Soccer Watch

Last weekend's United Soccer Leagues Annual General Meeting produced several news tidbits of interest to Austin soccer fans: Unconfirmed at this point, but seemingly ­reliable reports put the Austin Aztex in a USL PRO Western Conference as I reported here last week, playing home-and-home series against their 11 conference rivals, plus six more games against teams geographically close to us, for a 28-game regular season – twice as long as last year – followed by a 10-team playoff schedule. RecklessChallenge.net also reports that USL PRO will apply to U.S. Soccer for official second-division status in 2017, though where that would leave the NASL league is anybody's guess.

Closer to home, the Aztex are putting the final touches on a few announcements that will be rolling out over the next week or so: An exciting pre-season tournament with some names that should get fans' blood pumping, a major round of player signing announcements (including at least two popular starters from last year's team, goalkeeper Devin Perales and defender Max Gunderson), and more details on the schedule and the fan experience at House Park.

Fox Sports features a FIFA Club World Cup double-header this Saturday from Morocco, with the third-place game, Mexico's Cruz Azul against Auckland City at 10:30am, and Real Madrid against Argentina's San Lorenzo at 1:30pm for the world championship... Apart from that, English Premier League is about the only game on the world stage for the next few weeks, as everyone else goes into winter breaks: Both Manchester teams are on NBCSN on Saturday, while Liverpool-Arsenal is the Sunday highlight at 10am.