For many Americans, soccer is a once-every-four-year thing. We watch the World Cupthe biggest and most important soccer tournament in the world, but once it’s over, it’s over. Then we forget about the sport until the next World Cup. Next time around, though, the 2026 World Cup is here in North America, so maybe you want to prepare early and keep that soccer buzz going. So how do you do it? What do you watch? Where do you watch it? We’ve got you covered.
How to Watch Soccer Online
On the field, soccer is about as simple as it comes. Off the field, it’s the opposite. Almost every single country has its own league, and the best players aren’t just in one of those leagues, they’re spread across all of them. Because of that, trying to watch international soccer (or football, as it’s called outside the US) can be intimidating. Here’s the truth many people don’t know though. You’re probably already paying for it.
It’s true. Odds are you are currently paying for a service that has amazing international soccer content. Seemingly every streamer out there either has live games or incredible documentaries that can help deepen your appreciation for the sport. Here’s a list of the biggest and best soccer content you can find streaming services you probably already pay for, including Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+, Hulu, and Apple TV+.
Peacock is the place to watch English Premier League soccer
We’re starting with Peacock because the streamer (and its owner, NBC) have the rights to the Premier League, the English football league which is widely regarded as the best in the world. That’s where you’ll find Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and other famous teams. Games are often on regular NBC stations but can also be found on the streamer live and on demand.
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Peacock also has a full Premier League tab filled with analysis, news, highlights, and more. Want to see the best players in the world every single week? Peacock is where it’s at.
Peacock is also where Spanish language fans were able to watch the World Cup this year, which is a huge deal, and it also has excellent soccer documentaries. On Peacock, there are full movies on Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Pele, David Beckham, and many more.
Find the Premier League Peacock page here.
You can watch Champions League and Europa League soccer on Paramount+
Here’s a scenario. You want to watch the greatest players in Europe, playing with the highest stakes, but you can’t figure out which country to watch. England’s Premier League? Spain’s La Liga? Italy’s Serie A? How about all of the above, playing each other?
That happens every single year in an event called the Champions League and you can watch every single game of it on Paramount Plus. Each year, the top teams from each European country qualify for the tournament and then play it out until one team remains. Short of the World Cup, Champions League is the most prestigious championship in all of soccer, and the knockout round of 16 begins on February 14 with Paris St. Germain vs. Bayern Munich. PSG is the team with two World Cup finalists – France’s Kylian Mbappe and Argentina’s Lionel Messi, as well as Brazil’s Neymar. All on one team.
Paramount Plus also has the Europa League (which is like the Champions League but with teams who finished a few places lower), the National Women’s Soccer League, and all of the games from Italy’s Serie A, which includes teams like Juventus and Inter Milan.
In terms of documentaries, you’ll find an excellent one behind the scenes of last year’s Champions League, Destination Pariss, one on Manchester United’s legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson, the Liverpool Football Club, African superstar Sadio Mane and many more. When it comes to overall soccer content, Paramount Plus is the best.
Stream Champions League games on Paramount+ here.
Watch the soccer documentary All of Nothing on Prime Video
Amazon’s streaming service doesn’t have any live soccer, but it does have arguably the best soccer reality series. It’s called All of Nothing and it offers a fly on the wall view of a full season at a soccer club. Right now, there are seasons following powerhouse clubs like Manchester City (from three years ago), Tottenham Hotspur (from two years ago), and Arsenal (from last year) which feature incredible access to the players and their families. You’d be hard-pressed to watch any of those and not instantly become a fan of those teams.
There’s also an incredible show called This Is Football which has six episodes, each of which showcases a totally new aspect of what makes the sport so incredible and a bunch of others too.
Final all the All or Nothing seasons on Prime Video here.
Watch Welcome to Wrexham on Hulu
Are you interested in soccer but also interested in… superhero movies? Well, Hulu is the home of Welcome to Wrexham, a multi-part documentary series following Hollywood actors Rob McElhenney (Mythic Quest, It’s Always Sunny) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) as they buy a soccer team. They purchased Wrexham FC, a sixth-tier club out of Wales, and the first season of the show follows them buying the club, meeting the players, the fans, and using their Hollywood money and influence to try and be a success.
The show is a beautiful balance of a more modern, celebrity-driven reality show with a wonderful throughline of what a soccer team can mean to a community. It also goes into great detail to explain many of the fascinating facets of the sport for newbies. Truly a great show and perfect entry point for anyone who wants to get into the sport. (Also, Wrexham’s league will soon have its very own streaming rights.)
Watch Welcome to Wrexham on Hulu here.
Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga soccer leagues are on ESPN+
If you subscribe to Hulu you might also have ESPN+. And that streaming platform allows you to watch every game from two of the biggest leagues in the world: Spain’s La Liga, featuring teams like Barcelona FC, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid, as well as Germany’s Bundesliga, featuring teams like Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Plus since it’s ESPN, there are also tons of great documentaries and soccer analysis shows.
Watch La Liga on ESPN+ here.
Watch Sunderland Till I Die on Netflix
Like some of its competitors, Netflix is filled with soccer documentary series, films, and more. A quick search of “Soccer” will show you that. But we’d like to highlight a show called Sunderland Till I Die. It’s a phenomenal documentary about a once mighty English soccer team that has gone through troubles and has been continually relegated, which has deflated an entire city. (Relegation is one of soccer’s coolest concepts, one America could never get away with, where the bottom three teams in a league go to a lesser league every year and the top 3 from the lesser league move up. It’s fantastic and hugely dramatic. Imagine if the worst team in the NFL got dropped to college and the college champion moved to the NFL. That’s relegation.)
Much like Wrexham, Sunderland Till I Die shows just how personal and powerful soccer can be to a person, a city, or a country. Highly recommended.
Watch Sunderland Till I Die on Netflix here.
Save Our Squad With David Beckham streams on Disney+
If we wrote this before the World Cup, Disney+ would not have been on this list. But in the past few weeks, it released a lovely little soccer show called Save our Squad. In it, soccer legend David Beckham goes back to his old neighborhood and teams up with a young boy’s team, coaching and inspiring them to success. It’s very entertaining and a great entry point for kids.
Watch Save Our Squad With David Beckham on Disney+ here.
Fans can watch US Major League Soccer on Apple TV+
In terms of soccer, the big highlight on Apple TV+ is, of course, Ted Lasso. The hilarious, brilliant, award-winning show is about an American coach who goes to the UK to become a soccer coach. And the upcoming third season will have full Premier League integration. Which is cool.
But more importantly, starting in 2023, Apple TV+ will be the home of Major League Soccer, which is the U.S.’s top soccer league. Yes, we have soccer in the United States. You probably have a local team. And next year, you can watch every single game on Apple TV+.
Learn more about the MLS Apple TV+ deal here.
Watch all kinds of international soccer on other streaming sites
Those are just the main streaming services, but you can find world-class soccer in many other places. If you have a team you’d like to follow, usually their website they’ll have some kind of option to watch the games online. Also, your cable provider (if you still have such a thing) will almost certainly carry channels with games featuring women’s teams, Mexican teams, South American teams, and more.
Some providers may have a station called Bein Sports that features games from the French league, Ligue 1, which includes perennial powerhouse Paris Saint Germain, among others.
There are also a wealth of pirate streaming websites on the internet that relay local broadcasts of just about every soccer game in the world. They’re usually loaded with popups and malware and you’d be a fool to try one without an adblocker. We’re also not going to tell you where they are, because they’re illegal. But they’re out there if you look.
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