End of the season!

Hi everyone! With the European and several other leagues on the August-May calendar coming to an end, I thought I'd get one last newsletter in with the playoffs and cup finals on the docket, including the European Champions League final, the French playoffs, the English FA Cup Final, the Australian Grand Final, the North American Champions Cup, and the two-legged climax to the Mexican Clausura. That's a lot of soccer before the men's World Cup takes over!

And yes, as you may have noticed by the last few weeks not having a newsletter, I've decided to end this project for now, for a couple reasons. The first is that I'm disabled and only have so much capacity for writing, and a couple other projects (including some paid work) have come up, and I have to sacrifice something. The good news is that I largely proved I could do it!

The second major reason is that this project was initially started for me to know what I wanted to watch and summarizing what and why for other people. In the process it became a sort of all-encompassing need to keep track of seven different leagues, two champions' leagues, and various international competitions. And to be frank, some of those proved to be SIGNIFICANTLY more entertaining than others.

Women's football on TV is here, it's just unevenly distributed

I started really noticing the problem as the NWSL started: watching these matches on television is a vastly better experience than all but a tiny handful the very top-tier women's matches in Europe. There are two-person booths for every match, often actually at the stadium they're announcing from, sometimes even with sideline reporters and studio shows. Microphones are better-placed to pick up crowd noise, crowds are rowdier and larger, and that's before you get to the matches themselves.

So, so many European matches involve a superclub laying siege to a low block from a smaller club, who might try to break out and counterattack every so often. This included the semifinal of the Champions League, where Barcelona dominated the ball and the attacking chances – that Bayern made the tie competitive was extremely impressive.

Meanwhile you turn on an NWSL match, or even a Liga MX Feminil on, and by and large, teams go back and forth. There are lots of arguments for WHY this might be – a salary cap creating competitive balance, American sports culture demanding back and forth entertaining, a football culture prizing physicality as both a means and an end, tactical naivete, a wider player pool – but at a certain point it doesn't matter, the matches are entertaining regardless of the reason.

This is not to say that all European matches are dull and all NWSL matches are good. The FA Cup semifinals last weekend were both remarkably entertaining matches with superb atmosphere, perhaps the best European matches I watched all season. But some terrific semifinals in the most prestigious cup competitions are supposed to be grand spectacles, meanwhile the best televised match I watched this month was a local rivalry in the regular season: Angel City-San Diego this past weekend in the NWSL. Superb crowd, waving flags with tons of noise, both teams going full force, lots of skill and physicality. Or there's Tigres-Monterrey, a derby that regularly has some of the best crowds in women's football.

Oddly enough, this all came into focus for me when I decided to check out the A-League Women's Finals from Australia across the past few weeks. Despite the matches being played in front of a few thousand people at local parks and not having all-star teams of world-class players, the entire presentation was terrifically entertaining – full booths of announcers, studio shows, microphones right on top of the loudest fans, and, for the most part, aggressive, free-wheeling matches.

Part of this is just demand – at a certain level, there's just not going to be enough English-language or particularly American viewers of random German or Italian matches so having a sole announcer in a studio calling Frauen-Bundesliga matches is likely the best we'll get – and it's not like they'll get better if I stop watching. But some of it is football culture. In Europe, women's football feels like it's treated as a lesser alternate version of men's football. In nations without as much of an entrenched football culture, there's more opportunity to stand alone. Or there's Mexico, which is rapidly becoming one of the biggest markets for women's football in the world, which is one of the most exciting stories in the globe. We can but hope that Europe catches up. They may have many of the best players, but they don't have anywhere near the best presentation.

The Championship Matches

In the next couple weeks, we've got eight trophies to be decided, with several leagues and cups in their final or semifinal stages – one of which is starting imminently. So let's get to it:

Liga MX Feminil Clausura final

Monterrey v Club America leg 1 (Thursday May 14, 8pm PST, Vix)
Monterrey v Club America leg 2 (Sunday May 17, 10am PST, Vix)

Monterrey and Club America have been the best two clubs across the Clausura. Both have international stars like Spain's Lucia Garcia (Monterrey) and Irene Guerrero (America) as well home-grown Mexican talent like Alice Soto (Monterrey) and Scarlett Camberos (America). Both also like to attack and not necessarily defend, which is a recipe for some very dramatic football.

A-League Women Grand Final

Melbourne City v Wellington Phoenix (Friday 11:15pm PST, ESPN+)

The two best clubs across the year survived the semifinals to meet in the Grand Final. Looking for a rooting interest? Melbourne City is part of the City Football Group, Abu Dhabi's sportwashing arm, while Wellington Phoenix, the only Kiwi team in the A-League Women, is managed by former Canadian coach Bev Priestman, notable primarily for spying on other teams at the 2024 Olympics. Sorry about that. The football should be fun though!

