[scratchmonkey]

Winker, you know I will.

We'll see how Mexico does in the remaining Gold Cup games. They really dominated that game against Costa Rica in the quarters and after Guadeloupe upset Honduras, they have a pretty good chance of going to the final after looking like crap in the group stage.

The match between the USA and Canada should be a good one, mainly because Canada's looking really good right now. De Guzman is international class and they've got enough good players around him that they should give the USA a real tough time.

[scratchmonkey]

Booj, Rabite, soccer shows up on the free Spanish-language Univision and Telefutura networks. These cover most of the US at this point, although I don't know if they've made it all the way to Cleveland. Yes, it's Spanish-only; however, all the American soccer commentary blows goats so you're probably better off in that case.

Winker, Guardado has played pretty well so far, they're playing him as an out-and-out left winger as far as I can tell, he obviously needs a lot of work in terms of finishing and he sometimes has trouble with his crosses, he's usually sheer class though.

The Copa America should be sweet, it'll be on Univision/Telefutura/Gol TV, I know that Brazil is bringing a second-strong squad, then again, they won it last time they did that. I'm interested to see what kind of team Argentina puts out there after what I thought was a disturbingly pedestrian side in the World Cup (or at least in the elimination rounds).

[scratchmonkey]

[scratchmonkey]

Guys if you have Sopcast this is the site:

http://livefooty.doctor-serv.com/

Although I have seen it get overwhelmed, especially when there are a bunch of Euro qualifiers all on at the same time.

My rooting preference goes (roughly):

USA > Ecuador > Netherlands > Ireland/Scotland > Any attacking African team

[scratchmonkey]

So do you just not like the Aussies at all then?

I enjoy yelling "What a corker!" in bad Aussie accent when they score.

[scratchmonkey]

Maz, I don't root for Ireland or Scotland because of quality I root for them because they are plucky upstarts whose enthusiastic fans and dubious genetic relationship to myself make up for the shit football.

[scratchmonkey]

They don't have those snappy all-green uniforms though.

Plus I like that they have a player named Ireland. That's class.

(Also a certain misguided liking of John O'Donkey and Shay "I'm Doomed to Play on Crap Teams" Given.)

[scratchmonkey]

Right you are! He was on my EPL fantasy team last year too so I've got no excuse for forgetting that.

Gold Cup semis tomorrow.

[scratchmonkey]

The US group for the Copa:

Argentina
USA
Colombia
Paraguay

It's the middle-difficulty group and I would say that the US has a decent chance of advancing, only they've announced the squad and it has doesn't have most of the Euro-based players and no Donovan on top of that. So, we'll have to see how a mostly MLS-based squad will do. Here's that squad:

gk: keller, guzan
d: bornstein, boswell, califf, conrad, demerit, drew moore, heath pearce, marvell wynne
m: kyle beckerman, rico clark, feilhaber, eddie gaven, sacha kljestan, justin mapp, lee nguyen, ben olsen
f: charlie davies, gomez, johnson, twellman

I would expect the starters to be:

keller
wynne, conrad, demerit, bornstein
gaven, olsen, feilhaber, mapp
johnson, twellman

I have no idea who will play in midfield though, especially since everybody who has been playing winger in the Gold Cup isn't on this roster. Considering how bad we've looked in the Gold Cup, I'm expecting a first-round exit.

[scratchmonkey]

[scratchmonkey]

Guardado is pure class. Best player on the pitch by a wide margin.

[scratchmonkey]

He still was, the US looked a lot better in the second half though. I like Feilhaber a lot and I hope he can get in somebody's first team next year.

Ching and Beasely need to run 10 laps after those misses although Beasely's was far worse. Would have been nice to play those last 10 minutes or so with confidence instead of being in complete disarray.

[scratchmonkey]

I know he's regarded as a pariah, I could see Sven pulling Lazio Part 2 with Man City, creating a team that goes to at least to the UEFA Cup and acts as a 5th team outside of the championship pack, sort of like Tottenham.

Then again, with Henry leaving, it remains to be seen how Arsenal will do in the next couple seasons.

[scratchmonkey]

winker I agree with your rooting choices mainly because I like the Andean teams and who doesn't love Nobby Solano. Plus I gotta root against Uruguay because they are the Italy of South America.

