USA through to the semi-finals & other soccer items

The US beat Panama today by a score of 2-1 to advance to the semi-finals of the Gold Cup, where they will play Canada. It was a strange game - they dominated the first half but couldn't score, with Taylor Twellman hitting the crossbar and post. Panama played very rough and could have had an ejection or two by halftime. In the second half, the US played poorly, but scored off a penalty and a free-kick. Then Panama did finally have a player ejected. After that, the US fell asleep, Panama scored and the last five minutes were rather stressful. They will have to play much better to beat Canada, which has actually looked pretty good.

More possible corruption in Italian soccer, involving (surprise surprise) Juventus.

Real Salt Lake (dumbest name ever) was playing a exhibition match in Utah against the Chinese national team, when several fans were kicked out for waving Tibetan flags (Chinese flags were allowed). There's more at Blue Blooded Journo, including video. From the video, it seems to me like the protesters were just messing around and trying to heckle a soccer team, rather than make a political statement.

And as a grand finale:

Americans are soccer-savvy ... and that scares little Englanders

Some choice quotes:

Witness the fact that soccer-playing America is massively liberal, loving, caring, socially conscious and nice. While soccer-hating America consists of increasingly isolated gangs of Bush-supporting, bible-bashing, gun-crazed, dungaree wearing, banjo-playing, quasi-fascist chicken-lovers and their twelve fingered, pin-headed, cyclopic, drooling monster children.

...

Why are we scared? Because as a nation we have a desperate need to feel superior to the vibrant barbarian culture that's replaced us as top global ass-kicker.
Face it, feeling superior to Americans is about all we've got left. But the list of things we actually do better than the Yanks is slim and getting slimmer. Did you know that the bastards even brew decent beer these days?