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Euro U21 Championships Underway – England v Spain Today!

June 12, 2011 — by Suman

Now here's some football to watch over the next couple weeks: the UEFA U21 Championships started yesterday in Denmark.  Eight teams are competing: Spain, England, Iceland, Switzerland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Belarus, and the hosts Denmark; and two of the favorites meet in their first group stage match later today: Spain plays England at 2:30pm ET (in the US, you can watch the game on ESPN Deportes or ESPN3.com). The Spain squad features two players that were reserves on last summer's World Cup champion senior national team (midfielders Javi Martínez of Athletic Bilbao and Juan Mata of Valencia), as well as three players that saw bits of playing time with Barcelona this past season (Jeffrén, Bojan Krkić, and Thiago Alcântara). Interestingly all three of those Barça players have roots outside of Spain. Alcântara is tipped by many as the next great Barcelona midfielder; he was actually born in Italy to Brazilian parents, and quite fine

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International Football–at Citi Field

June 9, 2011 — by Suman

We've been slaking our thirst for footy action with mostly meaningless international matches--the 4-0 hiding the USMNT suffered against Spain last Saturday afternoon in Foxborough, followed up by a lackluster 2-0 victory against Canada in their opening Gold Cup match Tuesday night; the Netherland's scoreless draw against Brasil Saturday down in Goiânia, and then their 1-0 loss yesterday against Uruguay in Montevideo (apparently the Dutch gamely undertook this two-match South American tour to give the two South American powers both a chance to warm up for the upcoming Campeonato Sudamericano Copa América (July 1-24 in Argentina) as well as a chance to avenge their eliminations from WC2010
A rare full house at Citi Field
One that slipped under our radar was a friendly played a mere handful of miles from the CultFootball headquarters--Greece and Ecuador played to a 1-1 draw in front of a packed house of

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CONCACAF Gold Cup 101: An Infographic by US Soccer

June 7, 2011 — by Suman — 1

The CONCACAF Gold Cup started on Sunday, with four games already in the books. The USMNT kicks off its campaign tonight, taking on Canada at Ford Field in downtown Detroit (8pmET on FSC).  US Soccer has produced an infographic with just about everything you need to know about "the region's most important international tournament" (click to view a larger version):  
Gold Cup 101

PreviewScheduleUnited States

What to Watch This Weekend

June 3, 2011 — by Suman

We took a few weeks off from our guide to the upcoming weekend's televised matches.  It's perhaps an odd time to resurrect it, just after the climax of the European club season--but actually perhaps it's more necessary now that we're asking ourselves--what exactly are we supposed to watch, now that they're done playing in Europe? Well, for starters, they're not done playing in Europe--there's a full slate of Euro 2012 qualifiers this weekend.  Though to be honest none of the matchups qualify as must-see.  We're more interested in a pair of international friendlies that will end up being a tasty doubleheader on Saturday: Brazil hosting the Netherlands in a rematch of last summer's shock World Cup quarterfinal upset, and USA hosting the World Cup winners, Spain. (TV listings below pulled from the Washington Post's SoccerInsider post of comprehensive TV listings for the weekend.) Saturday, June 4 (all times ET) England-Switzerland 11:30 a.m.

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Two Seleção friendlies, a farewell to Ronaldo, preparations for Copa América 2011, and the accompanying roster intrigue

June 2, 2011 — by Mark

The Brazilian national team will play two friendlies in Brazil over the next week. First, on Saturday in Goiânia, a rematch of the quarter-final game with Holland that ended Brazil's campaign in last year's World Cup. And then on the following Tuessday, Ronaldo's farewell game, against Romania, held at the Pacaembu stadium in São Paulo.
This man really had quite a career. The Seleção has important business to do, but Ronaldo deserves his send-off
On the 19th of May, Brazil coach Mano Menezes announced the roster for those games and gave us a decent idea of the team he'll use for the upcoming Copa América in Argentina. The list includes 28 players for the two friendlies, plus Ronaldo, who will only play for some part of the first half of the second friendly. The plan is for Ronaldo not to be a starter in that game,

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CommentaryPreview

The Element of Suicide, Or What Must Go Right For Manchester United To Win

May 25, 2011 — by Adam

[Editors' note: We welcome back Adam Novy for a preview of this Saturday's little match in London--Manchester United versus FC Barcelona, meeting at Wembley for the 2011 UEFA Champions League final.]
Suicidal tendencies?
Manchester United is a cunning team who play a vintage 4-4-2 formation and, when focused, do well controlling games against big teams, as with their three recent wins against Chelsea, a side who always used to kill them. While Barcelona my be slightly overrated by a droolingly uncritical press who’ve made them poster kids for liberal self-congratulation despite their racist players, they play the best and most attractive football of any club in memory, and have five or six of the best position players in the world, including Leo Messi, who’s in a class by himself. To beat Barcelona, Utd will need a number of things to go their way, and, if any

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Commentary

End of the World Thoughts

May 19, 2011 — by John Lally

Following on from my end of the season thoughts, and given that posters and flyers all over NYC are declaring Doomsday this Saturday, around 6pm, I thought I should sum up the best and worst of the entire history of football, dating back to when I started watching and including only games that I have seen.
Doomsday comes 6 days too late to save West Ham
Best player (Spurs) Has to be David Ginola. Far and away the most entertaining player I've ever seen in a Spurs shirt, every time he got the ball the whole crowd would hold their collective breath to see what would come next. Best player (non-Spurs) Has to go to Cristiano Ronaldo; he would torment defenders, infuriate the crowd with his playacting antics, but normally end up scoring or setting up goals and lead his side to victory.  His showboating was fantastic, until you had to watch Gary

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Matches Today: Intra-Portuguese Europa League final, Copa Libertadores quarters

May 18, 2011 — by Suman — 1

We lamented a bit last week over the close of the (European) club season, with most of the big leagues decided (and after the weekend, France (Lille) and the Netherlands (Ajax) also crowning champions). So what else is a CultFootball fan to look to, aside from the upcoming Champions League final (10 days away!)?  Well, just today there are three tasty matches to watch. First, there's the Europa League final taking place in Dublin between two Liga Sagres sides--the nearly Invincible Porto against Sporting Braga.  And later in the day, two Copa Libertadores quarterfinal 2nd leg matches-- Brazilians Santos hosts Colombian Once Caldas (Santos having won the 1st leg 1-0 on the road), and Paraguayan side Libertad hosts Argentine Vélez Sársfield in Asunción (Vélez Sársfield won the 1st leg 3-0 in Buenos Aires). (US TV coverage is as follows: the Europa League final is at 2:15pm ET live on DirectTV and

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