More Euros and Copa America Talk

Another round of talking about the Euros and Copa America.

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Transcript

This is Julio's Corner, my corner of the internet, where I talk about whatever is on my mind.

Usually, I'll talk about TV shows, movies, or whatever new content has taken my interest.

And this episode is being recorded on Sunday, June 30th, 2024.

Today's episode is going to be more Copa America and more Euros, because these tournaments are still going, and these are the things that have been occupying my time.

But first, if you will indulge me, my few listeners out there, if I have any, I wanna rant a little bit.

So, what's going on with my life?

I'm poor.

I am a 47-year-old New Yorker living in New York, and cost of living is what it is, and I make what I make.

And so, I have a roommate to help divide the cost, but things are tight.

Finances are what they are, and it's stressful.

And so, when before, I should say, before the euros started to happen, and of course, Copa América was about to happen, I was brainstorming how am I going to see it, because this was a chance to see both at the same time, and this would have been the first time, well, it is the first time I would get to see the euros.

And I looked at the different options, and I signed up for YouTube TV, because as well as watching those, as you know, my previous episodes, I also got back into wrestling, and I wanted to see Monday Night Raw.

And Monday Night Raw is on a cable channel.

It's on USA Network, and SmackDown is on Channel 5, Fox.

So Fox I can catch locally if I, well, at the time, I didn't have a way to see local TV, because I don't have, I mean, I do have a TV and I have an antenna, but I don't have a way to record anything, except through my TiVo.

I do have a TiVo, but then I have to watch it on the TiVo, which is locked down to watching it from home.

I know this is not exactly a worst-case scenario.

The worst-case scenario would be I have no TV and no thing, but bear with me, okay?

We're dealing with first-world problems here, so yes, this is a first-world problem rant.

But still, it's significant to me.

Anyways, so I got the YouTube TV.

And yeah, it's great, it's convenient.

I can record everything.

It has unlimited bandwidth for the DVR, built into the price point of $73 a month.

And that's how I've been watching these games.

But paying the piper came around.

It was time to pay the piper.

I was going through my budgets, and I realized, yeah, I am not in a good enough situation where I can afford to maintain this way of life.

And so I should cut YouTube TV out of my budget.

I have to enact austerity cuts, as the government would say about whenever they go over their budgets, we have to take austerity measures.

So I came across...

I mean, I have the YouTube...

I have the TiVo, which obviously is already here.

But then the problem is, there's no way to extract anything I record from the TiVo from it.

It's stuck on that device, and I can only watch it here.

And obviously, if I'm at work, I'm not here, and therefore I have no access to my recordings.

But lo and behold, there's this company, I think it's called Silicone Dust.

They make these things called HD Home Runs devices.

And so I bought the HD Home Run Flex 4K, which allows me, with the antenna, to record local channels, because thankfully, a lot of the Eurogames were recorded on Fox, and all of Copa America is being recorded on, is being aired, I should say, on Univision and their other channel, Unimas, which are local channels.

So channel 68 and channel 41 and channel 5 would give me the ability to record a lot of, well, all of Copa America and most of the Euros.

And as a matter of fact, it would allow me to record the Eurogames I care about the most, because the more important ones, like France and Portugal or whatever, would be airing on channel 5, on Fox, whereas the other ones, the more obscure ones I'm not really interested in, like Austria and Hungary or whatever, those would be on FS1 or FS2 or whatever, which I do not have access, because those are cable channels.

I mean, I have access with them if I stayed with YouTube TV.

So, as my billing cycle was about to lapse on the 28th, I think it was, or the 27th of June, today is the 30th, so three to four days ago, I let it lapse and I tried out the over-the-air option.

And sadly for me, it left me with very mixed results because there's two ways that I can record with this HD home run device.

I can record on the device itself, and then there is a way to download those videos and play them on my iPad with the VLC player app, or I can use Plex, which is another service that I use to stream all my digital content throughout my network.

But that would require me to leave my computer on 24-7.

And so I first tried just using the HD home run base because I attached the hard drive to it.

