This fever you mentioned must be going around... I seem to have come down with it as well.

I couldn't believe I had to follow the USA vs. Czech Republic game on ESPN Game Cast due to it taking place in the middle of my work day. At least I was able to catch it on the DVR last night - disappointing as it was.

Seeing as you don't have cable, can I take that to mean you don't have access to ESPN2-HD/ABC-HD? How horrible. Those German fields look brillant on the 53" HD Widescreen!

Go Team U.S.A.!

Hei man, watch out saturday, when Italy will send all your world domination dreams to hell :-)

Yeah, yeah, yeah... the Italians are good - OK they are really good - but I think the Americans might be the dark horse in this race. If they can get their heads back into it, they are going to be dangerous!

Yeah, I am watching it on ABC-HD and Univision-HD. Soccer never looked so good. It looks even clearer than when I play in person. ;)

If the U.S. can pull it together and get a better game out of Beasley and Donovan, they might have a chance against Italy. But it doesn't look good right now.

Have you given any thought to some cowbell next time? It might clear up that fever.

A chance against Italy? Well I guess you never know in soccer, ... but I would not bet on it.
Maybe with an early goal followed by serious defensive play and a vast amount of luck.

I like the U.S. game more though, Italy always plays that same boring defensive game.

I'm very curious about the U.S. vs Ghana match.
(U.S. - Iran would be nice 2 hehe)

Too bad Belgium did not make the tournament, ...They'd probably win the cup ;).

You could also try one of these methods to stream the games
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,71112-0.html?tw=wn_index_4


;-)

It's in Italian, but I wrote a post on 2 geek tools to follow the World Cup:
http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/piyo/archive/2006/06/15/worldcup_2006_for_geeks.aspx

A Firefox plugin and a.... telnet session

Well Simo... looks like the US was able to (nearly) pull off the win, but I'm happy with the tie too. Those refs totally blew that match though. Italia's red card was deserved, but that red against Pope - two minutes into the 2nd half - was just rediculous!

Well, now all that matters is that the US takes down Ghana and the Italia can knock off the Czechs. So I say, Go Team USA, and Go Italia!

I didn't watch the match (I was on the way to climb a north face), but I hope both Italy and USA can pass to the next fase.

@Steve Harman: The ref in Italy - US did a very good job actually, in fact the first yellow card for Pope should have been red straight away. The second one was clearly a yellow card.
The Italian red card was one of the dirtiest fouls I've seen so far. McBride sure was motivated afterwards :).

I enjoyed that match a lot, in soccer a well motivated team like US can really give their opponent a hard time.

These things I noticed about the US:
- they play a VERY physical game. (they remind me of the Belgian way of playing)
- the strikers dribble the ball a lot. (what is very cool to watch)
- Beasly's nickname should be Roadrunner...

Hopefully they play their next game with the same fire.

I think the red for Mastroeni should have been a yellow though. Giving him a straight red for a slide tackle was a bit harsh compared to the Italian red card.

Yeah if you compare it against the Italian red card it is, but then again - there are only 2 colors. That is why red cards are evaluated and punished according the degree of the foul.

It is unfair that De Rossi only gets 1 match suspended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_FIFA_World_Cup_disciplinary_record

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniele_De_Rossi