America's future - Davies and Altidore
Welcome to the World Cup qualifiers. My enthusiasm is tempered. My homeland has qualified, and the match today against Ukraine is only available online, and not from North America through legal means.
We’ve covered the situation with tonight’s USA match. It’s not on regular television at all, only closed circuit, and quite frankly, with the myriad of other sporting events on tonight, I’m not making the drive and coughing up the cover charge to see it.
There are two matches on television worth mentioning today, the Russia/Germany tilt at 11AM EDT, and the 3:45 PM EDT match between Portugal and Hungary, both of which are on Setanta US. Other than that, I’m not much fussed about things. It appears on the DirecTV menu that the Mexico/El Salvador match will not be available on my local Telefutura, only on the variations of TFT that you must pay for. So that’s out, too.
If reading those last few paragraphs make you think I’m indifferent, well, maybe. But I think the machinations of those in charge of making these television decisions for these matches have sapped me of my strength to get angry about these situations. The England situation is understandable. My moral obligations towards my homeland are to worry about injuries, the goalkeeping situation, and why Darren Bent can’t even get a sniff despite being in much better form than Emile Heskey. Those things don’t keep me up at night, they are things that I ponder.
The US television situation is troubling. I think we all understand the implications of tonight’s pivotal match not being on television. It would be one thing if the US had qualified and this match was essentially an exhibition. However, the level of this match’s importance cannot be understated. I can understand ESPN and FSC’s decisions to not pay exorbitant rights fees for a broadcast that they won’t even be producing or control. I also give ESPN credit for (thus far) not emphasizing the fact that the match is today, and oh by the way, you can’t see it.
Tonight? I’ll be sitting in front of the television. I’ll have my laptop open to ESPN’s soccer scores page. I’ll have the Florida/LSU and Michigan/Iowa games on, while waiting for the Phillies to start. I’ll also be worried and nervous, but not like if the match was on television. It’s just not the same.
Talk about the matches in comments, and some early news for next week is that we’ll have Last Call here on Wednesday night for what I expect will be another crucial US match against Costa Rica. That match IS on television, by the way.
Denmark-Sweden should be okay. It matters for both teams, and those two countries are neighbors (I think).
Georgie Bingham is once again looking extremely fine and working the accent in that tiny video box on Soccernet.com this morning. I fear this is just me that hearts her. That is all.
Denmark and Sweden are neighbors, except, you know, for that water in between them.
Darren Bent is tearing up the EPL this season and I honestly couldn’t tell you what team Emile Heskey plays for now- West Ham? Aston Villa?
Villa…he gets about as much game time as I do. In fact, some say his addition to the Villa squad last season is what ruined them; they changed from a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2, and some posit that holding up the ball is exactly what you DON’T want to do when you have Agbonlahor, Young, and Milner running all over the place.
Then Emile Heskey isn’t totally worthless, he earned Arsenal a Champions League spot.
The one thing about Villa’s collapse is that Stoke game they wound up drawing. So many people were talking about how it could be a turning point in Villa’s season, and for once people hyping something up like crazy actually ended up being true.
Wait, could Emile Heskey be England’s Conor Casey?!
In internationally friendly news, Japan 2 Scotland 0.
Not that friendly, lads, not that friendly.
Well, at least we scored a goal. It went into the wrong net, of course, but I hear the finish was pretty clinical.
Oh, and in better news, County wins and is only a point out of first place!
Inverness lost to Queen of the South and dropped to 6th place.
Because I am a “good winner” I will quietly and politely invite ICT to, “suck it.”