And yeah, it took forever to download the recorded content.

And sometimes the quality was odd.

There would be weird artifacts in the recordings.

It would just stop at certain points.

Or the over-the-air reception wasn't great, so there would be pixelation, which I mean, whatever.

I can, I guess, deal with that.

But when it would just freeze up for no reason, and then I would have to force fast forward, I would have to force it to get to the next time frame to continue watching the recording.

That got a little annoying.

So the next option was to try to do it through Plex, because if I use Plex to control the HD home run, it'll record everything on the computer, and then it's an easier download, because it's already saved on the computer.

I can just then do a quick transfer to my iPad, because it's already there on my computer.

It's a much faster hard drive, and it just takes a few minutes versus, you know, it'll take like, let's say, five minutes to get it off my computer, versus 30 minutes from doing it through this website to connect to my device.

The problem with that was that my computer wouldn't always stay awake.

It sometimes would fall asleep, and so one time it recorded a thing successfully, and then another time it didn't.

So those were, in my eyes, it's a failure, because I was expecting it to always be available, like YouTube TV was, and it wasn't.

So then I just stuck to just the HD Home Run base.

I'm sorry, the HD Home Run Flex 4K device.

And I decided to let me use a faster hard drive, because I figured maybe if I use a flash drive, because I have a Samsung T7 2TB flash drive, which I used when I was in college for film classes, because you need a fast hard drive to transfer files back and forth for video editing and whatever.

I figured with that, maybe that would help speed up the downloading from that device.

And it did.

It actually cut the time in half.

So there was something to it.

The slow spinning hard drives just add more download time.

However, I still had the problem where the recording wasn't perfect.

One thing I noticed, and I guess I should have realized it, but I didn't.

When it was recording the Columbia game, it was halfway recording it.

And I figured, well, let me download some of it for now, and then I'll watch it, and then I'll download the rest of it later.

Somehow by doing that, this is my assumption, my theory, because of the end result.

So I did that, and I got half of the game, but it was choppy and bad.

And then when I tried to download it later, you know, when the game was over, it gave me the same file.

So somehow doing a download in the middle of its recording cancels the rest of the recording on the device, even though it has like four tuners.

And so technically it should be recording and allowing whatever.

Point is, it failed.

So there was that.

And then the other game, well, then there was also SmackDown.

So SmackDown recorded completely.

I downloaded the whole thing, and it just had some weird issues where it would just freeze up in the middle of the recording.

And again, I had to fast forward it to get to the next part of the recording.

So yes, I understand these are first world problems, but these problems matter to me because I want to watch these games, and I want to be able to watch them with ease and without stress and anxiety so I can experience the drama of these once-in-a-four-year, once-in-every-four-year events.

That's what's so critical about the Euros and the Copa América and the World Cup.

You have these competitions that matter, and it's only once every four years.

So unlike your regular NFL Super Bowl that's every year or your normal professional leagues that have tournaments or rankings every year, this is once every four years.

So if you miss out this one time, this may be your last time.

And also, you're representing your country.

So it just gives it more gravitas.

And it makes the end result, if successful, it makes it a lot more cathartic.

It brings out catharsis.

And this is a great, if only it could, but this would be a great replacement to war.

Instead of having war and stuff, you can have this peaceful solution of having bragging rights via this tournament where you're being represented.

But anyways, so I do this for you guys.

Not really.

I do it for myself, but a good byproduct of my indulgences is you get this podcast recording.

So anyways, to end this rant, I just re-signed up with YouTube TV, and luckily FS1 and FS2 did re-airings of the Columbia match, and the Brazilian match, so I was able to still get them, albeit not in Spanish, which I prefer.

But I got to re-get them, and watch them, and all is well in the world of Julio's Corner.

So rant over.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

This is probably going to be longer than my normal 30 minutes, as I am already at 14 more or less.

We'll see what the edits will do.

Anyway, on to the Euros.

So, the Euros.

We were talking in the last episode about the chances of Scotland qualifying to the next round.

And I thought they had a chance if they could beat Hungary.

