Five Things to Watch: Bundesliga slated to return, another Netflix doc, cornhole and more

The Bundesliga Returns + BPL and the Korean Professional Football League

As fun as it’s been following teams in an obsolete Eastern-European country for the past few weeks, the Bundesliga is planning a return for this week, beginning on May 16. But for those who still want to the BPL, here’s one last schedule for “our” Belarusian soccer clubs.

FC Slutsk will be playing BATE Saturday at noon. FC Dinamo Minsk will be playing FC Isloch at 10 a.m. Both games can be streamed on YouTube. To see the full schedule for these and any other upcoming matches, you can find all that here.

As for those who are looking to a higher level of play, the Bundesliga return begins with Dortmund vs. Schalke on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and continues through the weekend into Monday. All games are being broadcast on at least one division of Fox Sports, and some games are to be broadcast on other networks such as fuboTV, Hulu, and a few others. The Bundesliga boasts several American stars, and while the most notable, GK Zack Steffen is injured, many other American stars will be returning to the pitch this weekend.

The South Korean soccer league, the Korean Professional Football League, made its return the past week. The league is pumping fan noise into the stadiums while coaches and players on the sidelines wear face masks. For those interested in watching, ESPN plans to broadcast Korean matches almost every day in the US.

Philadelphia Union/MLS Classics

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to watch this week in the way of Union soccer, the only game to be re-aired will be the LAFC game from earlier in the season on Monday at 6 p.m. on Fox Soccer Plus and fuboTV.

However, there are still some solid MLS games that are being streamed throughout the week on YouTube, the MLS App, Facebook and mlssoccer.com. One of the more interesting replays will be the May 15 replay of the Seattle vs. Portland game. In the past, MLS has added player commentary to games to spice up the action. With this particular replay, however, the MLS will be using fan commentaries to relive this rivalry match.

Other games to be re-aired this week include last season’s RBNY vs. DCU match where Wayne Rooney earned an ejection and the COL vs. RSL match with player and personality commentary.

FIFA Women’s World Cup

Three games from team USA’s World Cup run in the 2015 competition are being re-aired today. 

The first game is a replay of the 2015 Championship game of the USA vs. Japan (spoiler, the Americans won). This match will be streamed on FIFA.com and YouTube at 2 p.m.

The second two games, the Chinese quarterfinal and the German semi-final, will be shown at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., respectively. These matches will be shown on FS1, Fox Soccer Plus, and fuboTV.

Concrete Football – Netflix

Ok, I promise to move on from Netflix docs, but this one is a good one. Concrete Football takes a look at amateur soccer in France where they play on, you guessed it, concrete. The documentary looks at how soccer is part of the blood of these neighborhoods, and how soccer has brought these people together. It also includes now professionals who have grown up in this culture, who talk about how it changed them and their game.

Unfortunately, to watch this you do need to be comfortable with subtitles, as the movie is in French. Despite that, it’s still very interesting and worth the watch,

American Cornhole League

This week’s non-soccer pick brings us the 2020 Johnson ACL Cornhole Championships. While most sports leagues around the world are on shutdown, the American Cornhole League soldiers on, bringing you its 2020 Championship this week.

The matches for this week will take place Wednesday through Sunday, starting with the Doubles Championship on Wednesday at midnight, and closing the week with the Bag Brawl on Sunday at 10 p.m. 

Some noteworthy matches to watch out for are the ACL Pro/College Alumni Cornhole Invitational on Saturday at 6 p.m. and the Bag Brawl on Sunday. I’ll admit that I have no idea what a Bag Brawl is, but I plan on making my entire family sit down to watch it. I have no doubt that it will not disappoint.

Have any suggestions for things to watch? Contact us at matthew.r.ralph@gmail.com.