages going to a second round of bids.

Details of prices or which packages have yet to be announced, and won't be until all 6 packages have been awarded, but it is likely Sky have won the rights to the packages they already hold. Sky can win one more package under EU legislation.

There is the possibility that live rights could become even more fragmented with ESPN rumoured to be interested in bidding.

Personally, I don't think Sky will win, or even go for any more packages. One package isn't enough for a PPV package, which by all accounts lost Sky money, and an extra package on the subscription channels doesn't make financial sense, as the outlay will not be recouped in extra subscriptions. Unless of course, Sky try to win another package in an attempt to run Setanta out of business.

All very interesting, especially to see how much has been paid. This could be the first time the cost of rights has not risen significantly since the last round of bidding - the BBC have held highlights rights for the same price as last time (effectively cheaper given inflation), plus MOTD2 will now be on the iplayer the Tuesday after broadcast (presumably so other outlets retain some kind of exclusivity for a period of time).

Catching up

A busy weekend of football just past; Saturday was the fantastic clash between Arsenal and Man United, which is by far the best "Big Four" clash I can remember in recent years, as both teams properly went at each other for 90 minutes as the match ebbed one way and another. In the end, the result was probably fair as Arsenal made the most of their chances, and United squandered most of theirs (both sides were woeful in front of goal for much part), in a match that shows why Chelsea are probably favourites for the league this season as they cruised to a victory over Blackburn on Sunday. If Arsenal were to play with this much fire week in, week out, they'd mount a serious challenge; one feels another Stoke or Hull is only round the corner for them.

Morecambe got through to a home tie in the next round of the FA Cup with a 2-1 win over Grimsby, in a match which they dominated from start to finish despite having plenty of players out injured. The cynic in me says Grimsby were as awful as Morecambe were good, but since our change in formation, we've lost against Port Vale with a last minute goal, drew with Accrington and then won against Aldershot and Grimsby (ignoring a defeat in the JPT), and things look rosier. Keep playing like this and we'll even begin to trouble mid-table, which is preferable to looking over our shoulder and watching the teams with points deductions catch us.

On Sunday, I watched Inter against Udinese whilst trying to not fall asleep. One of those matches that gives Serie A a bad name, but not for boring defensive play, just plain ineptitude as passes were misplaced and shots sailed over the bar. Each were as bad as each other, and Inter bundled on in at the end to steal the points and to stop Mourinho getting a pasting in the papers. Over to Germany for Schalke vs Bayern which started like Arsenal vs Man United, before petering out in the second half as Bayern held on to a 2-1 lead, inspired by Franck Ribery. The Bundesliga appears to be the place for goals this season, with high scoring matches abounding. I still haven't managed to catch Hoffenhiem yet as their matches don't seem to coincide with what gets shown live, but hoping to see them soon.

Coppa Italia live on SportsXchange

SportsXchange (Sky Digital Channel 456), will be showing live coverage of the Coppa Italia starting with the Udinese vs Reggina match on 12 November.

While it'd good to get some Italian football back on UK TV, it's a shame it's a competition played in front of empty stadiums with reserve teams. Still no word on Serie A joining it on any station.

Penalty?

No doubt many will have seen the "challenge" on "Stevie G" in the Liverpool match last night. I'm annoyed about the dive, but I accept that sometimes players cheat and sometimes the ref gets things wrong, that's life.

What I am struggling to accept about last night is the blatant bias of the commentary, who were up in arms about the marginal penalty Liverpool were denied, dismissed out of hand the claims for Atletico, and then called Gerrard's penalty "soft", whereas if it had been given the other way, they would have been apoplectic with rage.

I know it's a pro-English rather than pro-Liverpool thing, but it really winds me up. It doesn't help when ITV summarise the night with:

"Liverpool's famous fighting spirit shone through."

Just for the record, what does Stevie G think? (thanks to Football365 for these quotes)

"There's nothing worse than diving and trying to get other players booked...if a team-mate did it I would definitely have a word" - Steven Gerrard, April 1, Daily Mail.

"It's your own team-mates like Steven Gerrard who don't like you using those tricks" - Fernando Torres, October 11, Daily Mirror.

ART Sport 6 back on hotbird

After the recent return of Art Sport 5 to Hotbird, Art Sport 6 has now returned.