Well, surprise, surprise, they could not.

They lost to Hungary.

Hungary beat them and eliminated Scotland.

I think with that, Hungary got third place, and they advanced to the round of 16, or the knockout rounds, the knockout rounds.

So, Italy, ever since they lost to Spain, they kind of lost a little bit of their bluster, and they just weren't the same team.

And it showed in their second match when they went up against Croatia.

And Croatia took a lead, took the 1-0 lead, but in the final minutes of extra time in the game, because they allotted an extra eight minutes.

So, after the 90-minute mark, there was an extra eight minutes.

Within the final two minutes or so, Italy scored and tied the game, which made them advance to the knockout stage and eliminated Croatia, because with two points, there just was no way that they were going to advance, because they were the weakest third-place team.

Germany played against Switzerland in their third game, and they tied the game.

So, they beat, they crushed Scotland in their first game.

They beat, I forget who the second team was that they beat, but they beat them relatively handedly.

But with Switzerland, who was fighting to get in, they managed a tie.

So, Germany and their group stayed in first place with the tie, because they had a total of seven points.

And Switzerland with the tie stayed in second place.

Spain remained undefeated.

They got all three wins, so they got all nine points, and they allowed no one to score against them.

So, right now, Spain is the number one team in the Euros.

They're the ones to look out for.

However, sadly for Spain, they are also in the toughest half of the knockout phase.

And I will get more into that later on, because of another team that's been disappointing, but got lucky.

So, that's going on.

That's with Spain.

So, now France.

Let's see.

France, in their second game, they played against...

No, this is their last game.

They played Poland.

So, this time Mbappe played, and he managed to score the first goal of the game with penalties.

Then Lewandowski tied the game with a penalty kick of his own.

And so, they pretty much went out.

They've ended the game in a disappointed result with only a tie, giving them second place.

So, they could have been first place in their group, and that's what everyone expected of them.

But sadly, nope, they have been disappointing all, well, this first round of games.

And they managed to stay in second place with five points because they had one win and two ties.

Tied against Poland and tied against the last team they played, I don't remember now.

And Austria, surprisingly, the one team I didn't think was going to amount to anything, they ended in first place in that group.

They got two wins and one loss.

On to England.

England, last match was against Slovenia.

So everyone thought, you know, at the very least England should come out undefeated with this game.

They should dominate.

I mean, they need to wake up at some point, right?

I mean, all the high level players on that roster and how well they do in their respective professional premier league groups and whatnot, they should be able to dominate and show something.

But nope, they ended in a 0-0 tie against Slovenia of all places, so of all teams, I should say.

And so because of that, Slovenia survived to stay in third place, and England got in at, I believe, second place.

So despite that, despite losing, sorry, well, not losing, tying against Slovenia, to me, that's a loss because you should have done better.

I mean, you're England, and you have all these people on your team.

You have, you know, Foden, Walker, Bellingham, Kane.

I'm sure I'm missing some others.

It's just the roster is filled with these great players on other teams, you know, from Manchester City to Bayern to Real Madrid.

I mean, these are all great players in their respective clubs, and yet together, they're not able to amount to much.

So, but regardless, despite all that, they are in a very, they got on the easier half of the knockout rounds.

So, because of that, somehow, with the way the thing was set up and how they ranked, they're going to have an easier time of it, well, on paper anyway, they're going to have an easier time of it until the finals.

If they succeed with their next few matches, they will get all the way to the finals and wait out to see who's going to win between France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany, because France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany are in the other half of the group.

So England doesn't have to worry about dealing with any of those teams.

They don't have to deal with, not even, I don't even think they need to deal with Austria.

So France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany are all going to basically go head to head against each other, and whoever wins out of that crew is going to face England, unless, of course, somehow Slovenia makes it to the semifinals and takes out England, which is very unlikely.

So, yeah, England got lucky, and the only other team that might have posed a threat in England's side of the knockout rounds was, I thought, would be Italy.

But nope, coming around there, I will explain in the future that that's not going to happen.

