CS EPL Summer Season 6.19

CS is hard at work for the upcoming season.

What you can count on in the CS.

1. Neutral Coverage - but we will have opinions, and let you know when we do.

2. No AI - CS is writing everything, not an algorithm.

3. Spelling/grammatical/formatting errors will happen - until we hire a proofreader (which means expect some errers).

Full transparency, CS roots for Leicester City who have been promoted back to the PL after a year in The Championship - however - CS will continue work to remain “neutral” in the coverage.

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Summer Headlines ☀️📌

• Euro2024🌍

• Copa America🌎

Summer Headlines ☀️📌

🗓️Premier League 2024/25 “Fixtures” Announced 🗓️

(Fixture = Scheduled Match)

The 2024/25 Premier League schedule was announced Tuesday. Start planning your trip to England. Here’s a link to the full schedule, including additional links to a digital calendar from @premierleague.

• 33 Weekends, 4 Midweek, 1 Holiday. One change to the 38-match schedule as the PL will look to space out the “congested schedule across Christmas and New Years”. Clubs play 3 matches over this span, and this year no club will play within 60 hours of another match they’ve played, and no match will be held on Christmas Eve.

• Old Trafford. The season opens Friday, August 16 when Erik ten Hag and Man United host Fulham. Let’s face it, lots of pressure on EtH next season.

• May 25, 2025. Final match day. Get your reservations in for watch parties.

• City go for 5 in a row. The campaign to go back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back starts at Stamford Bridge as City travel to Chelsea.

• West Ham does not play outside of London until November 2 at Nottingham Forest. That’s 9 matches in London to start the season, 5 home and 4 away. Feels like an Alabama Crimson Tide football schedule.

• Promoted Teams. Two promoted teams will host matches in week 1, Ipswich (Liverpool) and Leicester (Tottenham), while Southampton will head out on the road to Newcastle.

Looking for YOUR favorite team’s schedule? Here’s a link to each teams official X site and their schedule.

Additional PL Headlines

• BHA select Fabian Hurzeler, 31, as Gaffer (manager) making him the youngest to ever for a PL club, not including interim managers. Hurzeler comes from St Pauli in the Bundesliga, a team that earned back-to-back promotions into Germany’s top League. For more on the hire check out this comprehensive article from BBC Sport.

• Everton may have a new Owner, Friedkin Group, as a deal has been agreed to in principle. American billionaire businessman ($6.1B) Dan Friedkin (wiki) is Chairman of the Group and also owns Roma from Serie A in Italy. For more on the deal check out this BBC Sport article.

• Jamie Vardy. LCFC have signed their 37-year-old striker to a one-year contract. Vardy scored 20 goals for the LCFC last season’s Championship title run and currently sits on 190 for his career with the Foxes. The start striker was instrumental in Leicester’s run to the PL title in 2015, and he does it with flare and speed. Vardy’s story is pretty amazing - a rags to riches classic - you can read it here.

• Transfer Window. Let the buying and selling begin. The transfer window opened June 14 and will run through August 30.

Euro2024🏆🏆🏆

For all things Euro’s, check out the official UEFA website here.

You can check daily results at the link above, so CS will focus on some fun X links to give a feel for the environment. One thing you see a lot of is national pride coming through the fans, and that includes making fun of your opponents.

Culinary Wars

• Albania fans snapping spaghetti in front of Italy supporters. Albania sits 117 miles to the East, across the Adriatic Sea, from Italy. Lot’s of cultural reasons for a big rivalry.

• Austria fans snapping baguettes in front of French supporters.

• Elsewhere, Austria fans chanting Schnitzel is better than baguette.

• Swiss fans Hungary fans, “Fondue is better than goulash”.

• Poland fans to Netherlands fans, “Kielbasa is better than gouda”.

Scotland and their Tartan Army (wiki) get a category of their own.

• Mannschaft - What an advertisement.

• 300k. It’s estimated there are 300,000 Scotland fans heading to Germany over the first 2 weeks of the competition - look at this turnout.

• William Wallace moment from this fan on the train.

• Pregame - the flower of Scottland.

• It’s not all about the partying.

• For more on the Tartan Army, check out Match Week 24 Preview from the Clean Sheet.

Great Scenes

• Sea of Orange from the Netherlands.

• And it’s not a straight line from the Netherlands.

• Turkiye showing up in force.

• Italy - Il Canto Degli Italiani – Let us unite! We are ready to die, Italy has called.

• Host country Germany, pregaming.

• Croatia taking over the streets of Hamburg.

• This England fan woke up after the England match at 4am - IN THE STADIUM.

Highlights

• Fastest goal in Euro history, scored by Albania on an Italy turnover.

• Georgia (not the state in the US) get their first ever goal in their first ever game in the Euro’s.

• France will be without Mbape for a while after he broke his nose in a clean play.

• Turkish call on a goal.

• Pedro Neto of Wolves with the winner at 92’ for Portugal.

• #48 ranked Slovakia took down #3 ranked Belgium 1-0, the biggest upset in Euro history.

Fubo

Anyone have Fubo? It’s been a hot topic so far. Fox Sports has the tv rights in the US and they are putting 6 of the games on Fubo, behind the paywall for $80 per month. The rest are on Fox and FS1. A lot of pissed off people.

The best hack - I’m told you can sign up for the Vix app - for $7 you can catch all the games in Spanish, which works just fine if you know Spanish, or you enjoy watching with the sound off anyway.

Landon Donovan

Will just leave this here -

Match Game

Can you match the Beer to the Country? Brilliant! 24 Countries 24 Beers. This England fan @ballstothis on X has the right idea!

Copa America🌎

The tournament featuring national teams from North and South America kicks off June 20 when Argentina and Lionel Messi take on Canada and manager Jesse Marsch at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta 7pm cst on FOX.

Here is the USMNT schedule

• Sunday June 23 v Bolivia 5pm cst in Jerry World (AT&T Stadium Dallas)

• Thursday June 27 v Panama 5pm in Mercedes Benz Stadium Atlanta

• Monday July 1 v Uruguay 8pm at Arrowhead Stadium Kansas City

• If the USMNT gets out of the group they would play Saturday July 6 in either Allegiant Stadium in Vegas or State Farm Stadium in Phoenix most likely against Colombia or Brazil.

@premierleague on X has all 42 EPL players playing in the Copa America.

Watching Soccer this summer? Send in your pics and we will post them in the CS.

REMINDER - CS is on SUMMER HOURS 

• The Schedule You Should Expect - CS will be 1X weekly, with occasional breaking news content during the offseason.

• Season Previews to begin in late July, daily, leading up to MW1.

• Match Week 1. PL Season 2024/25 kicks off August 17 and we will be back to our Tuesday, Friday Schedule.

Clean Sheet will be looking to grow in Year 2 - PLEASE SHARE by giving the following link for those to sign up - OR - respond to this email with an email to sign up.