Canada-centric linkspam

• First up, some (moderately) good news for those of us in Canada: Setanta Sports is going to be launching a Canadian soccer channel in partnership with Rogers Cable. There aren't a lot of details yet, but they're hoping to have it up and running by the time the Premiership season starts on August 11. It'll probably be a premium channel, costing about $15 a month. Which is pretty steep, but I'm going to suck it up and pay so I can get my fix.
  
  Basically, what's happened is this: The Score bought the Canadian rights for Premiership games, and is going to be sub-licensing them to Setanta. The Score will carry the 11am Sunday games, while Setanta will have most of the other games. Rogers Sportsnet, which was previously showing three games on Saturdays, will now only have one: the second-choice 10am match. FSWC, I think, is going to be left out in the cold.
  
  
• The police inquiry into the incident with the Chilean U20 team has exonerated the officers involved. Hopefully that'll be the end of that.
  
  
• The Canadian women's team came home from the Pan Am Games with the bronze medal, beating Mexico 2-1 in the third-place game. It was kind of a so-so tournament for Canada: they dominated their first two group games but then lost to Brazil 7-0 (or, really, losing to Marta +10) in the final round-robin match and went down 2-1 to the USA in the semi-finals. (The USA, represented by an U20 team, went on to lose 5-0 to Brazil in the final.) They've got a couple weeks off now, and then it's back to training for the World Cup in September.
  
  
• Toronto FC are finally back at home, but still struggling. They lost 4-2 to Aston Villa in a friendly last week -- although at least that was a decent performance, with TFC going down 2-0 and then coming back to tie it up before losing to a couple of late goals. On Sunday, though, they lost 3-0 to the Chicago Fire, and they were terrible.
  
  The team, unfortunately, is carrying a lot of injuries, including both their first- and second-string keepers. (Jose Mourinho is almost feeling sympathetic right now.) They actually had to start an 18-year-old rookie in net this week -- but the problem was less the goalkeeping and more the rest of the team in front of him. They had nothing going forward and even less defence. I know the MLS isn't the greatest league in the world, but come on. You can't let players just walk into the box unmarked.
  
  Up next: A home game against the LA Galaxy (aka David Beckham And His Man Crumpets). Still no word on whether Becks will play, but if he does, I'm sure he'll get quite the reception the first time he goes to take a corner.
  
  
• I forgot to mention this before, but the 2008 MLS All-Star Game is going to be held in Toronto.
  
  
• Why soccer isn't hockey. Not a bad clip from the CBC, with a reporter venturing into the stands during a Toronto FC game. Actually, this reminds me that I have a theory that part of the reason why soccer has been (relatively speaking) welcomed here is that hockey, rather than a "summer" sport like baseball or football, is our number one sport. And soccer -- despite the insanity of the Stanley Cup finals being played in June -- doesn't conflict too much with the hockey season.

U20 World Cup Finals

Czech Republic 1-2 Argentina
So Argentina won, as you might have predicted. But although they dominated possession, the teams were very closely matched, in a replay of their scoreless draw from the group stage. The opening goal didn't come until the 60th minute, and it was the Czechs who struck first, with Martin Fenin holding off the defender to swivel and power his shot in at the far post.

Argentina responded almost immediately -- you're always more vulnerable when you've just scored a goal -- with a perfect through ball from midfield that split the defence for Aguero to run onto and slot past the keeper. The winning goal for Argentina was late in the game, Miguel Zarate beating Radek Petr at the near post and making his team six-time world champions at this level. The commentators seemed to think that Petr was slightly out of position for the shot, and he did look wrecked after the game, but if so, it was harsh on him, because he'd he'd been outstanding throughout the tournament up till that point.

Also outstanding: Sergio Aguero, who won both the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball, and of course is now going to be constantly referred to as the new Leo Messi. (Can you even have a new Messi if the old one's only 20?) And Maxi Moralez, who is literally easy to overlook but has been fantastic in every game I've seen, even when, like in this one, he's running around with his head all bandaged up. Finally, I have to give kudos to the referee; when he pulled out his card for an early booking, I was afraid it was going to turn into a repeat of Argentina-Chile, but although there were plenty of fouls, he seemed to keep things under control. Yay for avoiding another international incident.

In the third-place match, Chile managed to cobble together 11 fit players to beat Austria 1-0, the only goal coming from a free kick in first-half injury time that defender Hans Martinez volleyed acrobatically into the net. The third-place finish is Chile's best ever and will hopefully console them somewhat for losing out to Argentina in the semis. As for Austria, they did well to make it this far, and I'm going to give them (collectively) the final Bad Hair Award of the tournament, for all painting the Austrian flag on the back of their heads.

That's it for the U20s, although if I feel really ambitious I may do some sort of overall tournament wrap-up. Depends how bored I am by all the pre-season friendlies: quite a bit, or a really staggering amount?

U20 World Cup: Semi-finals

Austria 0-2 Czech Republic
Chile 0-3 Argentina.

Well, that was ugly.

I'm referring mostly to the post-game scenes at the Argentina-Chile match last night. Some of the Chilean players, understandably not happy about two of their teammates having been sent off, squared up to the referee, who had to be escorted off the pitch by the police. And it got worse after that. It's not really clear what made everything kick off -- there's supposed to be another press conference later today -- but basically, some of the Chileans got into a scuffle with the police as they were boarding their team bus outside the stadium. (There's a fuzzy YouTube video here, but if you can tell what's going on, your eyes are better than mine.) It ended up with one of them getting tasered, several being handcuffed, and the team taken back into the dressing room to be detained. Nice.