The last game for Portugal was against Georgia.

Everyone thought Portugal was going to come out undefeated, like Spain, because Portugal, despite, what's his face, Ronaldo, being a little bit of a hindrance and not scoring anything.

He got one assist, so there's that.

But as a whole, I think he kind of messed with the mechanics and the chemistry of the team to be able to play more as a unit to dominate games versus trying to funnel everything to him and try to force something with him.

And because of this, and actually, I should say, in this game, most of the starters were on the bench except for Ronaldo.

Cristiano Ronaldo, being the older statesman of his team, well, one of the older statesmen of his team, I should say, he did not rest.

He decided to start the game, despite the fact that all the other starters did not.

And it's because he's trying to get a goal.

He's trying to, you know, make his, pad his stats, so to speak, as LeBron James is known for in basketball.

But we won't go there.

So anyway, Ronaldo started in the game, and he was still, he's still scoreless.

He has not scored any goals.

And not only that, but Georgia surprised and upset Portugal by beating them to nothing.

So by doing this, Georgia qualified to go to the knockout rounds.

And Portugal, despite this, maintained their first place dominance of their group because everyone else in their group did not get six points.

So Portugal is still number one in their group, albeit not the best in their whole side of the equation because Spain has nine points.

So Spain has a little better matchup set up for who they play versus Portugal.

And Portugal will...

I think they're like second place as a whole on that side of the fence.

So yeah, Georgia, I think, is on the other half with England.

So like England doesn't have to contend with a lot of challengers.

But anyway, so the knockout rounds began today, Saturday, I should say.

And the first game of the knockouts was Italy and Switzerland.

So Italy played Switzerland.

So these two guys are on the side of England.

So if anything, England will...

The only real threat that England has to deal with is Switzerland right now because Switzerland dominated the Italian game.

Their matchup with Italy, I should say.

It's not the Italian game, it's the game with Italy.

And they sent Italy home with a 2-0 defeat.

Italy just did not play to win.

They looked disappointed, they looked tired, they looked like they had no answers, and they played with frustration.

And Switzerland completely dominated the whole game.

They had almost 70% possession of the ball.

So with that kind of control of the ball, it was only a matter of when Switzerland was going to score because they always had the ball.

And Italy, every time they had the ball and they tried to get to midfield, they would lose it.

Once again, Switzerland would just take it and go back and attack.

So as amazing as the goalie was for Italy, he eventually, even he faltered and allowed two goals to go to get through to him, get through him.

So Italy is no more, they're going home.

The next game was Germany versus Denmark.

And Germany did score a goal in the first three minutes, but it was waived due to a foul.

So that didn't count.

And then 51 minutes into the game, Denmark had a goal, but that was waived due to being offside.

And then two minutes later, Germany was awarded a penalty at the 53-minute mark.

And all this was thanks to a successful execution of VAR.

Because a lot of people, especially in the Premier League, has been complaining and maligning the use of VAR.

Because VAR is supposed to make things more accurate.

They're supposed to be able to overturn bad calls and so on.

And apparently in the Premier League, it's doing the opposite or confounding things or making it worse, and just making officiating a lot more inconsistent.

So in Premier League, VAR has been awful.

But here in the Euros, and actually in Copa America, it's been very successful.

So yeah, all of those great calls that would have been missed otherwise were successfully captured by VAR.

In the second half, the...

Oh yeah, so Germany scored the penalty after the 53-minute mark.

And then at the 68-minute mark, Musiala scored the second goal, cementing Germany's win for the game.

So the end of the game would have 2-0 win.

Now the one thing I caught the commentators say that kind of disturbed me a little bit was their nickname for Musiala.

They call them Magic Musiala.

And I'm a little bothered by it because, you know, he's black.

He's a black German.

And, you know, there's this old racist stereotype or trope, if you will, of the Magic Negro, which comes from slave plantation days and colonialism days.

And, I mean, Europe used to have...

Well, they were the empires.

They were the ones colonizing.

They had slaves too, and they came up with a lot of these tropes that persist to this day.

