TV Guide - Watching Football (Soccer) Stateside

According to this Wikipedia entry, Fox Sports World, now Fox Soccer Channel (FSC), launched in late 1997. This was the beginning, as far as I know, of the current availability of decent Football programming in the US. I got the channel about 2 years after its launch, and from that time, it's had great coverage of England's Premier League - Arsenal and Manchester United in particular. FSC is available on cable and satellite.

Wikipedia has it that Setanta launched in North America in 2005, bringing the US out of the dark ages, and making available all 38 of Arsenal's league games to viewers with both FSC and Setanta. These are the channels I subscribe to for my Premier League fix.

Setanta also has rights to some Champions League matches. You can catch Arsenal's Young Guns in action on Setanta's Carling Cup coverage. Setanta is available on satellite and online, but not on cable.

ESPN has had Champions League coverage since 1994, but it has been spotty (i.e., one or two matches per round, during business hours, of course, with no replays), although they've improved a bit recently, and ESPN Deportes carries more matches, in Spanish. ESPN and ESPN Deportes are available on cable and satellite.

Between Setanta and ESPN, the Champions League is pretty well covered in the US, and now, UEFA.com shows full-match replays online. The UEFA.com subscription is worth the money - about $40 for a year. They have 10 to 15-minute highlights, in addition to the full match replays, of every Champions League match within about 12 hours after they finish.

Gol TV launched in 2003 and currently has rights to league games from Spain and Germany.

Sixes and Sevens recommends the Dish Network package Latino Dos. For about $35 per month, they offer FSC, ESPN Deportes, and Gol TV. Setanta is also available, which puts you up to $50 per month. Get yourself a DVR, and the best of world football is at your fingertips - a fair bit of it with Spanish commentary.

The big FA Cup games are one of the last hold outs to the pay-per-view system. While supporters in the Home Nations are dismissing the FA Cup as irrelevant, I'm chipping out $15 a match to watch those Arsenal FA Cup runs. We're due for one of those - is Patrick Vieira available?