10:04 p.m.: First off, you gotta go to this Website and play this game where you click the mouse under a soccer ball and try to keep it up in the air to score points. Why couldn't real soccer be like this?

11 a.m.: The plan for this was to catch the action on Univision Channel 34 -- like everyone else seems to be doing in Los Angeles. I went into Jerry's Deli in Woodland Hills yesterday for lunch (because I love spending $14 on a tuna melt), and just about everyone working there -- yes, the guys from the kitchen, especially -- were poking their heads out to see the Mexico-Angola contest.
If I do that, the sound has to go down, and I don't get the inane commentary from Dave O'Brien. Sorry.

11:15 a.m.: I realized I TiVo'd the Czech-Ghana game from earlier in the day on ABC. Flip it on. Brent Musburger, of all tired broadcasters to drag out, is on the studio set with Wynalda, Lalas and a bloated Giorgio Chinaglia, who is supposed to be the best they can do to bridge the Italian history of soccer with the Americanized version since he played in the old NASL with the New York Cosmos.

You guys know all about the Musburger drinking game, right? Read up on it, then pull up a keg and spend part of Saturday with us...

Musburger, once he wipes the desk off from all the drool he just producted, asks Uh, Oh Giorgio the scripted question to show off his sliver of Shakespearan knowledge with a reference to Julius Caesar:
"I have to ask you off the top, do you come to praise the United States side here today before the Italian match or to bury them?"

(that deserves a drink...)

Chinaglia: "No, they're buried. It's finished. It's over."
A nervous chuckle from Brent.
"There's no way," Chinaglia continues. "I saw the changes Alexi showed me they're going to make, and .... (inaudible because he speaks with such a heavy dialect and much too fast to ever think he could be a broadcaster).
Wynalda, acting very defensive: "We expected that out of him. If we say 'we' and we're talking about the U.S. team, he's going to say 'we' and he's talking about the Italian team."

Jeez, is Wynalda getting a little touchy about the "we" angle I used in Friday's media column -- which I actually endorsed under the circumstances?

Next, is a shot of Julie Foudy at her soccer camp in Chicago prompting a bunch of 12 year olds to start a chant of "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" after claiming that "as journalists, we have to be impartial."

11:25 a.m. Fastfoward through the Czech-Ghana game and -- are you kidding me, Ghana wins, 2-0...
So does that mean Ghana is five goals better than the U.S., who they play on Thursday? Where the hell is Ghana anyway?

Dave O'Brien, who has this crazy shadow over his face (haven't they heard of umbrellas?), makes the proclamation: "You can feel that collective weight rising up off their shoulders, because even if the United States loses to Italy, they will not be elminated from further Cup contention."
Marcelo Balboa: "I don't think they're thinking about it like that. They're thinking, 'We've got to find a way to get a point.'"

11:30 a.m.: Back to the live ABC pregame, and again, the screaming loud U2 introduction of Bono from a live concert screaming, "Uno, dos, tres, quatorce..." from "Vertigo." Does Univision go this all out with an Irish band to fire up their teams?
Musburger gives the two U.S. lineup changes as if we had just pulled out of Iran.
"It's showdown time!" Brent rumbles. It doesn't get much more over-the-top than the Musburger, followed by a mess of TV commercials.

(drink up ... you GOTTA do it)

11:38 a.m.: Shelley Smith interviews Bruce Arena. Ewwwwww. At least the camera focuses entirely on Arena, probably because it's impossible to get both of them in a two-shot.

11:40: Wynalda predicts a 2-1 U.S. win. Where's Chinagalia to dispute it? For some reason, he's not there. Maybe at the ABC employee buffet line?

11:47 a.m.: Musburger, back from a batch of commercials: "It's put-up or shut-up time for the U.S. team!" Man, can this guy hype it with just the perfect cliche! Right into another batch of commercials, no less!

(I SAID TAKE ANOTHER DRINK.... YOU HAVE TO)...

11:51 a.m.: Another fanfare, graphic explosion, O'Brien intro from K-town! Where's the volume control?

11:54 a.m.: Landon Donovan and his team marches into the stadium. Tough to see much of a size difference between him and the little kid who's acting as the escort holding his hand.

12:04 p.m.: O'Brien's mike temporarily goes out four minutes in. Then they fix it. Damn.

12:12 p.m.: Eleventh minute of play, O'Brien notes some U.S. guy "is playing with a little bit of cockiness that was missing the other day against the Czech Republic."
Sounds like O'Brien is getting a little too cocky.

12:15 p.m.: Convey kicks a really close chance wide.

12:16 p.m.: Convey kicks another really chose chance high. Convey is looking a little too cocky. Maybe he needs a drink with Brent:

Go ahead, fire one down. You know Brent is playing beer pong back in the studio. Never heard of it? Read up, my friend ...

12:21 p.m. Can hear fans in the background yelling "Boring ... Boring ... Boring." Or maybe they're just asking for more Budweiser, which is the only swill they can buy at the stadium.

12:22 p.m. Italy scores. One-nil. Twenty-first minute. Our baldy goalie is left laying in the grass after the guy takes a pretty long boot.
Scroll at the bottom of the screen notes that the Yankees lead the Washington Nationals 9-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning, and Steve Stricker is the third-round leader at the U.S. Open.
At least we know what's important.