So I'm a little bothered, but it could just be a meat thing.

Maybe I'm over...

Well, no, I mean, it's Musiala, and he's black, and they're calling him Magic Musiala, so that goes along with that whole thing.

But anyway, maybe they don't even realize it, that they're...

What's the word I'm looking for?

That they're...

Well, whatever.

Maybe they don't realize the signifier of that.

But so today, England is going to play Slovakia, so that's the country I was thinking of.

So yeah, these are the teams I have to worry about.

Slovakia, Slovenia, Slovakia.

And actually, no, no, they don't have to deal with Slovakia anymore.

So anyway, regardless, England's first match is against Slovakia, so they should have no problem facing off against Slovakia.

I mean, again, on paper, this should be an easy win because of who they have on their roster, but we'll see.

England has been very disappointing.

But again, this is elimination round, so someone has to go home.

So it's either you win by scoring goals or if you go into overtime and you don't score then, it's going to go to penalties.

And then whoever makes the most penalty kicks will be the winner in the end.

So someone's going to go home eventually.

And I hope it doesn't go to penalty kicks, because that would be a very bad game on England's part.

Also today will be Spain against Georgia.

That's where Georgia went.

So Spain's going to play Georgia and they're probably going to beat Georgia.

Most likely, I should say, because they're dominant.

They're 9-0.

No one can beat Spain.

They're going to beat them.

And then France plays Belgium.

That should be an easy win for France.

Portugal plays Slovenia on Monday.

Sorry, so Monday is France and Belgium, Portugal and Slovenia.

Tuesday is Romania with the Netherlands, and Austria with Turkey.

And so yeah, I think Romania and the Netherlands, and Austria and Turkey, they're in the same half, same side of the knockout rounds as England.

So England will be playing one of those guys.

Whereas Spain will be playing either France or Portugal.

So yeah, that's just the way things, that's where the cookie crumbled in England's favor.

So we'll see if England takes advantage of this lucky draw that they have in the knockout rounds.

But anyway, let's get on to the Copa América.

So Copa América began last week, so after my last recording, which is on Sunday, right?

So the US's first game was against Bolivia.

They beat Bolivia to nothing.

It was sloppy, and it showed that the United States had some work to do, but they managed to 2-0 win, right?

So I'm just going to talk about the countries and their games back to back, and then instead of going back and forth like I had been with the Euros, I'm just going to go give the whole rundown of their progress.

So first match, United States beats Bolivia to nothing.

Sloppy, but whatever.

Second match, they go against Panama, and sadly for the US., they got a red card early, and so they lost a player, so they were playing with 10 men against 11.

And initially we thought, okay, because right after the red card, the US scored, so they were up 1-0, so things look promising for the US.

Maybe they'll still pull through even though they're in a very bad, they're at a disadvantage with one less player on the field.

But again, Panama rallied and tied the game, and then in the second half, they took the lead.

And then things got really ugly, and a Panamanian also got a red card, but that was towards the final few minutes of the game, so it didn't really help equalize the situation, because it was already going to be over, and they had a 2-1 lead.

And so now the US is in a situation where they only got three points.

Panama has three points.

Yeah, so they got three points, and so they may get eliminated in the next game.

Their third game is against Uruguay, and Uruguay, in their group, is undefeated.

They have six points already, so Uruguay has already qualified, and Panama and the US both are tied with three, and so one of those is going to be in second place and move on, and the other is going to go home early.

And we're in the US., so it would be an embarrassment for the US to go home early.

So the next team I looked at, or the next game, the second game of the week, was Mexico against Jamaica.

Mexico survived.

Jamaica would have won a win, but it showed how weak they are.

And it continues because then they lost to Venezuela.

So Venezuela beats them, and they won with a penalty kick.

It wasn't pretty, but Venezuela ended up winning 1-0 with a penalty kick.

And I think it was 1-0.

Let me confirm that.

Yeah, so Venezuela beat them, 1-0 with a penalty kick, giving themselves 6 points to guarantee themselves a spot in the elimination rounds.