Subscribers to the sports bouquet are now in a better position than before, with access to the Prime Sports Channel, as well as the Showtime Maghreb channel, which broadcasts Premier League matches.

Normal footballwatcher service should resume next week, sorry for the lack of updates.

Champions League

Been watching the Champions League this week. On Tuesday I saw Man Utd’s whitewash of Celtic, which was almost as far removed from the competitive matches of a few seasons as you could get. Celtic have probably gone backwards in the time, while Man Utd have improved, and the result was a colossal mis-match. Celtic packed the midfield to try and stifle United, and while United got the benefit of two offside decisions in their favour for their first two goals, it was domination pretty much from start to finish. The best Celtic can hope for is a UEFA Cup spot, while United and Villareal have all but qualified from this group with three matches to spare.

Last night I watched Liverpool’s trip to Athletico Madrid, which was a fairly dull affair for the first half I watched. Liverpool took the lead against an unadenturous side who offered little. Apparently Athletico improved in the second period, which sounded much more exciting, as is often the way, and they picked up a late equaliser. By that time I’d switched over to Barcelona’s match in Basle, already 3-0 up at half-time, and picked up two goals at the start of the second half. Basle appeared to just sit back and let Barcelona do their stuff. The crowd seemed happy enough given the one sided score, perhaps content to watch a great footballing side up close, so much so that they started to whistle their displeasure in the second half when Barcelona started to play keep-ball in their own half.

Digitalb Premier League Schedule - 23-26 October

CET, deduct 1 hour for UK time

E ENJTE 23 TETOR
Schalke 04 vs Paris SG 18:15 SS1
Galatasary vs Olympiacos 20:15 SS2
Hertha vs Benfica 20:30 SS3
Heerenveen - Milan 20:45 SS1
Partizan vs Sampdoria 21:00 SS4
Aston Villa vs Ajax 21:15 SS5
E PREMTE 24 TETOR
Leverkusen-Koln 20:30 SS1
E SHTUNE 25 TETOR
Everton-Man Utd 13:00 SS1
Sunderland-Newcastle 13:45 SS2
Dinamo-Partizani 14:30 SS3
Bayern-Wolfsburg 15:30 SS1/SSHD1
Hannover 96-Werder 15:30 SS5
Siena vs Catania 18:00 SS2
Blackburn-M'brough 18:30 SS1
Rennes-Le Mans 19:00 SS3
Osasuna-Betis 20:00 SS2
Fluminense x Palmeiras 20:00 SS5
Juventus vs Torino 20:30 SS1/SSHD1
Toulouse-Monaco 21:00 SS3
Barcelona-Almeria 22:00 SS2
Porto - Leixões 22:00 SS4
E DIELE 26 TETOR
Chelsea-Liverpool 14:30 SS1/SSHD1
Besa-Vllaznia 14:30 SS2
Inter vs Genoa 15:00 SS3/SSHD2
Atalanta-Milan 15:00 SS4
Udinese-Roma 15:00 SS5
West Ham-Arsenal 17:00 SS1/SSHD1
Sevilla-Malaga 17:00 SS2
Hoffenheim-Hamburg 17:00 SS3
Nancy-Sochaux 17:00 SS4
Villareal-At Madrid 19:00 SS2
Benfica - Naval 20:00 SS4

Also, Eurosport appear to have won the rights to show Bundesliga in Northern and Eastern Europe, starting from next season, meaning next season Digitalb won't carry this league. Their Saturday afternoons could quickly become sparse if the English League doesn't return!
Palermo vs Fiorentina 20:30 SS1
Marseille-Paris SG 21:00 SS3
Real Madrid-Bilbao 21:00 SS2

Weekend Review - Part 2

Onto the Saturday tea-time fixture, via Morecambe drawing (surprise of surprises) against Rochdale at Christie Park. Again, we started slowly, again we conceded a sloppy goal and then decided we would make a fist of it after half-time.

Back home, to watch Manchester United take on West Brom at Old Trafford. West Brom put plenty in midfield to try and stifle Man Utd, and for a period it worked, although Halsey penalised Rooney for a “push” in the area after he put one in the next after about 25 minutes, then failed to penalise a West Brom defender for a similar light touch in the penalty area. So 0-0 at the break, as it does so often, turned into 4-0 at full time as Rooney managed to top his disallowed goal with an even better opener, before Ronaldo, Berbatov and Nani also got on the score sheet, taking the number of goals scored by the “Big Four” on Saturday to 15. One sided league?

