Paging William Styron

This Sunday, the soccer gods really don't like me. Airing live on Fox Soccer Channel at 1 pm is Man City's match against Aston Villa in the fifth round of the FA Cup. Man City! FA Cup! Live at a reasonable time! This would be the first time I've ever watched a City game truly live (if I get to do so), though I did listen to the Doncaster game live (ugh). It's easier during cups, of course, because those games are often at night, whereas regular weekend league games are during the day - and during the day in England means early morning in Chicago, and if you think I'd get up at 6 am on a Saturday when I could watch the game plausibly live that afternoon, you're crazy.

Anyway. Naturally, airing at the same time is the US team in a friendly against Guatemala. Realistically, I am (or should be) more invested in US soccer than in Man City, but once the games don't mean as much, it's harder to care, and Guatemala - with all due respect - is not the most marquee of friendly opponents. Of course, my roommate is not a City fan, so guess which game he'd rather watch?

The obvious solution is to watch the Man City game live, and TiVo the US game for perusal later. But what if I'm not home? So actually, I have the City game set up in the TiVo. If it turns out I'm home on Sunday, then I'll switch it to record the US game and watch City live. If not, I don't miss City, and my roommate gets to watch the US game live anyway. I'd miss it totally in that case, but it's not as big a loss.

Of course, we can't forget how poorly my only previous live experience went, and for their general mediocrity Villa are still a couple notches above Doncaster on overall talent. Let's hope this won't be 90 minutes of my life I'll want back later.

Since we're talking about it, ever-so-quick discussions of the City win over Charlton and the US win over Japan, both by 3-2 scores.

City:
*Nice goal by Samaras. That's why you get a guy that size. But what was that when he was wide open later? He needs to be more aggressive, especially now that he'll probably see more time with Cole down.
*Barton - wow. It's amazing the way this guy has exploded since the transfer flap, and even more amazing how quickly the fans got back behind him. Loved that he charged to the stands while grabbing the front of his jersey - makes me optimistic that Pearce can ink him soon. I just hope this isn't a "playing for a contract" case and once he does sign he suddenly vanishes.
*Another nice win at home. Now can they win on the road? Three road wins all year and two of those were at Birmingham and Sunderland, and those were both in August. The only other was 5-2 at Charlton on December 4. But winning on the road will be required in the FA Cup, and in the European hunt - see this weekend, not to mention the rest of the EPL season.

US:
*Taylor Twellman is awesome.
*The annoying thing about a game like this is when your team is dominating, makes a whole bunch of substitutions, and then looks like crap. The last 15 minutes or so were really quite mediocre, whereas the first 75 were just so fun to watch because of the American dominance.
*Tied with Mexico at #6 in the new FIFA rankings. Yeah, that's more like it. There's no current excuse for the Mexicans to be higher than we are - equal's fine for now.