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Jonathan Tannenwald: Soccer's European Championship kicks off this weekend. Here are 10 reasons to watch.

Jonathan Tannenwald, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in Soccer

PHILADELPHIA — The European Championship is one of the biggest national team soccer tournaments beyond the World Cup, even though it features only European teams. Then again, plenty of people will tell you that’s what makes it such a big deal. Almost every one of the tournament’s 24 teams has big-time stars who draw fans from across the globe.

The Euros kicked off Friday with host country Germany facing Scotland. Games will be mostly easy to watch, because Fox has the English rights and Univision has the Spanish rights. Twenty-nine games will be on Fox’s main broadcast network and 17 will be on FS1.

But I said mostly for a reason: Fox sublicensed five games to streaming company FuboTV, and you have to buy Fubo’s full package that starts at $79.99 per month to get them. At least it will be cheap to watch in Spanish. Univision’s ViX streaming platform will have every game, and it costs just $4.99 a month ($6.99 without ads) with no long-term commitment needed.

Some games during the tournament will be available for free, including Friday’s Germany-Scotland opener (2 p.m., Fox, ViX). The picks are made only a few days in advance, so check ViX.com along the way to find out what they are.

10. A Union player is involved

Dániel Gazdag of Hungary is the first active Union player to make a Euros roster in the club’s 15-year history. He would have earned the honor three years ago, because he joined the Union just before that tournament, but he missed it because of a minor injury in the Magyars’ training camp.

 

Now the 28-year-old attacking midfielder’s moment is finally here, and it could be quite a ride. Hungary is with Germany, Scotland and Switzerland in Group A, which means a big test against the hosts, but the other games are winnable. And even with that, the top four third-place finishers across the tournament’s six groups qualify for the round of 16.

The Magyars’ other players to watch are goalkeeper Peter Gulácsi, centerback Willi Orbán, forward Roland Sallai, and above all midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai. The Liverpool dynamo, Szoboszlai, was first discovered as a teen prospect by current Union sporting director Ernst Tanner, and the two are still close.

Unfortunately, Hungary’s opener against Scotland (Saturday, 9 a.m.) is one of the games on FuboTV, so ViX will be the easiest way to watch. The group games after that are against Germany on Wednesday (noon, FS1, ViX) and Scotland on June 23 (3 p.m., FS1, ViX).

9. Two special stadiums

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