Your Sexy Soccer Saturday and JV Football Week 4 Open Thread

Teh Hippo needs a break this weekend, so I’m filling in with the DFO version of Saturday morning cartoons. Sadly, many of our younger readers may not remember a time when networks would actually show cartoons on Saturday mornings and kids would watch them with a cereal or snack at the ready

Man, I’m old.

Anyway, Saturday mornings for me now consist of watching European fútbol with a Modelo Chelada Tall Boy and munching on Sabritones.

The day then continues with college football depending on who is playing and if I have nothing else better to do.

In order to make that decision as to what to watch, you need listings, don’t you? Well, I gave you the soccer listings on Thursday afternoon, so here are your CFB listings for today (all times Eastern):

Saturday, Sept. 28

Texas Tech at Oklahoma | 12 p.m. | FOX
Northern Illinois at Vanderbilt | 12 p.m. | SEC Network
Texas A&M vs. Arkansas (Arlington, TX) | 12 p.m. | ESPN
BYU at Toledo | 12 p.m. | ESPN+
Northwestern at Wisconsin | 12 p.m. | ABC
Middle Tennessee at Iowa | 12 p.m. | ESPN2
Holy Cross at Syracuse | 12 p.m. | ACC Network
Central Michigan at Western Michigan | 12 p.m. | CBSSN
Kansas at TCU | 12 p.m. | FS1
Rutgers at Michigan | 12 p.m. | Big Ten Network
Buffalo at Miami (OH) | 12 p.m. | ESPNU
Delaware at Pitt | 12:30 p.m. | ACC RSN
Clemson at North Carolina | 3:30 p.m. | ABC/ESPN
Southern California at Washington | 3:30 p.m. | FOX
Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State | 3:30 p.m. | ESPN+
Georgia Tech at Temple | 3:30 p.m. | CBSSN
Wake Forest at Boston College | 3:30 p.m. | ACC Network
Iowa State at Baylor | 3:30 p.m. | ABC, ESPN or ESPN2
Virginia at Notre Dame | 3:30 p.m. | NBC
Ole Miss at Alabama | 3:30 p.m. | CBS
Indiana at Michigan State | 3:30 p.m. | Big Ten Network
Florida Atlantic at Charlotte | 3:30 p.m. | NFL Network
Minnesota at Purdue | 3:30 p.m. | ESPN or ESPN2
Akron at UMass | 3:30 p.m. | FloSports
Towson at Florida | 4 p.m. | SEC Network
SMU at South Florida | 4 p.m. | ESPNU
Cincinnati at Marshall | 5 p.m. | CBSSN on Facebook
East Carolina at Old Dominion | 6 p.m. | ESPN+
New Mexico at Liberty | 6 p.m. | ESPN+
Arkansas State at Troy | 6 p.m. | ESPN+
Louisiana at Georgia Southern | 6 p.m. | ESPN+
Mississippi State at Auburn | 7 p.m. | ESPN
Stanford at Oregon State | 7 p.m. | Pac-12 Networks
UConn at UCF | 7 p.m. | ESPN2
South Alabama at UL Monroe | 7 p.m. | ESPN+
UTEP at Southern Miss | 7 p.m. | ESPN+
UAB at Western Kentucky | 7 p.m. | ESPN+
Louisiana Tech at Rice | 7 p.m. | ESPN3
Nicholls State at Texas State | 7 p.m. | ESPN3
Kansas State at Oklahoma State | 7 p.m. | Big 12 Now on ESPN+
N.C. State at Florida State | 7:30 p.m. | ACC Network
Ohio State at Nebraska | 7:30 p.m. | ABC
Colorado State at Utah State | 7:30 p.m. | CBSSN
Kentucky at South Carolina | 7:30 p.m. | SEC Network
UNLV at Wyoming | 8 p.m. | ESPNU
Houston at North Texas | 8 p.m. | CBSSN on Facebook
Fresno State at New Mexico State | 8 p.m. | FloSports
Washington State at Utah | 10 p.m. | FS1
UCLA at Arizona | 10:30 p.m. | ESPN
Hawai’i at Nevada | 10:30 p.m. | ESPN2

Here is your omakase menu for the day (all times Pacific):

4:00 AM – Athletic Bilbao v Valencia (BeIn Sports)

6:00 AM – Juventus v SPAL (ESPN+)

7:00 AM – Getafe v Barcelona (BeIn Sports)

8:30 AM – Bordeaux v PSG (BeIn Sports)

9:00 AM – Texas Tech at Oklahoma (Fox)

12 Noon – Atlético Madrid v Real Madrid (BeIn Sports)

12:30 PM – USC at Washington (Fox)

That should take you through the evening thread. I’m pretty sure the evening thread won’t cover soccer, so I feel compelled to tell you that Liga MX has TWO clásicos on tap today with the Clásico Regio of Monterrey v Tigres UANL on at 5:00 PM Pacific followed by the Clásico Mexicano of América v Chivas de Guadalajara at 7:00 PM Pacific.