On Sunday, I watched my first Serie A match of the season, as Lazio travelled to newly-promoted to Bologna. I chose this mainly because anytime Serie A is mentioned on the Guardian Podcast, their attractive play this season is always commented upon. However, this time it was Bolgona who impressed with two earlier goals as a result of non-existant marking at set pieces, before a well taken solo goal by the much travelled Marco di Viao made it 3-0 at the break. Lazio got one back in the second half, but never looked like getting anything like a draw. Perhaps it’s just me, but a number of continental sides seem to accept defeat and not try to recover once they go a couple of goals down, to try and conserve energy for matches when they might have a chance. The match finished to the sound of helicopters, perhaps braced for potential trouble from the notorious Lazio fans after the defeat, and the ban placed on them travelling to away matches by their own club.

In fairly unrelated news, it would appear Digitalb endeared themselves further to subscribers by not showing Hull City’s match against West Ham on Sunday afternoon, which had been advertised and on their EPG, preferring to show adverts and then the Milan channel in it’s place. If they do target UK subscriptions (personally I think they don’t), from comments on the Alsat forum, they will be missing quite a few next season.

17-19 October review, part 1

Busy footballing weekend, and as Sally was away on Friday night I took in the Bundesliga match as Mochengladbach travelled to Bochum in a well-fought bottom of the table clash, which ended with honours even after a 2-2 draw. These Friday evening Bundesliga matches often feature teams at the bottom of the table, especially in rounds immediately following the international break such as this, but it was still an enjoyable match even if there were no internationals on show. There wasn’t a lot of quality on show, in a match peppered with bad passes and bad challenges, but it was end to end stuff and noticeable for good refereeing, who had a good grasp of the advantage rule, but was let down by his linesman on several occasions. It being in Germany, there was a great atmosphere through-out, causing me to tut at the lack of cheap prices and terracing in England. Again.

On Saturday, I watched the first half of Middlesbrough at home to Chelsea, but turned off at half-time, with Chelsea one up, as the match had turned into a Chelsea maintaining-position contest. It turns out I may have been a little hasty in my judgement, as Chelsea knocked four in during the second half, as I fiddled with my broadband router in another room. It’s always the way isn’t it?

Northern Ireland vs San Marino, 15 October 2008

Last night, I watched Northern Ireland finally get a win in the new qualifying campaign at home to San Marino. First time for a long time I’ve seen us score four goals in one match, and four different scorers as well. Scintillating stuff! In reality, it could have been more as there were some close calls, a few good saves and a few final balls messed up. But it’s just what was needed to boost confidence and hopefully get our slim chances of qualifying back on track, although Slovakia’s win against Poland wasn’t helpful.

It was another great atmosphere at Windsor Park last night, and what struck me as so different from other matches is the positivity – all the songs and chants are about Northern Ireland, a lot of them are fairly original, and none of them seem to be about booing or running down the other team, which is all very refreshing. Maybe England would like to play their home matches at Windsor Park rather than the soulless Wembley with it’s crowd ready to jump down the players throats after 10 goalless minutes.

A bad day at the office

I posted this on the Morecambe messageboard, after we lost 5-0 at Gillingham yesterday. Can't remember the last time we won - only won 1 in 20, and that one was when we were down in London at a concert. Going to be a long season!

One thing that concerns me about this years team is the complete lack of pace - Rotherham and Gillingham exploited it to great results. It prevents us moving forward quickly, which I think it why we often resort to long ball football. Defensively, it also seems to leave us liable if the other team can quickly counter attack.

The reason for the loss of pace would seem to be Thompson and Baker moving on, both decisions that were out of Sammy's hands. Comparing last seasons squad to this seasons, last season's was stronger, but only for the presence of those two players. In my opinion, comparing the two squads without those players, and I think this season's one is stronger. However, those two players were capable of producing goals or creating chances from nothing, and that's bloody difficult (and expensive) to replace. I think last season, we were profligate in front of goal, but we created more chances. This season, we're still wasting chances, but it's costing us because we're creating less chances overall.