As for the game itself? Well, that wasn't too pretty either. It started well enough, with chances for both sides, before Argentina's opening goal: a through ball to Angel di Maria, and a beautiful first-time finish that crashed in off the inside of the post. But a few minutes later it got worse for Chile, as Gary Medel was sent off for kicking out at Gabriel Mercado.

After that a little bit of football actually managed to break out, but basically the game was a flurry of fouls, yellow cards, and players rolling around in feigned agony. The Argentines were particularly good at this -- I'm sure the senior team would be very proud of them -- but the Chileans weren't exactly innocent victims either. Here is the thing: you can play hard, possibly even dirty, or you can bitch and whine about being fouled. You cannot do both. No, you can't. Because I said so, that's why.

I think the referee, Wolfgang Stark, really didn't help matters. He set a precedent by pulling out a yellow card for practically the first foul of the night, and once he'd sent off Medel (a debatable call, because Mercado kicked out at him as well; Mercado just happened to be the one on the ground pretending he'd got hit in the face), it was all downhill from there. Chile had another player sent off in the 77th minute for picking up two yellows -- it's hard to tell, from the cluster of players around the ref, but I'm assuming the second was for dissent. And, yes, that's a stupid thing to get booked for, but you can kind of understand their frustration by that point. The one Chilean player who stood out for me was the goalkeeper, Toselli, who's also their captain and did his best trying to keep his team calm. Oh, but he got booked for his troubles as well.

There were a couple other goals for Argentina -- Claudio Jacob converting a cross from Maxi Moralez, and then Moralez adding another one in stoppage time -- but the whole game just left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Austria-Czech Repulic match on Wednesday night was relatively calm by comparison. But then again, it also bored the crap out of me. The Czechs were up 2-0 after 15 minutes, with goals from Tomas Micola and Martin Fenin, and were happy to just sit back and fend off Austria for the rest of the game. The Czech Republic had the advantage of having stayed in Edmonton after their quarter-final match, while Austria had flown in from Toronto and were also missing a bunch of key players through suspensions and injuries. Erwin Hoffer started up front for Austria, but all he did was prove that he's much more effective coming on as a sub.

Anyway, I've decided that I'll be cheering for the Czech Republic in the final on Sunday. I can't support Argentina after all the nastiness yesterday, not to mention, well, they're Argentina. Plus, how can you not love the Czechs for celebrating their victory by (1) making a train across the pitch and (2) putting on deely-boppers?

And speaking of ugliness, yes, it's the Bad Hair of the Day award. I was going to give it to Chile's Christian Suarez for his half-cornrows, but then I saw his teammate Mathias Vidangossy, who has managed to combine a fauxhawk-cum-mullet and a few straggly rattails with a really unfortunate dye job that makes him look like he's got a rust-coloured opossum on his head. A truly stellar achievement.

U20 World Cup: Quarter-finals

Austria 2-1 USA (aet)
Spain 1-1 Czech Republic (3-4 on penalty kicks)
Chile 4-0 Nigeria (aet)
Argentina 1-0 Mexico

I finally got to see one of the games live: I went to USA v. Austria on Saturday. It was a great game to watch, too, aside from the fact that it rained the entire time. This is not fun in an open stadium. I'm sure the guys outside selling rain ponchos made a fortune that day.

Anyway, I sort of feel like I should apologize to YNBA and goalscoring robot for cheering for Austria and jinxing their team, but I really didn't think the Austrians were going to win. Especially not after they gave up a goal in the first 15 minutes. They pulled one back just before halftime though, with the US keeper spilling a shot (blame it on the rain, as both Milli and Vanilli would say) and Ruben Okotie pouncing on the rebound. That was pretty much the only useful thing I saw Okotie do all game; he had a terrible first touch, and I can't figure out why he started the game instead of Erwin Hoffer, unless it was deliberately planned so that Hoffer could do his super-sub thing once again.

Hoffer came on as a sub in extra time (and I should point out here that he has his nickname shaved into the side of his head, which is an excellent reason for y'all to make fun of him), and just as he did against Gambia, he bagged the winner for Austria. It had been a very physical game, with a total of 41 fouls and 12 yellow cards -- and two of those yellow cards went to the US left back Anthony Wallace, who was sent off in the 103rd minute. The resulting free kick pinged around the box before Hoffer scrambled it into the net, sending his team into the semi-finals.

I only saw bits and pieces of the other matches, but I did catch Spain reverting to form (i.e., choking) against the Czech Republic on Saturday night. Both teams failed to score in regular time, although Spain's Adrian Lopez missed a tap-in on an open net near the end of the game. In extra time it was much the same, with the score level at 1-1 and Spain again wasting a great chance to win the game. Instead they went to penalty kicks, Manchester United's Gerard Pique had his shot saved, and the Czechs won their second straight game on penalties.

Chile and Nigeria were also scoreless after 90 minutes, but then the game exploded in extra time. Jaime Grondona scored what would be the winning goal for Chile just five minutes in, but the Chileans also scored a penalty in the 114th minute and followed it up with two more goals, just to pour salt in the wounds, as Nigeria pushed forward desperately in search of a goal.

Argentina v. Mexico was the only quarter-final match that didn't go to extra time. The two teams largely nullified each other, with the decisive goal coming from the pocket-sized Maxi Moralez (seriously, he's shorter than I am; that is short) just before halftime. These were two of the best teams in the competition so far, and the Mexicans may feel they were unlucky to meet in the quarter-finals. But it'll be Argentina v. Chile in Toronto on Thursday, while Austria fly to Edmonton to take on the Czechs on Wednesday.