Stuff that doesn't involve underage footballers

• I decided to watch the final of the Copa America between Argentina and Brazil on Sunday...not that I really like either team, but I figured that at least Argentina had been playing some good football throughout the tournament, so they'd be worth watching.
  
  Wrong.
  
  My theory us that they were so discombobulated by the sight of Julio Baptista acutally scoring that it totally threw them off their game. Baptista not only scored, it was a stunner, and coming so early in the match, it should have given Argentina lots of time to equalize. But although they did have a few good chances, it was Brazil who scored again. Well, technically it was Ayala, trying to atone for his earlier mistake against Baptista by clearing a dangerous ball in the box but sending it into his own goal by mistake. Ouch. It was 2-0 at halftime and 3-0 after an hour, with Argentina looking increasingly cranky and out of sorts. Brazil played like Italy -- solid defensively and then counterattacking dangerously -- whereas Argentina just played like crap.
  
  
• YNBA and I have done our second annual end-of-season awards. Yes, we know we're really behind on that. But it's never too late to award some lucky player Chav Of The Year.
  
  
• David Beckham was unveiled as an LA Galaxy player on Friday; I've got nothing new to say about it, so I won't. But I do have tickets to the Galaxy game against Toronto FC next month. I could sell mine and, you know, have a nice down payment on a house, but I think I'd rather see this one. Also, I wouldn't bet against the Toronto fans reviving some of the dirtier chants about Posh. (Speaking of whom, I watched that NBC special last night, and wow, that was not good.)
  
  
• Toronto picked up another point on the road, holding the Houston Dynamo to a scoreless draw despite having Maurice Edu sent off in the first half. Heading into the all-star break (the "Sierra Mist MLS All-Star Game at Dick's Sporting Goods Park"; how lame does that sound?) they're still second from bottom in the Eastern Conference, but frankly it seems to be much tougher than the Western Conference. And thanks to the MLS's "Everybody wins! Participation counts!" approach, they just have to be among the top 8 out of 13 teams to make the playoffs at the end of the season. That'll be tough, but it is possible.
  
  
• Canada may have sucked at the U20 World Cup, but the Canadian women's team is currently kicking ass at the Pan Am games in Brazil. They thrashed Uruguay 7-0 to open the tournament and then followed it up by beating Ecuador 4-0 yesterday. Some of the team members are also guest blogging over at Canada Kicks; too bad they're not very interesting so far.

Mid-Week Randomness

• I've been sporadically watching the Copa America, but it's slightly weird because I don't like any of the teams that are left in the semifinals. I think at this point I'm cheering for Not Brazil. And for people to kick Leo Messi.
  
  
• Now that Canada's been knocked out of the U20s, I've decided to throw my support behind Spain. It'll be interesting to see if the tinies choke as badly as the senior team does. And they're up against Brazil tonight, so all signs point to yes.
  
  
• An interview with Dale Mitchell, the Canadian U20 coach, where he analyzes what went wrong for them at this tournament and basically says, "We weren't good enough." It's kind of refreshing to see that sort of honesty, but I'd like it even better if he also offered some suggestions about how to fix it.
  
  
• Oh my god, I am so sick of the Tevez to United saga already. And you just know it's going to drag on for ages. I wish I could wake up in August and have it be over.
  
  
• I've been scoping out new cleats and the thing I keep wondering is why so many of them are so phenomenally ugly. I'm somewhat reconciled to the white boots now, but not the gold ones. Or pea-soup green. And there's certainly no excuse for these monstrosities. I also hate these ones, which I keep seeing everywhere, usually in yellow so it makes you look like a platypus. Possibly the worst, though, are these, which appear to come in different colours for each foot, presumably for all those footballers who still haven't learned their right from their left. (As YNBA said, Rio Ferdinand needs shoes too.)

I still don't care about the Copa America

Although I am deriving a certain amount of schadenfreude from the USA's suckitude. This is what you get from sending the third-string so you could beat up on teams in the Gold Cup instead (yes, I am still bitter over them knocking Canada out). I mean, I understand that you can't send the same squad to two back-to-back tournaments. But if you really want to be taken seriously in the footballing world, maybe you should send the better team to the tougher tournament. On the other hand, this way they have a built-in excuse for their non-performance in Venezuela, and they don't have to face the fact that they're really not as good as they think they are.

Anyway, in the tournament that people who aren't me (or US Soccer) actually care about, Brazil have scraped into the next round by beating Ecuador in their final group game. They finished second to Mexico in Group B, with third-place Chile also qualifying for the quarter-finals and Ecuador eliminated. Hosts Venezuela are on top of Group A, despite only winning one game, because everybody in that group has been beating each other. The exception is Bolivia, who are going home winless, while Peru and Uruguay are in to the next round. In Group C, Paraguay and Argentina have already qualified for the quarter-finals despite not having played their third game, with the USA and Columbia amassing zero points so far.

The quarter-finals, starting on Saturday, feature Venezuela v. Uruguay, Chile v. Brazil, and Peru and Mexico against the first- and second-place finishers in Group C, respectively (Paraguay or Argentina). For those of us who don't have digital cable, TLN in Canada is showing all the games with Spanish commentary.*

* I just went to check soccerTV.com to see if/when the Copa America was on here and they've discontinued their Canadian TV listings. Anyone know if there's another site that would have those? I know about Live Soccer TV, but their search interface is kind of a pain.