Okay, NOW I care about the Gold Cup

Canada have made it into the semi-finals, beating Guatemala 3-0 on Saturday. I was only half-watching the game, but Canada seemed to be in control throughout and were cutting through the Guatemalan defence fairly easily. They had a three-goal lead by halftime, and kind of took it easy in the second half. Which meant that most of my entertainment came from counting the number of times Craig Forrest made a disparaging remark about Carlos Ruiz, the Guatemalan striker.

Canada's reward for making it this far is that they get to face the United States in the semis on Thursday. And the US just happen to be the defending champions. No problem, right? Although you never know -- Canada actually managed to win the whole damn thing back in 2000, which surprised the hell out of me.

In the other semi-final, Mexico will meet Guadeloupe -- which has the advantage, from my perspective, of making it slightly less embarrassing for Canada that they lost to Guadeloupe (they're not even a real country!) in the group stage.

It was a good weekend for my teams all around, as Toronto FC also won, thumping league leaders FC Dallas 4-0 on Sunday. The bad news is that they're on the road for the next six games, as the Under-20 tournament will be taking over at BMO Field, and they haven't won a single away game yet this season.

And finally, I am surprisingly pleased by Real Madrid winning La Liga. I know, I know, but...there's all those pictures of happy smiley David Beckham and the mini-Beckses! I am helpless in the face of so much identical blondness. (Although the thought of Tom Cruise lurking in the background mitigates that somewhat. Ick.)

I feel like I should care about the Gold Cup

And yet, no.

Maybe it's because I'm in full-on summer mode, which means I'd rather be outside playing soccer than writing about it. (Unless y'all want to hear about how my team totally got shafted by the referee on Friday. No? Didn't think so.)

Or then again, maybe it's because Canada lost to Guadeloupe in their last game. Yeah. Guadeloupe. After beating Costa Rica to start the tournament. One step forward, two steps back. Anyway, they face Haiti tonight in their final group match, with qualification for the next round still undecided.

In the other two groups, the USA already have six points from two matches in Group B and are assured a spot in the quarter-finals. Mexico, who you'd expect to be the other big name, lost to Honduras and are down in third place in a very tight Group C. They still have a chance to progress, though, because the tournament is set up so that the top two finishers from each group plus the next two best teams all go through.

Other things I am trying, and failing, to care about right now:

• England, David Beckham's renaissance, Euro 2008 qualifying, and Steve McClaren's attempts to remove his head from his ass.
  
• The European U21 tournament (me and David Bentley, apparently).
  
• The topsy-turvy penultimate weekend in La Liga and Leo Messi's hand-of-god goal. (When did I start disliking Barca more than Real Madrid? I feel very weird about this.)
  
• Toronto FC, who lost 2-1 to New York Red Bulls last week, after taking the lead in the first half but giving up two quick goals from Juan Pablo Angel in the last half-hour. I think I'm a bad fan because I don't pay much attention to them unless I'm actually at the games.
  
• The rumours about Man United buying Carlos Tevez, presumably as part of Sir Alex's quest to assemble the fugliest team in the Premiership. (This is the complete opposite of Arsene Wenger's policy, which involves only buying nubile young French boys.)

One day there will be proper content up here again. But it is not this day.