Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Friendliness

There are some pretty interesting international friendlies that will be played over the next few days, including France v. Argentina. The three games that will be easiest for fans in the U.S. to watch, however, are as follows:

Brazil v. Portugal

3:00pm EST, Tuesday, FSC

Should be an interesting game with some big names, although traditional stalwarts of the two teams, including Figo, Ronaldino, and Ronaldo will not be playing. It will be a good chance to see Kaka, Adriano, Robino (if he plays) for Brazil as well as Christiano Ronaldo for Portugal, who has become one of the best players in the world over the past few months. Presumably there will be no winking during this game, and one thing we know for sure is that Wayne Rooney will not be around to stamp anyone’s nuts. Shame.

England v. Spain

3:00pm EST, Wednesday, FSC

Lots of big names like Raul, Rooney, Owen, Cole, Terry, and Beckham will not be playing, but still enough star power to make this fun. We’ll see how Steven Gerard takes to wearing the captain’s armband, and see how the English team as a whole does when half their team is out injured. The bloodthirsty English press is already calling this a make-or-break game for manager Steve McCalren, but that is probably just typical bluster from a news corps that wouldn’t know moderation if it was, say, kicked in the nuts by it. In the form of a maniacal Wayne Rooney.

USA v. Mexico

9:00pm EST, Wednesday, ESPN2

For the grand championship of North American soccer! (South of Canada, at least.) Bob Bradley looks to be going with a fairly experienced squad for tomorrow night’s match, presumably because he would like to shed the ridiculous “interim” tag and just manage the U.S. team without worrying about being replaced in three months. Personally, I’m all for it. He seems like a good man for the job and, more importantly, he actually wants the job. Anyway, seems like an entertaining enough match that, I’m sure, ESPN won’t try to oversell at all. After all, they never do.

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