Jozy Altidore got them off to a great start with a screamer from outside the box that found the top corner of the net only eight minutes into the game.  As for the rest of the American team, they seemed to think that Altidore’s goal was enough insurance for the remaining 82 minutes, as none of them appeared to be interested in adding a second goal.  Not Landon Donovan.  Not Chris Wondolowski. And certainly not Clint Dempsey, who found himself with the ball at his feet and nothing standing between hims and the goal only 2 meters in front of him, but opted to wait long enough to allow a Guadeloupe defender to make a goal-saving tackle from behind.

Against decent competition, errors like that will often lose you the game.  Thankfully for Dempsey and the U.S., this is the Gold Cup and their competition was Guadeloupe.  So that single goal in the eighth-minute proved to be more than enough to advance to the quarter-finals on this occasion.

Hat Tip – [Dirty Tackle]

Okay, so perhaps that was more of a bear-claw than a bitch-slap, but whatever you want to call it, it sure as hell knocked the f*&k out of that guy.  So much for the notion of a “friendly”, which is what this soccer match between Brazil and the United States was supposed to be.  Sure, it may have been friendly on the pitch, but that surely was not the case off it.

Here is look at the full incident, with some audio.

Hat Tip – [Dirty Tackle]

Had they been playing Canada, Great Britain, Germany, or just about any other country not situated in East-Asia, this comment may have been appropriate.  Unfortunately, they were not.

Way to think this one through Ebersol and company.

Hat Tip Pic – [Deadspin]

Chris Denorfia had a monster game at the plate and in the field, making numerous catches and piling up four hits, two RBI’s and two runs.  Jason Grilli bounced back from a poor outing against Venezuela and pitched three scoreless innings to record the save.

Canadian fans were heckling the Italian outfielders relentlessly, but to no avail.  The Italian players could not understand a word they were saying and were thus unfazed.   After the game, drunk and angry Canada fans were seen as a mob heading towards College Street and Little Italy to start some trouble, but they walked by a bar with the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and got distracted and went in to the watch some curling.

This set up a rematch with Venezuela, but unfortunately the Italian team had a big lunch of pasta, pizza and wine and were too stuffed to contend.

Venezuela plays the United States for top spot in the group on Wednesday.