And now,

Litre’s Obscure Team that Hippo Probably Bets On Of The Week!

Do you like crazy people? Do you like crazy owners who carry guns? Then do I have a club of the week for you!

Today we head to Greece and take a look at PAOK which stands for Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans. ΠΑΕ ΠΑΟΚ, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών.

This unit is out of Thessaloniki and are the current Greek Champions which is a fact that I did not know. (Note: they went undefeated and won the Greek Cup as well) The bad news is that they lost to Ajax in the Champions League qualification and also lost in the Europa League playoff to Slovan Bratislava. The good news is that after 4 weeks they are tied for 1st with Olympiacos with 10 points. They have a very international roster with a few Brazilians and a mix of Europeans. I do not recognize a single player so we will leave it at that.

PAOK was originally Hermes ACAC which was formed in Istanbul in 1875. As all are aware the Turks and Greeks aren’t chummy so when the Greco-Turkish war happened these folk (Greek by ethnicity) moved to Thessaloniki which explains the Constantinople part of their name. 

When you travel throughout Greece you see graffiti with PAOK tagged everywhere in the Athens. Their supporters are insane and it stems from one man. Their owner Ivan Savvdis and boy howdy is he a handful. The reason that I chose these guys is that a while back I saw an article about a Greek club owner who was brandishing a gun on the pitch.

Ivan Savvidis apologized for his behavioUr two days after the game and he was later banned from all football stadiums for three years. From Wikipedia “Ivan Ignatyevich Savvidi, is a Russian businessman and politician of Caucasus Greek origin. Savvidis is one of Russia’s wealthiest men and was a member of the Russian Parliament, closely linked to the President Vladimir Putin”.  There it is, we know all we need to know about this guy.

These guys have a lot of rivals, Aris is their hometown rivals but they pretty much hate everyone including AEK Athens, Panathanaikos, and Olympiakos due to northerners hating Athenians. 

They play out of Toumba Stadium which holds 29k and is all seated.

Greek hooligans are just as awesome as their Turkish counterparts just there has been less incidents with English hooligans so we don’t hear to much about them. PAOK’s biggest ultras group is called Gate 4 who are renowned as one of the top 20 thuggish groups in the world. From Bleacher Report “Grecian side PAOK FC are known for their fans in the Toumba Stadium. Known as “Black Hell” to many sides that set foot in the stadium. The Gate 4 supporters are the most infamous and cause the majority of problems that the club is ever known for.” Look up on YouTube what these nutters are capable of, here is a taste to whet your whistle. 

There is a lot to unpack here.

-Clearly this is an away game and they are trashing the stadium.

 – I enjoy the Greek music in the background, so serene and peaceful, then about minute 7 Happy comes on.  

– The Greek authorities try to keep the supporters apart but even barbed wire, 3 empty sections can’t quench the thirst for violence.

 – Minute 9 has the boys battling on what looks like a catwalk where there are no authorities with “Moves like Jagger” playing

– The best part of this long video is that at no time is there any football shown. 

Firebombs? Hell yes!
Anyhoo these guys are nuts, their owner is nuts and they play AEK on Sunday and I am sure there will be no violence. 

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And now, your Sexy Soccer Saturday ladies! All photos courtesy of the Futbol Babes Twitter account.

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Finally, I wanted to bring to your attention a YouTube channel that I recently discovered. I don’t know why, but this guy reminds me a lot of BFC, who I’ve met in real life. In any case, he (not BFC, the guy on the video) does a bunch of videos about making cocktails and he’s pretty funny and the camera work on the extreme closeups is pure alcohol-pour-porn. In the early episodes, it was more alcohol-spill-porn, but he’s gotten better at it. Anyway, take a gander and see if you like it:

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That’s all for me. See you next week!

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