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Gold Cup: Matchday Seven (Your Running Commentary)

The Gold Cup resumes tonight as the final round of group stage play commences from Miami, Fl. In the first game of the night, Costa Rica will look to climb from its third place position as they take on a Canadian team that currently sits in first and has yet to allow a goal.

In the second match of the night, the last-place Jamaicans will look to keep their slim Gold Cup dreams alive as they play an El Salvador side that currently stands in second with three points.

This is GianFranco Panizo and I will be providing some commentary from FIU Stadium throughout both matches in the comments section below. Please feel free to follow along here, and as always, you are welcome to share your thoughts and opinions on the matches in the comments section as well.

Enjoy the games.

Comments

  1. Umm, Mexico-Panama is not the reason Concacaf is a joke. Jamaica-El Salvador is. What an awful show. Some of the worst, most boring soccer I’ve seen (worse than even Ukraine-Switzerland at World Cup).

    Posted by: DingDong

    DingDong was right. The lack of a real chance combined with the horrible weather had a lot to do with it.

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  2. I was there last night. Let me tell you all something- it was so miserably hot & humid that it was hard to take. You really suffer as a spectator so imagine how awful it is for the players. The level play suffers greatly because teams can only play quality football in fits and spurts because to otherwise would require 6 subs. I have lived here for 20 years because I work in Latin America primarily and I have always known this. Look at the Marlins- I don’t like baseball very much but my daughter and nephews enjoy the games and they don’t won’t to go after mid May for the above mentioned reasons. It is just no fun to sit with sweat pouring down your back and being attacked by mosquitoes. My wife watch at home on TV and said even the announcers on Univision were mentioning the mosquitoes!!!!

    Ives- as long as MLS remains a summer league there should never be a franchise again down here and I really believe that Garber and the powers that be know that. Yes- it is hot all over North America but no place like here for consistently hot humid conditions from mid May until past Halloween.

    Now if they go to a fall/spring schedule with a winter break? …….South Florida could be a perfect fit.

    With the above in mind I hope WC 2010 remains in South Africa because the climate should make for some great football. Anyone think the U.S. could play with the hustle and passion they did in their last 3 games in a North American summer?

    PS- I went last night to support Canada. I would love to see them emerge, along with Honduras, as part of regularly competitive type five in CONCACAF and when you look at the ages of the players and the squads it is a real possibility

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  3. I’ll second that. American football commentary is dire. They always seem to want to talk about people in the crowd; tell little stories about the players families; and other bits of useless information…just announce the bloody match. I usually just turn the sound down…

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  4. Rageman, I’m a Canadian, so I get to see the announcers on CBC (Nigel Reed and Jason De Vos) and Sportsnet (Gerry Dobson and Craig Forrest), and while they aren’t perfect, they’re a hell of a lot better than any american announcers I’ve heard.

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  5. This is has the potential to be a good move for Jozy, as long as Diogo is sold, otherwise he will be the third striker behind the impressive Brazilian and Derbyshire…

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  6. No offense Memrook but it’s posts like those that that make me shake my head. Why are Americans so whiny about our announcers? They aren’t the best, but Jesus, people. 12 years ago we didn’t even have Fox Sports World(Still sounds cooler than Fox Soccer Channel, btw)and there were USA WC qualifiers that weren’t broadcast by ESPN.

    Comparing our announcers to those of the English(who else would you compare them to?)is idiotic. Their announcers have many levels of lower league footy to earn their stripes and hone their craft either on TV or radio. It’s only the elite that make it to the EPL or the English broadcasts of German, Italian or Spanish football.Those are the announcers that we get to hear. So to compare our announcers to theirs is like comparing MLS to La Liga. It needs time and patience before the two will have any chance of being comparable.

    Sorry, it’s just that you hit a bigsoccer nerve of mine. It doesn’t matter who they truck out there, people complain about the announcers as if there’s this plethora of great announcers from the past whose shoes they can’t fill.

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  7. Cool for Jozy! Just hope he plays. I’m sure he will. They signed Derbyshire, but it sounds like big clubs are coming for Diogo.

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  8. Jason,

    The Jamaicans nearly qualified for the hex, save only for Mexico’s incompetence @ Honduras.

    AND last I checked the US have no strikers starting in the EPL….*cough* Ricardo Fuller * cough.

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  9. Unless my math is wrong:

    If U.S. beats/draws Haiti
    AND
    If Mexico loses to Guadeloupe
    AND
    If Panama beats Nicaragua by 2+ goals
    THEN
    U.S. vs. Mexico next Saturday @ Philly

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  10. The large design on the Jamaica kit is the Kappa logo. It is a littl out of proportion. Personally, I would not be advertising that I am sponsoring the Jamaican National Team.

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  11. memrook: that’s what the analysts do, they analyze.

    Posted by: northzax | July 10, 2009 at 10:10 PM

    Just to clarify, Analysts are great for analyzing, save that for the Alexi Lalases and whoevers for Sports Center highlights and halftime analysis. But during the game how many times have you wished you could turn off the voices talking and at least just hear the crowd noise?? That said, i don’t like watching games with just crowd noise on tv, I actually like pertinent information from knowledgable commentaters during a match; qualities such as interesting, lively, engaging and funny are definitely ok with me too. I just feel American broadcasts of any soccer lack quality in the booth.

