February 27, 2023 by Elijah N’Dolo
After a two-month resting period following the exciting FIFA World Cup, club soccer is resuming in Europe. Club teams, unlike national teams, are privately owned clubs that purchase players from around the world (sometimes for exorbitant sums of money) to compete against other clubs in the same country and in some international tournaments.
The highest level of international club soccer is undoubtedly the UEFA Champions League (or just the Champions League). The Champions League is the league in which the top clubs from the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A, the French Ligue 1, the Spanish La Liga, and many less-known European leagues compete for the ultimate club trophy. Winning the Champions League is considered the highest possible achievement in club soccer, and like every year, the best soccer players in the world are eager to make sure their team is the one to hoist the trophy above their heads.
Starting in early September and ending in November, the Champions League was in its group stage. Before the start of the tournament, the 32 teams that qualified were separated into four groups. Over a six-match-day period, each team played every other team in their group twice, once at home and once away. The two teams in each group with the most points (wins, ties, and losses determine points) advanced to where they are now, in the round of 16. The winners of each group were placed against the runners-up of other groups. Each team in the matchups will play one game at home and one game away and the team with the highest aggregate score moves on to the quarterfinals.
This year the world was treated to an incredible matchup for the first game of the round of 16. The number one team from France, Paris-Saint Germain (PSG), was pitted against the German Bundesliga champions, Bayern Munich, on Valentine’s Day in the Romantic City itself. Despite the home-field advantage, PSG struggled to find scoring opportunities against Bayern Munich. In the 53rd minute, Kingsly Coman, the Paris-born Bayern Munich midfielder, slipped a volley under PSG’s Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma to make it one to nothing, a goal he chose not to celebrate out of respect for his hometown and former club. Even after an unexpected substitution that brought on the injured French superstar Kylian Mbappé–who scored a disallowed goal in the 81st minute–Paris stayed scoreless, and the game ended with an unexpected score of one-to-nothing for Bayern Munich.
The following day the London-based team, Chelsea, went head-to-head against the German team Borussia Dortmund. In the weeks prior to the game, Dortmund had won five consecutive games in the Bundesliga, while Chelsea, currently tenth in the Premier League, had tied and lost their last four games. Chelsea entered the game with determination and fervor and dominated the first half. But in the 63rd minute, the 21-year-old German forward for Dortmund, Karim Adeyemi, led an impressive counterattack and scored the goal that was later voted Goal of the Week. Despite Chelsea’s best efforts, the game ended at one to zero in favor of Dortmund.
American soccer fans were disappointed to see that American Chelsea player Christian Pulisic could not play due to an injury he suffered while playing against Manchester City. Pulisic won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2019, making him only the second American player to do so after Jovan Kirovski, who won it with Borussia Dortmund in 1997. Fans affectionately refer to Pulisic as Captain America due to his leadership with the US Men’s Nation Team. The other American present at the match, Dortmund’s 20-year-old Giovanni Reyna, never left the bench.
Watching and playing soccer has been rapidly growing in popularity in the United States over the last twenty years. Soccer is now the second most-played sport in the United States, and, currently, nearly 20 million Americans play soccer at some level. The United States Men’s Team has never won the world cup, but the Women’s team is the best in the world and has won four world cup titles.
To American fans interested in watching the Champions League, the games stream live at 3 pm EST Tuesdays and Wednesdays on Paramount+.