Archive for the Athletic Bilbao Category

Football streaming channels – Live football on Easter’s weekend

Posted in Athletic Bilbao, Bundesliga, Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League, Serie A, Violence, football fans, p2p on April 7, 2007 by globalfootball

One more time for this season another great 3 days of live football on our favourite p2p applications is to come. I have seen the stats for the previous post and many users have downloaded the p2p software needed to watch the matches so I am going to post that again and channels listing will follow, enjoy!

The basic p2p software for football online streaming are TV Ants and Sopcast. Once you have downloaded these two, you can download the Remote Control to activate them. If the match is listed to be on Bwin, just follow the link and register, then you should be able to watch every thing they show live.

Saturday 07/04/2007

    12:45 GMT Chelsea – Tottenham Hotspurs on ESPN, Sport Channel 3, Guandong, Supersport 3, Guangzou
    14:00 GMT Reggina – Inter on BWin
    14:00 GMT Catania – Roma on BWin
    14:30 GMT Herta Berlin – Arminia Bielefeld on BWin
    14:30 GMT Schalke 04 – Borussia Moenchengladbach on BWin
    14:30 GMT Wolfsburg – Mainz on BWin
    14:30 GMT Eintracht Frankfurt – Energie Cottbus on BWin
    14:30 GMT Hannover – Bayern Munich on BWin
    14:30 GMT Aachen – Borussia Dortmund on BWin
    14:30 GMT HSV Hamburger – Stuttgart on BWin, Cctv5, GolTv, Sport Channel 1
    15:00 GMT Reading – Liverpool on Starsports, Sport Channel 4
    15:00 GMT Arsenal – West Ham United on ESPN, Sport Channel 3, Guandong, Supersport 3, Guangzou, Makaiko Sport, Shanghai
    15:00 GMT Middlesbrough – Watford on Sport Channel 2
    16:10 GMT Valenciennes – Olympique Lyon on Cctv5, GoalTv 2, Sports Cn
    17:15 GMT Portsmouth – Manchester United on Starsports, Sport Channel 4, Makaiko Sport, Supersport 3
    19:00 GMT Real Zaragoza – Barcelona on Cctv5, GoalTv, Sport Channel 1
    19:30 GMT AC Milan – Empoli on Sport Channel 2, Guandong, Shanghai, BTV6
    19:00 GMT Athletic Bilbao – Valencia on Cctv5, GoalTv, Sport Channel 1, Makaiko Sports

Sunday 08/04/2007

    16:00 GMT Real Mallorca – Getafe on Makaiko Sports
    16:00 GMT Werder Bremen – Nurnberg on Cctv5, Bwin
    16:00 GMT Bayer Leverkusen – Bochum on Bwin
    16:00 GMT Sevilla – Racing Santander on Sport Channel 1, Guandong, Shanghai
    18:00 GMT Real Madrid – Osasuna Pamplona on Guandong, Shanghai, Shandong
    20:00 GMT Marseille – Lille on Goaltv2
    20:00 GMT Werder Bremen – Nurnberg on Cctv5, GolTv

Monday 09/04/2007

    12:45 GMT Watford – Portsmouth on ESPN, Sport Channel 3
    15:00 GMT Newcastle United – Arsenal on ESPN, Sport Channel 3, Shanghai, Guangdong
    15:00 GMT Fulham – Manchester City on Starsports, Sport Channel 4
    17:15 GMT Southampton – Sunderland on Sports CN, Supersports 3
    20:00 GMT Charlton Athletic – Reading on ùSport Channel 3

Aupa Athletic 2!

Posted in Athletic Bilbao, Liga on January 15, 2007 by globalfootball

Iribar and Kortabarria bring the Ikurrina before a Basque derby in 1976

Athletic Bilbao is of course one of the elements of the Basque culture. Their refusal over the years to sign players not born in the Basque Country, with no Basque roots or not grown up in their cantera, and the war against any other not Spanish culture (Basque, Catalan, etc.) carried over the years by Franco’s dictatorship, have strenghthened and united Athletic fans.