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  12. memrook: that’s what the analysts do, they analyze.

    Posted by: northzax | July 10, 2009 at 10:10 PM

    Oh man, you’re absolutely right. But I want my commentators to COMMENTATE, not analyze and bore the bejesus out of me with unrelated banter and “sullivans keys to victory” and their personal tactical advice etc.

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  13. Goalkeeper Miguel Montes hits the free kick and it smashes off the crossbar! Wow.

    Game over. Jamaica gets a much needed 1-0 win over Costa Rica. Their Gold Cup dreams live on.

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  14. The game is starting to heat up in the final moments! Not sure why Jamaica isn’t more focused on staying compact, they keep allowing El Salvador tons of room to attack.

    Just as I say that, El Salvador earns a free kick from close range. This could be the final chance for them.

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  15. Jamaica had a great counter lead to nothing as a Salvadorean defender blocked the shot that was aimed for the wide open goal.

    Jamaica inches shy again of putting the nail in the coffin as a shot stings wide.

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  16. I’m just gonna say it, El Salvadore’s jersey is hideous. I don’t know what that design is on the front but it looks like some generic crap that you’d see on a macy’s kids t-shirt. Any idea what those designs on Jamaica’s shirts and shorts are?

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  17. After reading that target striker article I have to say that we should keep Brian Ching. Looking at the Brazil and Italy matches we needed to have more possession and instead we ended up giving it away a lot. We had the lead against Italy and we couldn’t hold the lead because we gave the ball away, like on the first goal. We needed someone like Ching that we could play the ball into so he use his hold up play to keep possession and redistribute. Instead we had Charlie Davies, who, while useful, didn’t really specialize in hold-up play. He would normally try to beat players with speed and while it worked a good chunk of the time, sometimes he would bite off more than he could chew and lose possession. Now, I’m not a Conor Casey fan, but there would be moments where he could actually hold possession with two players on his back and this came in handy in games against Egypt and Spain where we had the lead and just needed to keep them from scoring. Brian Ching brings more than just the hold up play, he has a tremendous work ethic, great soccer IQ, smooth with the ball at his feet, very good in the air and a never-say-die attitude that really personifies the USA. All that being said, it will be interesting to see what Bob Bradley chooses. I wouldn’t use this against Mexico, at least not IN Mexico, but I’d like to see this at some point.

    ————–Altidore—-Ching————

    ———————Davies—————-

    Donovan—————————–Dempsey

    ———————Bradley—————

    Bocanegra—DeMerit—–Onyewu—Cherundolo

    ——————Howard——————-

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  18. According to FIU Stadium, 17,269 fans turned up for the double-header tonight. Not a bad showing at all.

    Oh look, the wave has returned…

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  19. Yes A.S., the field at FIU Stadium is artificial turf.

    El Salvador is starting to find more holes in the Jamaican defense.

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  20. Jamaica was just inches short of a vital goal! The Jamaican fans all held their breath there! Best play of the entire game.

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  21. Memrook, I definitely agree with you. I think the announcers must be baseball commentators, and they’re used to talking nonsense because there’s so little going on.

    But I don’t think it’s just soccer. American hockey announcers are bloody awful as well.

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  22. The wave hasn’t died. It has gone around at least a good six times and still going. I think the fans are enjoying being part of the wave more than they are watching this game.

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  23. A fan just blared a vuvuzela close to the media press box and man are those things loud! One security worker jumped and described it as an “elephant” sound.

    Oh look, the wave! Surprisingly, the Miami locals really brought it tonight.

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  24. Umm, Mexico-Panama is not the reason Concacaf is a joke. Jamaica-El Salvador is. What an awful show. Some of the worst, most boring soccer I’ve seen (worse than even Ukraine-Switzerland at World Cup).

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  25. AJ, the top two teams from each group plus the two best third-place finishers advance to the quarterfinals. From there, it’s win and advance or lose and get eliminated.

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  26. All of a sudden I’m seeing more Jamaican fans than before. I guess they only wanted to see this game, and with the humidity in South Florida tonight, who could blame them?

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  27. Speaking of poor commentating: You know what my least favorite thing about most American commentators? From mlsnet.com broadcasts to FSC to ESPN to this setanta bs, soccer tv commentators feel is extremely necessary to COACH me while I’m trying to enjoy the game. “So and so should have made the run at such and such time, trapped the ball with the left foot, kept his head down, and struck the ball with top of his laces.”

    I mean, some do it worse than others, but I want to hear about what’s happening, not what should have happened! “So and so passes to whoever, whoever turns the defender, whoever shoots!” or “Great buildup out the back, player X takes on two defenders, player X is tackled hard and draws a foul!” That’s the kind of commentating I like.

    Of course pertinent information is welcome like “Player X used to play for the opposing team, hurt his knee and now is lighting it up for his current club.” Or whatever. But not, “Player X used to date so and so, owned a Ferrari but now owns a hybrid, his favorite song is Mmmbop, etc.” All that garbage I don’t care about or want to know has got to go. And the worst part is, that junk is getting hashed out by the idiots while actual good soccer is happening on the field and their ignoring it.

    I bet more neautral or newer viewers would stick around more if the commentary was as professional as we expect our players to be. Ugh. If i were new to the game, it would take a tremendous amount of self-willpower to keep watching.

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