Arkema Premiere Ligue Playoffs

Unique amongst the major European leagues, the French league moved to a simple playoff system where the top four clubs in the league play for the championship at the end of the year. It hasn't stopped Lyon from lifting the trophy yet, will this be the year?

Also of note: Lyon and the Paris clubs have qualified for the Champions League next year unless Nantes win the playoffs, which would knock PSG out. That's not going to happen, but....what if it did?

Lyon v Nantes (Saturday May 16, 9am PST, DAZN)
Paris FC v Paris Saint-Germain (Saturday May 16, noon PST, DAZN)

Lyon are the dominant team in France this year and every year and the question is largely if another club can scare them, let alone beat them. Nantes are a small club overperforming, and shouldn't stand a chance, which at least makes them fun to root for.

The Paris clubs tend to play tough defensive battles, so I wouldn't expect many goals. PSG are usually Lyon's toughest competition, but Paris FC has been closing the gap – expect a war in the derby semi.

Lyon/Nantes v Paris/PSG (Sunday May 31st, DAZN)

The kick-off time doesn't appear to have been scheduled until the teams are chosen, but this, with the FA Cup Final (below) is likely to be the last important match of the European season.

CONCACAF W Champions Cup

The North American championship began last fall with a group stage leading to these four clubs making the semis...then having to wait six months to play again. But getting Liga MX and NWSL teams in competitive matches with one another should be a ton of fun.

Club America v Gotham FC (Wednesday May 20th, 3:30pm PST, Paramount+)
Washington Spirit v Pachuca (Wednesday May 20th, 6:30pm PST, Paramount+)

All four teams here have a chance, I think. Washington and Gotham are the NWSL's biggest superclubs, filled with stars, Gotham having one of the stingiest defenses and Washington's attack getting more and more impressive. Club America look absolutely unbeatable on their good days and may be celebrating a Liga MX championship. Pachuca is less consistent than the others, but they're hosting the matches which may be an advantage.

America/Gotham v Washington/Pachuca (Saturday May 23rd, 5:30pm PST, Paramount+)

Wake up in the morning and watch the championship of Europe, check out the championship of North America in the evening. That's pretty fun.

UEFA Women's Champion's League

This is the big one! Dozens of matches in the group stage, a full set of knockout rounds, upsets, dominance, surprises, and flair have all led us here: to the most obvious matchup anyone could have predicted.

Barcelona v Lyon (Saturday May 23rd, 9am PST, Paramount+)

The great news here is that it's obvious because these two teams are both terrific: the two biggest and best clubs in Europe across the past 15 years, rivals in multiple Champions League finals, the biggest stars in the world. Lindsey Heaps trying to win a Champions League before heading to the NWSL, Aitana Bonmati working back from a broken leg, Melchie Dumorney and Claudia Pina potentially planting their flags as the best players in the world. It's a can't-miss.

Coppa Italia

Juventus v Roma (Sunday May 24th, 9am PST, DAZN)

All my caveats above about the disinterested presentation and crowds of European football may apply, but this is a cup final between the two most storied clubs in recent Italian women's football. Juventus has had a disappointing season, finishing third in Serie A, while Roma are looking to do the double after clinching the league last week.

FA Cup Final

The FA Cup is the oldest and most storied cup competition in the world, so it's fitting that, alongside the French playoffs, this is the end of the European season. While the women's incarnation doesn't quite have the history of the men's, it's regularly one of the best-attended matches in the world, with over 70,000 fans in each of the last three years.

Manchester City v Brighton & Hove Albion (Sunday May 31st, 7am PST, YouTube)

Manchester City will be looking to celebrate a tremendous season which ended with their first WSL championship in a decade – and perhaps sending superstar striker Bunny Shaw off with a bang. Brighton was perhaps expected to challenge the top four in the WSL a bit more, and in that the season was a bit of a disappointment. An FA Cup would change that, and with star Nigerian keeper Chiamaka Nnadozie between the pipes, they have a chance.

And finally...

The World Sevens tournament has turned into an end-of-the-season special for players and fans to have some fun with in the last year. This year's incarnation: a WSL-only version in London leading into the FA Cup. It's a fun little tournament on its own and a great way to get to know the players of the participating teams.

World Sevens (Thursday May 28th, Friday May 29th, Saturday May 30th, DAZN)