So now Mexico plays their third game is going to be against...

Who was it going to be?

Against Ecuador.

So both Mexico and Ecuador, like the US, are going to be fighting for that second place ranking to get to the next round.

But most likely, Mexico will be going home because Ecuador has been pretty decent.

If not good, they've been okay.

Because they also took out Jamaica 3-1 in their second match.

Oh, they lost to Venezuela.

Venezuela beat both Ecuador and Mexico for their six points.

Ecuador beat Jamaica, lost to Venezuela.

Mexico also beat Jamaica, lost to Venezuela.

So both of those teams lost to Venezuela, and both of those teams beat Jamaica.

So they both have to battle it out for second place.

Jamaica is not going anywhere.

They got zero points, but they're going to go against...

Is their third match against Venezuela?

So at the very least, they can be sort of a spoiler and keep Venezuela at six points, so that whoever wins between Ecuador and Mexico, with their six points, maybe there will be a goal differential that will give them the first place ranking, but I don't think that's possible, because I think Venezuela had no goals scored against them.

So they should be...

Well, no, there was that one, I think, against Jamaica, right?

Three, it was 3-1.

Didn't I say 3-1?

No, that was Ecuador.

Venezuela was 1-0 to Mexico, and 1-0 to Venezuela.

No, sorry, 2-1 to Ecuador.

Venezuela was 2-1 to Ecuador and 1-0 to Mexico.

So they got three goals, four, one against.

So yeah, it'll get tricky with the numbers.

I'm not going to get too technical here.

Next guys that I'm looking at are Colombia, of course, my motherland.

They were pretty dominant against Paraguay, but it was a little sloppy, but the end of the game with a 2-1 final.

So quick note, editor's note, because last week I mentioned that Luis Suarez would be playing for Paraguay, and that's why I was a little worried.

My country is mixed up.

He's not Paraguayan, he is Uruguayan.

So he plays for Uruguay, and he's actually in their team, but he's on the bench.

He's not actually starting.

Because, you know, he's unlike Messi, he's not as pivotal to the Uruguayan team as Messi is to Argentina.

And he's also not as effective as a player as Messi is for Argentina, or for the beautiful game.

Because, you know, his injuries and whatnot, he's a decent player, but everyone on the Uruguayan squad is a lot better than him, and that's why he's on the bench.

But anyway, I just wanted to make that quick correction, because last week I said he was from Paraguay, and he's from Uruguay.

So anyway, moving on.

Colombia, as I said, they had a sloppy but dominant win against Paraguay, and they won 2-1.

Their second game, which was yesterday, was against Costa...

Saturday, was against Costa Rica.

And in that game, they were completely dominant.

They did not let Costa Rica really get many chances to score against them.

They had a pretty clean game, and they won 3-0.

So Colombia has made me very happy and calmed down a little bit of my...

They assuaged a little bit of my anxieties about them going up against Brazil, because that's going to be their third game.

Brazil, speaking of Brazil, they haven't done well.

Their first game was against Costa Rica, so this is what made me think initially that, okay, if they can't even beat Costa Rica, Colombia is going to crush them.

But...

Because also, and Colombia, as I mentioned, beat them 3-0.

So Brazil's first game wasn't great.

0-0 tie.

So they start off with one point.

So Colombia right now is ahead with six because they have two wins.

Brazil is in second place because in their second match, which was against Paraguay, who Colombia won, beat 2-1, they beat them 4-1.

So they got more goals for them and only one against.

So I think they're winning the goal differential versus Colombia because Colombia has...

Sheesh, I hate doing math in my head.

So they have 2-1 and then 3-0.

So that's 5 goals for one against.

Oh no, Brazil only has 4 goals because they didn't score anything against Costa Rica.

So 0-0 and then 4-1.

So they only have 4 goals for them, one goal against Colombia, the 3, nothing against Costa Rica, and 2-1 against Paraguay.

So that's 5-1.

Never mind.

Colombia is ahead with 6 points and 5 goals to 4.

