It’s been a big week. Driven, first and foremost, by the fact that somehow, my daughter turns 3 years old on Sunday, today was her last official day of daycare and she starts real school next week. “I was a product of the New York City Public School System,” she’ll say at various points in her life when she runs for office or doubts herself. (even if she only makes it one day this week in said public school system. Check the box.
The cliches will tell you that the hours are long and the years are short. I completely thought that was bunk until just about this morning. On our last walk to daycare. I don’t know where the days went, even though each and every one of them worked me over like I owed them money.
It’s hard to believe this Substack has been around for 3 whole years and 15 weekly updates (math is rough. Did not check notes.)
As I said a couple of weeks ago, I need to write this for myself to give myself a reason to keep up. Then, last week, I said, I had to sort of pretend the matches weren’t going on as we had a Parent - Teacher thing in the park.
That gets us to this weekend. Cause tomorrow, we fly to Tampa to do-over last year’s birthday festivities. You might recall those got postponed due to a hurricane and then cancelled due to my daughter throwing up 10 (TEN!) times the morning we were leaving.
So now we’re doing it over again. With a birthday party that starts noon on Sunday. Checks notes … good thing there’s nothing else going on in the world at that time …
Saturday, August 31
7:30 AM
Arsenal - Brighton (USA, Universo)
10:00 AM
Brentford - Southampton
Everton - Bournemouth (USA, Universo)
Ipswich - Fulham
Leicester - Aston Villa
Nottingham Forest - Wolves
12:30 PM
West Ham - Man City (NBC, Peacock, Universo)
Sunday, September 1
8:30 AM
Chelsea - Crystal Palace
Newcastle - Spurs (Telemundo, USA)
11:00 AM
Man U - Liverpool (Peacock) (what the fuck?!? will I ever see a Liverpool match again this year? If they keep winning, am I honor bound to actually not watch matches?)
And with that, the first transfer window will be closed, 8 percent of the season will be done and we’ll be into our first International Break of the season. Where has the time gone to?
The September transfer window
It closes in 35 minutes, I am told some teams made moves. I have nothing to confirm that firsthand.
The Champions League Draw
The first draw of the new Champions League era was Thursday afternoon. Uefa trotted out Christiano Ronaldo to press a button 36 times. It was a really great week for making total dickheads from Manchester 15 years ago relevant again.
Anyway, a reminder for how it worked as recently as last year:
The field was the top 32 teams from the season before
They’re organized into 8 pods
Every team played every team in their pod twice; home and away.
The top two teams from each pod advanced to the next round. Which was two-legged, home and away ties.
The third place teams from each pod bumped down to the Europa Cup knock out stages.
16 teams became 8. 8 became 4. Then 2. Then one. Then Real Madrid (usually) had a parade.
This year:
The field is the top 36 teams from last season.
They’re organized into 4 tiers based on how well the club has done in the Champions League the last 5 years. (this is close enough for our purposes)
Each team plays two matches against teams from each tier; 4 at home and 4 away
The top 8 teams after those 8 matches automatically qualify for the final 16. They get a couple of weeks off.
The teams that finish 9 though 16 will play the teams that finish 17 through 24 in two legged ties; home and away
NO teams bounce down to the Europa Cup knockout stages.
The top 8 finishers then play the 9 through 24 winners in the final 16. Then they become 8. Then 4. Then 2. Then 1. Then who the fuck knows who might benefit from this cockamamy new setup.
It’$ r€a££y difficult£t to figur€ out who thi$ b€n€fit$ and why.
The oldest unread link
Ok. I’m breaking this running gag again, but this time in two ways:
Again, I have actually consumed this content and
It’s a long form video. So no reading needed.
Apparently Insider is making long form video documentaries. I say, “apparently” because I only watched this one, and then saw others in the recommends on the side.
That all said, this is an amazing watch (that I listened to …) on drug trafficking. From actual, you know, drug traffickers (and one cop). It’s SOMETHING. Not the feel good movie of the year, per se. But it feels really well done.
Ok, take care of yourselves, and each other … cause I just learned we have a 3 year old’s birthday party during the next LFC match, too.
I can confirm that it goes fast. My baby daughter is now 24 and moved from Maine to 116th street
My kids start fall soccer here in MN next weekend, I have to "miss" two LFC matches and a FC Saint Pauli match because of that. All I can suggest is an ear pod and just smile at everyone while you listen to the broadcast.