Zona Futbol is a dream come true for Champions League coverage

Out of all of the viewing options that soccer fans have to watch the UEFA Champions League, the best way to experience it is with TUDN’s new streaming-only show called Zona Futbol.

Zona Futbol is TUDN’s soccer version of NFL RedZone, showing the goals as they happen in real-time as well as all of the key incidents. With twelve teams competing concurrently in the 3-5PM ET time slot of the Group Stage, Zona Futbol is a godsend whether you understand Spanish or not.

For fans who want to make sure they don’t miss out on the action from the Champions League, TUDN’s new show helps eliminate the fear of missing out because, let’s face it, sometimes the one featured game on the Spanish-language or English-language TV channel may not deliver the expectations it promised. Instead with Zona Futbol, you can watch the goals as they go flying in or the main talking points as they happen. Ultimately, unless it’s your favorite team that’s playing, you can sit back and just watch the thrilling action as the producer jumps from game to game.

While the service isn’t revolutionary, it is evolutionary. Borrowing the idea of a whip-around show from MultiMatch 90 and The Goals Show from BT Sports, Zona Futbol is an improvement on those two examples for two main reasons. One, the live broadcast generates a chime sound whenever a goal is scored so you have a few seconds to switch your attention to see who scored and how. And two, the broadcast is commercial-free, so you can watch all of the action and highlights at halftime without the numerous commercial breaks on other channels.

So, where and how do you get Zona Futbol?

First, here’s a quick primer on how TUDN broadcasts the Champions League. Many of the featured UEFA Champions League and Europa League games are televised across the network of channels it owns including Univision, TUDN (previously known as Univision Deportes Network), UniMas and Galavision. All of the games are available individually across TUDNxtra, a brand-new service accessible via the TUDN app and TUDN.TV. Both TUDNxtra and Zona Futbol launched at the start of the 2019-2020 UEFA Champions League season in September.

To access Zona Futbol, your TV or streaming provider needs to have an agreement in place with TUDN. Currently, both fuboTV and DISH Network have deals in place where they have integrated TUDNxtra and Zona Futbol into their platforms. If you’re a subscriber to Google Fiber, Zona Futbol is integrated into that platform, while subscribers to Cox and Altice (Optimum and Suddenlink) can access TUDNxtra and Zona Futbol through authenticated logins.

Zona Futbol integrated into fuboTV’s programming guide

It’s likely that more TV and streaming providers will offer access to TUDNxtra and Zona Futbol in the near future, too.

While Zona Futbol is a dream-come-true for hardcore soccer fans who want to watch the Champions League, it’s even better when following the Europa League because there are as many as 13 matches being played concurrently. In the past, it was impossible to stay up-to-speed on all of the action that was unfolding, but with Zona Futbol you can. A perfect example of this was the recent controversy in the Dudelange-Qarabag game where the match was suspended because a drone flew a flag over the center circle. If it wasn’t for Zona Futbol, I would have completely missed the crazy incident.