The players we have available who are willing to sign for us are constrained by our budget and location. When we were in the conference, we were one of the biggest teams in the region at that level, and as such, players at that level were willing to sign for us. Now we're in League 2, look at how many other clubs there are in our division locally, some with better resources and facilities, and the amount of players prepared to travel up here will dwindle - bearing in mind that relatively, players at this level are on lower wages, and most likely can't afford to move house when they move clubs. Someone in this thread mentioned Dagenham doing better than us on similar resources, but being in London, they have a far larger pool of talent to be selecting from us. A club of our size, at this level, is looking at signing players other League 2 clubs have let go, or taking chances on players from a lower level. A player faced between playing for Rochdale or us, is more likely to go to Rochdale, if wages are equal. So that leaves the option of offering more money and perhaps attracting more mercanary type players.

Changing the manager won't change the resources or players available. Of course, the tactics are solely down to the manager, but do we really know if he is playing the way he is because of the players he's got, or has he signed the players to play in this way. That's something most of us will never know.

I think we over-performed last season, especially in the first half when we had Lewis and Baker was firing on all cylinders. That raised expectation amongst fans, when I think the current position is a much more realistic one for a club of our size. We seem to be in the same position as Accrington last year, who did OK in their first season, lost some of their best players for their second season and struggled from then on.

ART Sport 5 back on Hotbird

After stealing Art Sport 5 and 6 for the new Maghreb channel to show EPL on the Art Sport cards, Art Sport 5 has today re-appeared on Hotbird - scan 12015H, 27500 and it should come back.

No sign of Art Sport 6 yet though, but hopefully it won't be too far behind.

More world cup qualifiers on Digitalb

Again, CET time, take off one hour for UK:

E SHTUNE ( SAT ) 11 TETOR ( OCT )
Poloni - Çeki ( Poland - Czech Republic ) 17:00 SS1
E MERKURE ( WED ) 15 TETOR ( OCT )
Norvegji-Hollande ( Norway - Netherlands ) 19:00 SS1
Bjellorusi-Angli ( Belarus - England ) 20:30 SS3

Bet365 upcoming live matches

07.10.2008 | 19:45
SOCCER : Vitoria Setubal v Maritimo (Portuguese League)
08.10.2008 | 10:00
SOCCER : Adelaide United v Quruvchi Tashkent (AFC Champions League)
08.10.2008 | 11:00
SOCCER : Gamba Osaka v Urawa Red Diamonds (AFC Champions League)
10.10.2008 | 03:00
SOCCER : Real Salt Lake v NY Red Bulls (MLS)

Live world cup qualifiers on digitalb

All times CET - deduct one hour for UK

E SHTUNE ( SAT ) 11 TETOR ( OCT )
Hungari-Shqiperi ( Hungary-Albania ) 19:00 SS1
Suedi-Portugali ( Sweden-Portugal ) 20:00 SS2
Bullgari-Itali ( Bulgaria-Italy ) 20:15 SS3
Gjermani-Rusi ( Germany-Russia ) 20:45 SS4
Estoni-Spanje ( Estonia-Spain ) 20:45 SS5
E MERKURE ( WED ) 15 TETOR ( OCT )
Rusi-Finlande ( Russia-Finland ) 17:00 SS1
Malte-Hungari ( Malta-Hungary ) 19:30 SS2
Greqi-Zvicer ( Greece-Switzerland ) 20:30 SS3
Belgjike-Spanje ( Belgium-Spain ) 20:45 SS4
Portugali-Shqiperi ( Portugal-Albania ) 21:45 SS1
E ENJTE ( THU ) 16 TETOR ( OCT )
Brazil-Kolumbi ( Brazil-Colombia ) 03:00 SS1
Brazil-Kolumbi (rts) (replay) 20:00 SS1

Gavin Strachan's Blog

Gavin's blog, which can be found here is actually a worthwhile read. While previous blogs on the BBC website have tended to be a dull collection of events by a Premier League footballer, this one is much more interesting, from the view of a journeyman lower league footballer, approaching the end of his professional career.

It's interesting because it's much more personal than a Premier League footballer's blog, maybe because he's actually written it himself, maybe because I just find it more interesting because it's actually possible to relate to him.