[scratchmonkey]

I'm not really sure, considering that none of the Andean teams are what you would describe as powerhouses.

Platini seems like he's doing a good job as the new UEFA chief though.

[scratchmonkey]

There are a number of Ecuadorians named Hurtado, yeah, so probably an Ecuadorian.

They are my South American team because I was there for a month guys. Also they're bringing back the Soul Glo.

[scratchmonkey]

winker the quality of this match is actually pretty good, not sure why Peru's second got called back though.

[scratchmonkey]

Sopcast is effing up winker. I am watching the TVUplayer feed. I probably should have mentioned that beforehand.

Score is 1-0 Peru, 56th minute, each goalie has pulled off some pretty good saves.

[scratchmonkey]

I don't think Recoba was playing for Uruguay, he's a bit past it and really, until they rediscover attacking as a viable strategy, I have no love for them. It was dandy to see the Condors play so well.

TVUplayer: http://tvunetworks.com/

There's a standalone player or you can use it as a plugin on live-footy.

[scratchmonkey]

Recoba's always hurt!

Alright. Quick tutorial for watching soccer on the intertron:

SopCast and TVUplayer, as well as a number of other programs, can be used as either a standalone application, such as Microsoft Word, or as a plugin inside a web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer because Chinese folks don't have any truck with Firefox). Since the latter's a bit easier, let's stick with that.

Live Footy is a site that collects links to streams of football (and sometimes other sports) over the web. How it works is that you go to the URL linked at the beginning of this paragraph and you scroll down to list of streams under the header of the day you're looking for -- for instance, right now they've got streams for Tuesday and Wednesday up.

Under the header, they'll have a time and an event -- 1200-1900 GMT Wimbledon, for example. Under the event, they'll have links to streams, Stream 1, Stream 2, Stream 3 and so on. Sometimes they'll be followed by an [EN] indicating that the stream is in English (this has proven to be fairly unreliable on the whole).

Click on one of these, like 'Stream 1' and you'll be taken to a page where the browser will attempt to load a plugin. If you don't have it installed, it won't work. If you do, it will, or at least most of the time, on some computers. Each Stream link will take you to a different plugin page. For example, for today's Peru v. Uruguay game, Stream 1 was SopCast and Stream 3 was TVUplayer. If you don't have the player for the stream that you first select, check the others. Some plugins, like SopCast, will load and then have a list of channel links below the plugin that you have to click to load the correct stream. Live Footy will have a bolded directive at the top of this page to tell you which channel to select. Again, since this is all dodgy Chinese bootleg TV, it may or may not be correct.

If you do want to use the stand-alone programs, good luck. There's no real way to figure what channel is what or what might actually be showing at any given time. Since each channel takes up to an ungodly time to load, channel-switching is not really an option unless you don't mind wasting half-an-hour or so to watch a bunch of weird Asian news shows.

[scratchmonkey]

Haven't played yet. They play Brazil tonight.

[scratchmonkey]

The last time Brazil did this they won the Copa and Adriano became a star, so yeah, it's a pretty good strategy. I'm hoping that 1 or 2 Americans make the most of their appearances for an under-strength squad as well -- if he plays, watch out for Wynne. He's 21 and I think the Euro clubs are very interested to see if he can develop the skills to match up to his impressive physical ability.

[scratchmonkey]

That was a great game. Back and forth and back and forth. I love the way Ecuador plays even if it leads to their destruction.

And what a second game! Nery Castillo!

[scratchmonkey]

Yeah, the Copa has been great so far. Loads of attacking play, far more so than the recent WC and Euro tournaments.

I'm going to say that Marquez was MotM for Mexico vs. Brazil. He was instrumental in terms of organizing the defense, breaking up attacks and distributing the ball from the back such that Mexico retained possession. If you guys watched the Gold Cup you'd realize how much of a difference he makes for that team.

As for Brazil, I think Dunga set them up for failure when they came out in a 4-5-1. He'd castrated the team before they'd even kicked a ball. They looked a lot better when Alfonso and Anderson came on -- if they magically replaced Dunga with me, I would replace Elano with Fred and Miniero with Anderson and play a "box"-style midfield from here on it.