The various professional league soccer seasons are winding down in this month of May (except in the United States and Canada with their March-to-December Major League Soccer). In England, London's Chelsea has far outpaced the other 19 teams in the Premier League, winning the championship (they have no playoffs). Manchester City, (2012 and 2014 champion), Manchester United (2013 champion), and perennial contender Arsenal (another London team) round out the top four...it is this group that will contend next year in the European Champions League against other leagues' top finishers. In Germany's Bundesliga, Bayern Munich won easily while Spain's La Liga has Barcelona ahead of its arch rival Real Madrid with the season nearing an end. Other countries...well, just about every one, for that matter...have their own leagues, but there's no way I can follow them all. Besides, the only pro soccer leagues available right now for me to watch on TV are America's MSL, the English Premier League, and Mexico's Liga MX...
Speaking of Liga MX, their second split-season of 2014-15, called the Clausura, has ended and they are now thick in the middle of the championship playoffs. Favorites America (a Mexico City team) and UANL (from Monterrey) were both eliminated yesterday...
although, since America had won the Apertura split season playoffs in December, they are already in the final championship round to face the winner of these playoffs (actually, as I later found out, the Apertura and Clausura winners don't meet, after all). This evening, Guadalajara faces Atlas to see who advances from that city and Queretaro and Vera Cruz square off in a series between two improbable playoff teams. Since the team I was originally rooting for, the Tigres of UANL, is no longer in the playoffs, I'm now rooting for Pachuca (who beat America).
After this month, the only premier league soccer left until August will be Major League Soccer. Now they have a Florida representative with the expansion team Orlando City, but although I pull for them whenever they have a game on TV, I also enjoy getting into any game that's being broadcast, regardless who's playing. I think it's hilarious, though, how American teams imitate their European counterparts with names like "Real" Salt Lake, "Sporting" Kansas City, Orlando "City", D.C. "United", and Houston "Dynamo", along with the often ridiculously ornate coats-of-arms they display for themselves, as if they embody old traditions instead of being around as a league only since 1995...
