Italy’s Serie A and the English Premier League both confirmed their plans to return on May 28.
Premier League and Serie A confirm return: Germany’s Bundesliga was first, and now Spain’s La Liga and Europe’s top 4 football leagues – all will return this June. Italy’s Serie A and the English Premier League both confirmed their plans to resume matches on May 28.
No official remaining season schedule has been released for any league at the time of this writing, although La Liga’s schedule is expected to be released on Sunday, May 31st.
Let’s look at each league and what we know so far.
England – Premier League
To the delight of Liverpool fans around the world, the richest and most popular football league around the world will officially return on June 17.
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More than two decades after the end of this season, Merseyside will claim their first Premier League title – currently 25 points clear of No. 2-ranked Manchester City.
Liverpool and their fans feared the season could be cancelled, which would have ruled out their historic campaign, but we now know it won’t.
The return to contact training (Phase 2) began in the Premier League on Thursday 28 May. Arsenal will play Manchester City in a special return match, while exit candidate Aston Villa will face Sheffield United. The remaining teams will play their return games on Friday, June 19.
The Premier League wants to end this season by the end of July, heading to the FA Cup Final in August and the rest of Europe. So within six weeks, there are a total of 92 matches, with most teams pending in 9 games.
According to sources, there will be seats for games on Monday and Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 12:30 pm, 3 pm, 5.30 pm and 8 pm, and Sunday 12 noon, 2 pm, 4.30 pm and 7 pm. Midweek competitions start at 6 pm and 8 pm (British Standard Time) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
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Games will be played behind closed doors but will be broadcast on six networks in Great Britain, the United States and Canada – Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime, NBC, NBCSN and CNBC.
With the title race closed, the most interesting storyline will be the battle for the remaining 3 Champions League places, and those teams will struggle to float in the exit zone.
The English Championship is expected to resume at the end of June, as Leeds United have the most anticipated return to the Premier League after nearly two decades in the Championship.
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Italy – Serie A
The government of Italy endorsed a resumption of Serie A on June 20. The second leg of the Copa Italia semi-final will take place from June 13, two rounds ahead of the English FA Cup, so the only thing left is to plan the final when the second leg is over.
In the event of another interruption, Serie A has agreed to two contingency plans.
The first involves play-off and exhaust play-outs. When the second table stands, it freezes. So, Competition Day 25 should finish the best games first, so everyone has played the same number of games, then go from there.
Serie A games are available to watch on ESPN + and Bein Sports in the US. The Serie A teams have 12 to 13 games on their schedule, so the season-closing may take longer than the Premier League or the tables can be suppressed, which will tax the players.
There is also a title race between Juventus, who sits on the table with 63 points, followed by surprise – Lazio in 2nd place with 62 points. The two sides will play each other once more this season.
Atlanta (48 points) and Roma (45 points) were placed in the final Champions League place with Napoli (39 points) and A.C. Milan (36 points) will battle it out.
Other Notes
We have yet to hear anything about official return dates for the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, but given what has been said, let’s start with the guesswork.
It looks like those matches will be completed this summer as well. They expect it to be held in August after the other leagues have finished their seasons. The project meets on June 17.
Since this is an international competition there are some challenges and some travel restrictions need to be removed in advance.
Also, teams in the league have already stopped their seasons and are still in contests like PSG and Lyon. Then there are the teams from the Bundesliga, who will finish their seasons in mid-June.
In both cases, they will suffer from long layoffs, which will add interesting volatility to the competition. We will learn more on this front on June 17th.
The Bundesliga runs until June. La Liga, Serie A and the Premier League run until July, with the possibility of a Champions League & Europa League month-long competition in August, the summer of football TV being on the horizon.
Extra: All leagues will follow a format similar to the German Bundesliga – five subs per game, testing multiple times per week, no connected team environments, no fans in sports, no social distance within the stadiums.
Source: Lifestyleug.com