12:28 p.m.: O'Brien reminds us: "The U.S. has never won a World Cup game on European soil."

12:27 p.m.: The U.S. scores! Or an Italian guy Zaccardo kicks it into his own net! That counts? Twenty-seventh minute. It's 1-1.
Remember that name, Cristian Zaccardo. Someone will find him floating head-down off the coast of Sicily in about two weeks.

12:28 p.m.: Brian McBride takes an elbow to the face. Red card. O'Brien: "It's on Nesta (No. 13), one of the key defenders! ... Actually, it's going to be on De Rossi (wearing No. 4) ... my apologizies. De Rossi hit with the red card and he is out!"
No worries. Your bad.
Again.
Good thing this isn't a police lineup trying to identify a perp. It's worse.

12:41 p.m. Italy makes a sub. Yes, it's an Italian sub. Which reminds us, we're pretty hungry.

They're taking out Francesco Totti for some ridiculous reason. They're already down one man. Oh, wait, they're letting another guy go in.
Totti is actually an Italian we kind of like. Just read a story about how the Italians love to make fun of him for his lack of intelligence. He was so smart, he turned all the jokes into a book and sells 'em for charity.
That'll show 'em who's stupid.

Feel bad enough for him that he's going out -- and he went to the correct sideline -- let's find his book and buy a copy, shall we?

12:44 p.m.: Now the U.S. has a guy sent off. Mastroeni? Sure he's not on the Italian side? He's from Argentina, actually. Plays for the Colorado Rapids of the MLS. It's some kind of lame make-up call. We'll take it. Sorry, Pablo. It just makes it all even again.

12:47 p.m.: Halftime, 1-1. And the U.S. hasn't scored yet. Makes no sense to us either.

12:51 p.m.: Musburger, back for the Taco Bell highlights.
Proclaims: "The United States for all intents and purposes, 10 on 10, they must win this game."
Sure, OK, have a swig.

1:03 p.m.: Second half starts. No one is bleeding. Yet.

1:04 p.m.: Eddie Pope gets a yellow card. Then a red card. Say what? Is MasterCard sponsoring this thing? It's not priceless.
Balboa: "This is a bad referee. I know the referees are getting evaluated and I would hope this is his last game."
Now the U.S. is down to nine. Just enough to field a baseball team.

1:08 p.m.: Conrad in, Convey out for the U.S. Where's Beasley?

1:12 p.m.: Italy makes some kind of switch in personnel that we have no clue about. Maybe O'Brien can explain it. Probably not. Shouldn't there be at least some kind of graphic up there to tell everyone how many are each side?

1:13 p.m.: A tiny graphic pops down to fill everyone in who may have dozed off about the player situation. Now we need a little arrow pointing out where Donovan is on the field. We've misplaced him.

1:15 p.m.: Back to that soccer ball game, where you kick the ball up in the air as long as you can. I just scored 10. That's a career best, thank you.

1:19 p.m.: Another Italy sub. Toni out. Iaquinta in. Easy on the mustard, OK?

1:20 p.m.: Finally, Beasley in, Dempsey out for the U.S. We don't sub as well. We're more of a tossed salad kind of roster.

1:20 p.m.: Donovan and McBride on a breakaway. McBride left-foots it wide. Like it matters.

1:23 p.m.: Beasley seems to have scored. O'Brien yells. ABC changes the graphic to say 2-1 U.S. Beasley looks happy. "Offsides! You cannot count it," O'Brien screams. "Take the goal away." And the graphic guy does, after a few seconds.

On the replay, it's pretty obvious McBride is in the way of the goalkeeper, enough so that Balboa says it's a good call. O'Brien drags out his rulebook and recites the obstruction rule like Harry Anderson in "Night Court," but far less funny.

Then another Italian player, this time a guy named Fabio, falls to the ground and has to be carted off. Such a drama king.

1:27 p.m.: Cherundolo is pushed down by Zambrotta and gets a yellow card. Guess which one is from the U.S. and which is Italian. Donovan takes a kick, Bocanegra heads it long. Only 20 minutes left.

1:32 p.m.: O'Brien notes that with the U.S. having only 9 and Italy just 10 means "there's a lot of space out there." Yeh, the TV cameras really illustrate that well.

1:50 p.m.: Are we done yet? The clock shows 90:00 but there's all that extra time to add for when the refs wanted camera time.
At last, the final whistle. Our bald goalie claps his hands over his head. Standings on the screen still shows U.S. in last place in the group. So not all is lost.

1:56 p.m. Musburger, back in the studio, says Kasey Keller (above) is the man of the match, "making several fine saves ... so he's the man of the match."

DRINK.

Musburger then brings up the name of the referee in question: Some guy from Uruguay, Jorge Larrionda, who in 2002 was one of five refs suspended for irregularities.

Sorry, but he doesn't look all that irregular to us.
Finally, Lalas butts in and says, "He had a bad day."
Wynalda: "There are two kinds of referees we see. A bad one and a worse one. He was a worse one."
Chinagalia: "(Inaudiable mumbling)."
Musburger: "One of the things we can not do is criticize the effort of the United States team. They hustled. ... Keep this in mind Thursday. You're going to want to be close to a cable television set. The U.S.-Ghana match. We are all fans of Chinagalia (and Italy beating the Czechs)."

SURE, one more for the road.
Naptime.
Over. Out.