In this picture we can see Iribar and Real Sociedad’s captain Kortabarria bringing the Ikurrina on the football pitch before a derby in 1976, at a time when the Ikurrina was still illegal and when both the teams were adopting a strict “just Basques” policy.

Maybe not everyone knows that, even though there is a huge rivalry between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao, the two teams helped each other in winning 1982 and 1983’s Ligas, when the last match of the seasons was precisely a Basque derby and the team not involved in the race for the title didn’t put too much effort to win the game, allowing the rivals to celebrate a victory. In this case, Basque brotherhood prevailed over football local disputes.

Athletic Bilbao’s history is the history of Spanish football. They are the second oldest team of the Liga (the oldest is Recreativo de Huelva, founded in 1889) and people from Bilbao have also founded Atletico Madrid, which for about 20 years have been some kind of Athletic’s repository for players. This is the reason why the two teams have the same jersey colours.

Some critics say that the so called “Basque policy” contains racist and xenophobic elements. This is completely false because, just as a start, the club’s name is an English word, Athletic, chosen instead of the Spanish Atletico, because the team had been founded by English people living in Bilbao. Athletic have had English footballers in its first years of activity and have at the moment players born in Venezuela and Mexico, Fernando Amorebieta and Javier Iturriaga. Amorebieta and Iturriaga have Basque roots though, as their surnames clearly suggest, and what counts even more, they were bred in Lezama, the training camp where most of Ahtletic players have started their professional career. Not to mention, of course, the fact that most of the managers Athletic have had in their history were born outside Basque Country.

Their policy is, instead, just a choice, done in order to save those few elements of sport still present in modern football and to compete with passion, love and amor propio.

San Mames, cathedral of football

Aupa Athletic!

Posted in Athletic Bilbao, Liga on January 12, 2007 by globalfootball

Camiseta rojiblanca

Athletic Club de Bilbao are for sure one of the best football clubs in the world. They still manage to survive to a high level of professionalism keeping up with those features which make fans proud all over the world. They play in Spain, in La Liga, since their foundation, which happened in far 1898. The great part of this is that they have never been relegated to Segunda Division (1st division in England) in their history. And this has never happened even though they have never bought foreign players, here considering foreign whatever is not Basque (for instance, famous Spanish striker Raul Gonzalez Blanco is not eligible to play with Athletic Bilbao).

They have been never relegated even if they have never had a sponsor’s logo on their jersey in all these years. And they have never been relegated even if their players come mostly from La Cantera, players whom the team breed since they are very young.

Their survival in modern football business would be enough. But it is not just this. Their cupboard is full of trophies, they have won La Liga 8 times, 24 times La Copa del Rey and once Supercopa de España, so being the 3rd Spanish club by trophies won. The rojiblanca jersey has been worn by some of the best football players of all time.

How to forget Pichichi for example? The Basque striker whose goals made him so famous that when he died his name was given to the trophy for the best scorer of the Liga? And what about the goalkeeper Jose Angel Iribar, who played for Athletic since 1962 to 1980 and whose name in Europe sounds as majestic as Lev Jascin’s? Spanish fans also know that Zarra is the all time scorer in La Liga. Talking about more recent players, the class and grace showed by Julen Guerrero in the 80’s and early 90’s will always be remembered by true football lovers.

These, and many other facts and figures about this fantastic example of true football, show us that there is a way to resist and fight against modern football even for clubs, not just for supporters. There is no need to sell out football jerseys (take a look at Toulouse’s jersey, as an example), to rush on the transfer market for players when you can patiently and with more satisfaction let your own kids, the ones born just beside your door, play football for the team they always loved. Athletic Club might not win La Liga for the next 20 years but, until they keep up this “Basque policy” there will be always rojiblancos fans all over the world.

If you haven’t had enough of Athletic Bilbao, you can also watch this funny ad made by the club to advertise their peculiar jersey.