Anyways, they play against Brazil in their third game.

So we'll see what happens.

So yeah, so now, so I'm still a little anxious, but not as much, because Colombia, regardless of what happens against Brazil, let's say they do lose.

I don't think so, not anymore.

But regardless, Colombia is in.

They got their 6 points.

They're in first place.

If Brazil beats them, they're going to have 4 points.

Let's see, they have 1 and 3, so they have 4.

Okay, so if Brazil wins, they will be first place.

They'll have 7 points to Colombia 6.

I think worst-case scenario is actually going to be a tie.

I think best-case scenario, Colombia beats them.

I think Colombia finally is going to get this monkey off their back.

They're not going to be afraid to go up against Brazil.

Brazil hasn't really been that dominant.

It's just not the same team of yesteryears.

And Colombia is now a much better team.

They're just more...

They're a more balanced team.

They're great offensively.

They're great defensively.

They're able to create opportunities.

They're not a one-man show.

There's many options.

There is this one guy who was critical in the last World Cup representation.

They had James Rodriguez or Jaimes Rodriguez, who for some reason, when he plays for Colombia, he's amazing.

But then when he plays in the Premier Leagues or whatever, he's awful.

I don't know what that's about.

Right now, he's playing in a Brazilian club because his time in Europe has been abysmal and a disappointment.

They kept throwing him somewhere else, and now he's in Brazil.

Even in the Brazilian club he's playing for, he's not a starter anymore.

There's talk about them waiving his contract or something like that.

But when he's playing for Colombia, he represents, and he is a critical key to the offense.

He's the one who's orchestrating it.

He has two assists right now, so one assist in each game so far.

So yeah, a lot of the goals that they scored are contributed to him in some fashion because he's the one who helps orchestrate it.

So I think they have a good chance against Brazil.

I'm pretty happy about that.

Let's see, what else do I want to go at?

Brazil I already mentioned.

They 0-0 Taiwan Costa Rica, but then they beat Paraguay as well, 4-1.

And next up is Colombia.

So they can either A, beat Colombia to gain first place ranking in the group, or B, they tie and maintain second place.

Well, actually, they don't have second.

Yeah, they're in second place right now.

So they can either A, win to get first place, B, tie to maintain second place, or third, they lose.

Actually, I think they still stay in second place if they lose.

So let's find out, shall we?

So yeah, if they lose, if they tie or lose, they stay in second place.

So their spot is guaranteed because Costa Rica only has one point because they have a tie against Brazil, but then they lost to Colombia, and Paraguay has beaten nobody.

So Costa Rica and Paraguay play each other next.

So either one, if Costa, actually, if Costa Rica wins, no, no, no, they're not, because of the goals that have been scored against them, puts them in the spot where they can't catch up to Brazil.

So Brazil is in second place regardless of whether they win, tie, or lose.

So there's that.

But I think Brazil is going to try to play their hardest, because, you know, bragging rights, Brazil is the country with the most World Cup trophies.

I think they might have the most Copa Americas, or at least they're up there with Argentina.

So they got something to prove for their own pride and for their expectations, whereas Colombia is always the underdog, generally speaking, even though this time around it looks like they are the top dogs going on in this tournament.

But the proof is in the pudding.

Colombia needs to beat Brazil to show that.

Now Uruguay, who for some reason I didn't think, I did not remember or realize they were in it, and I forgot Luis Suarez is from Uruguay, they're in it.

They, for their first match, they beat Panama 3-1.

So yeah, they won 3-1 against Panama.

And then they completely dominated against Bolivia, who hasn't been great.

I think the United States beat them 2-0, and then Uruguay beat them 5-0.

So I think they have the most goals all in all, right?

2 and 5, that's 7.

So they got 7 goals scored in the Copa America.

They have the most right now.

And yeah, they are, they qualified, they got their 6 points.

And their next match is against, who is it going to be against?

I didn't write it down.

Because it's not, it's not going to be, I don't know why.

But regardless, Uruguay is in first place.

Oh, they played the US.

How can I forget?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, duh.

