FIFA, Their Cups, and My Raging Discontent

OK, maybe half of that ass.

The U.S. Men's loss to Jamaica, and the concomitant early exit from the Gold Cup, put me into a head-scratching funk, just like it did for a lot of American fans. That said, I think I caught a different bug. The short diagnosis goes like this: the loss to Jamaica, and everything about it, didn't piss me off nearly as much as the fact that the U.S. can still reach the Confederations Cup. The long version follows, which elaborates on how totally and ridiculously ass I find the larger situation.

While I forgot the mechanism – that is, the playoff for CONCACAF's Confederations' Cup spot between the 2013 and 2015 Gold Cup champ'eens – it sounded familiar once people started talking and tweeting about it as last night's semifinal slipped further and further out of reach for the U.S. And it's fair on paper: here, in CONCACAF, we just happen to play our regional tournament on a two-year cycle, as opposed to the more common four-year cycle, and, with the Confederations Cup happening once every four years, they had to come up with some way to decide on which team gets to fly the flag...

...at the Confederations' Cup...

...which is like a half-assed World Cup...

...held the year before the World Cup...

...to accomplish? Oh, goddammit!

Gold Cup: The U.S. Frustrates Panama, and Honduras/Haiti Bores Neutrals

That some serious, long-term casting for bully and toady.

Holy shit, that was fun! The U.S. v. Panama was a damn good game. The way the first half ended with that roiling boil that threatened to pour over every side of the pot? It rarely gets better than when an underdog pops the Alpha with a surprise shot to the chin. Good times, good times...

Know what wasn't good times? Honduras' tournament-ending loss to a, let's face it, solid Haitian side. Somewhere in the middle of a lengthy rant that shifted from a specific point – e.g. the prolonged, pointless whine that Honduran coach Jorge Luis Pinto directed at that match's fourth official – to a general one – e.g. the general, embarrassing bitchy petulance toward referees by Major League Soccer players and coaches – the commentating crew noted that the second half of Haiti v. Honduras boiled down to Haiti inviting Honduras to try to break them down. And, lord did they have time for that rant about whining players. That game contained more dead air than a coffin.

They never did it. Honduras, I mean. They barely accepted the invitation to attack, and came close all of once. So, beyond congratulating Haiti for going through, the less said about that game, the better.

Fortunately, the night's second act made up for a grimly poor first and on multiple levels. Panama came out firing on all cylinders, pinning the U.S. back into their own half for large portions of the, well, the half. The Central American side put a young, fairly untried defensive set through a tricky set of wringers before the whistle blew for halftime. As someone who watched the game with me pointed out (and please claim via tweet, if you read this), the Panamanians serve up a mean cross – and that's something they carried into the second half. Panama knocked, knocked, and knocked again, until they finally scored the goal they needed to lift them over Haiti in the Group A standings.

Gold Cup Round Up: After Round One. Round One.

These are the results. And that's the ocean. Or one of the Great Lakes.

Now that I know I won't see all, or maybe even part of tomorrow night's, uh, second, first-round game between the United States and Haiti (or even the subsequent game that pits Honduras v. Panama), I've been trying to figure out what to with all that real estate I cleared in this space to cover the Gold Cup. A couple waves washed over me (some better than others, much like on a beach), I think I came up with something that can be useful, even absent direct observation of all the games under discussion.

Still, let the record show that I really do hope to catch a chunk or two of the U.S. v. Haiti game. It's just life that’s in the way. Again.

At any rate, the idea is that when I can't take in games, I'll at least do some research and put up a little framing for the tournament as it progresses. Call it being relevant, where I can't be authoritative, or even informative. (Then again, when the hell am I ever authoritative?) I plan on posting...something, no matter how loosey-goosey, after each round of games for all teams within this, uh, current, and ongoing, first round of the Gold Cup, e.g. the round-robin phase. Hence the awkward title, "After Round One, Round One," which, here, means the point in the first round of the Gold Cup when all the teams in all three groups has played, first, one game, then two games. When the latter happens, I'll subtitle the recap, "After Round One, Round Two." Get it?

Whatever happens with the mess above, tonight will take the form of so much spit-balling about the first round of results in the context of the first round of the Gold Cup. (Again, are we tracking? Sorry to use a legal term.) My only hope is that someone finds something useful down below.

U.S. Tops Honduras in the Main Course (After a Nice Appretizer)

We are the world! We are the Turkey!

"...I only laced it with PCP."

And that's why I love the bar where I watch soccer most often. Because that's quality eaves-dropping...

One other note before getting into the nitty-gritty. Like most of you, I read two (or more) things today that bunched my undies, e.g.: 1) the record-breaking number of people who watched the Women's World Cup Final; and 2) reports on the comparatively shitty pay that members of that same team made during the tournament leading up to said World Cup final. Yes, yes, women's sports don’t draw with anything like the same consistency as men's leagues do around the world, and, yes, that translates into what they get paid. Still, and even if just domestically, those same women drew a shit-ton of eyeballs for that final, so call this my (extraordinarily modest) call to see them reap some (meaningful) measure of the dollars spinning off that whirlwind. Because they earned it, goddammit. And if it's because the sponsors failed to show up, leverage that shit into the next contract because people, Americans, especially, totally watch the women's game. Make it right. I don’t care how it's done, but fucking pay these women what they absolutely earned.

And, with that, time for the two-course meal that was tonight's CONCACAF Group A kick off.