I just said it.

The US is playing them.

And so the US needs to win in order to to stay in the game.

Because if they lose, they're eliminated.

If they win, they get second place.

Because they won, yeah, because they won, they beat Bolivia, but then they lost to Panama.

So they need to win to survive.

If they lose, they're gone.

Uruguay can win or lose, and it doesn't matter, they qualified.

They're already in the next round.

But I'm sure Uruguay wants to, like Spain, they want to show that they're the top dog in this match, in this thing, and they're going to crush it.

The last team I'm interested in is Argentina.

So in the last, yeah, in the last recording, Argentina was opened the Copa America because it was on Thursday.

So I did mention some games from Thursday and Friday and Saturday, though I don't remember what they were because I don't have a good term, I don't have a good memory.

But yeah, Argentina beat Canada in their first match.

In their second match, they went up against Chile.

And Chile put up a good fight, but for the most part, even though they didn't score a lot, they had majority possession of the game, of the ball, and attacked most of the time.

And so in the end, they finally, they won the game with a 1-0 win.

And there was also an injury scare to Messi.

So in their third game, which is the one I saw yesterday, Saturday, or earlier this morning around midnight or whatever, Messi did not play.

So they played against Peru.

And like the last game, for the most part, they were dominant, and they missed the penalty kick, which was odd.

They did score in the very beginning of the second half.

So the first half, they dominated.

They just couldn't get a goal.

And then the very beginning of the second half, boom, they score.

But then they missed the penalty kick.

But then in the 86th minute, close to the end, Lutaro Martinez, who got the first goal, got the second goal.

And so for a brace, as you will.

I think that's what they call...

When someone gets two goals, it's called a brace.

When you get three, it's a hat-trick.

So yeah, Lutaro Martinez got a brace in this game.

He scored in every game so far.

So he has a total of four goals now.

And so right now, he is the leading candidate for the Golden Boot for the Copa América with the most goals right now, with four.

Canada, I mentioned, they beat...

No, they lost to Argentina.

I believe they won their second match.

Their last match was against Chile, and that ended in a 0-0 draw, which is sad.

They should have won that.

But anyways, regardless, they maintain second place in the group with Argentina.

So Argentina is first, Canada is second.

I think Canada beat Peru, so that's how they have second place.

So tonight, today, Sunday, Mexico is going to play against Ecuador.

Like I mentioned, both Ecuador and Mexico are going to be fighting for second place, so whoever wins that advances to the knockout round.

And of course, Jamaica plays Venezuela.

Jamaica is gone.

They have no wins, so all they can do best is to try to mess with Venezuela's chances of maintaining their first place ranking by like scoring a ton of goals or something, which would then give whoever's in their group the ability to tie and take over.

Oh, well, it would be between Ecuador and Mexico.

Never mind.

That's not going to happen.

So there's that.

Yeah, and I'm close to an hour.

Wow, I did a lot of rambling.

Why did the ranting first?

But yeah, I am.

I'm exhausted.

I am.

I went through most of this week trying to figure out this recording thing.

I am going to try to suck it up for another month of YouTube TV at least because I have to I have to experience the catharsis of Copa America and the euros and see which countries will come out on top.

I am rooting for Colombia for Copa America.

For the euros, I don't I don't really have a dog in that fight.

I had some favorites.

Italy was kind of my I thought they would they were the dark horse, but it looks like it's going to be Austria.

Everyone some people were thinking Turkey.

Others were well, I was thinking Italy, but Austria has surprised everyone.

I mean, they're they're in first place of their group.

They overtook France.

No one saw that coming.

And then and then Belgium has been doing horribly, which is why they're going to I do think they're going to get eliminated by who are they playing again?

Who is Belgium playing?

I have it.

I said it earlier.

Oh, yeah, France.

They're going to play France.

So, yeah, they're going to get taken out by France because I don't see France continuing their mediocre ways.

And Bape has something to prove now that he looks like a Ninja Turtle with that mask because of the broken nose thing.

So that's all there is to say.

And that wraps the show.

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