Thursday June 16th
Schedule for the rest of this week .............
Friday 17/06: email will be sent at the standard time of 10.00 (UK) .
Saturday 18/06:
Email #1 @09.00 this will only cover J-League fixtures which all appear to be scheduled for 11.00 today.
Email #2 @11.00
Email #3 @13.00 content spread over these two emails will include Copa, Euro 2016, Brazilian and MLS football, plus possably some golf and tennis on a very busy day.
Sunday 19/06:
Email #1 @ 10.00
Email #2 @ 13.00 MLS, Brazil and Euro 2016, will be covered in todays' two newsletters , along with an extended look at R4 of the US Open.
Wow ! Late goals can go in your favour too, whoever knew !
Oakmont Country club is the venue, Phil Mickelson played two rounds here just before taking part in last week's PGA event and described it as "the hardest golf course we've ever played."
This is a brute of a course, unlike any that we or the golfers are used to, there is a 667 yard Par 5, 288 yard Par 3, along with dense rough that we rarely see any more, narrow fairways and lightning fast greens. It will be huge fun to watch and it will break some strong men, one will emerge a hero, but there will be tears along the way.
It has been said that it would be very difficult for a ten handicap golfer to break 100 around Oakmont.
Angel Cabrera won the last time the Open was played here with a score of +5, he shot 69-71-76-69 and was the only golfer to break 70 twice. Some of the best players on the planet missed the cut with Phil Mickelson +11, Sergio Garcia +14 and Adam Scott +18 shooting scores over two rounds they have never recorded since their early teens .
We need to watch at least one round before getting involved and to see just how difficult, difficult really is !
US-Ecuador
Argentina- Venezuela
Peru-Colombia
That is the last eight in draw order. I do not care how impressive Argentina have been, I still have to continue to give my warning about them, they have played in San Francisco- Chicago--Seattle and will be in action in Boston on Saturday playing a team who had had an extra 24 hours recovery time, then three days later, they are in Houston (!) meeting the winner of the US-Ecuador game who will have had 48 hours longer to rest, recover and prepare. They might be strong enough to do that, but odds of circa 1.70 for them to do so and then beat Colombia/Mexico/Chile in the final in New Jersey, with their opponent having already played a semi in the East are too short for me and regardless of whether they win the Copa or not, make absolutely no sense.
The US team do have an extra day's recovery time coming into this game, but 5 and 4 days , is not quite the same as 4 and 3 and is offset somewhat by the US having played 45 minutes with ten men in their vital Matchday 3 game with Paraguay, a red card being awarded to Deandre Yedlin who is suspended today, when he should have been playing in his home town. Despite scoring five in that 1-0 win and a 4-0 defeat of Costa Rica, my concerns remain about where the goals are going to come from, which I highlighted ahead of their opening day 2-0 loss to Colombia, along with thoughts about playing on the West as opposed to East Coast...........
I do not think that the organisers read the script and the bit about the home nation in any tournament having the easiest draw ! The US have been put in a section with Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraquay and whilst not exactly the group of death, it could have been far easier and the choice for them to open in the Levi's stadium in Santa Clara is an odd one. They have never played in the (relatively) new stadium and even after tonight, Beyonce will have played here twice as many times ! The US rarely play out West in any case, the odd friendly aside and almost all competive games are played out East, I understand the reasons, it is the new flagship stadium in the country, but it is still a little odd facing Colombia here and it could put the hosts on the back foot early. They have won their three warm up games, beating Puerto Rico and Bolivia comfortably enough, edging past Ecuador courtesy of a late winner, but the two home games were played in half full , small stadiums and this will be a very different experience.
Colombia will be very motivated you feel after impressing everyone at the 2014 World cup and then believing their own press and disappointing big time at last year's Copa America, if we compare them man for man with the US squad, this looks a bit of a mismatch , but in contrast to Argentina ( see above), the US squad is ALWAYS greater than the sum of it's parts and are rarely found wanting in terms of tactics and work rate. Having said that, I doubt more than 2-3 of the home group would make even consideration for the Colombia squad and in James Rodriguez and Juan Cuadrado the away team have the two star performers on show and both will be looking to impress after (relatively )poor domestic campaigns. I am a little worried about goals for the hosts, in the absence of injured Jozy Altidore, they are left with veteran front men Clint Dempsey and Chris Wondowlowski to pick up the slack, Dempsey has been prolific for his nation, but has come up short in his last six starts against "name" teams and whilst I big up Wondo on a regular basis for Earthquakes, he has never been a real international striker,seven of his ten goals have come in four starts against Belize, Cuba and Guatemala, just 3 in 27 appearances otherwise. Gyasi Zardes might step up and did score twice against Bolivia, but the same applies and they need him to do something he has not really done before at this kind of level, so a lot of pressure on Dempsey to perform IMO. He tends to drop back in any case to look for space and I expect a disciplined and fairly defensive showing from the host.
Dempsey has scored in the last two, but in terms of strikers, or anyone else for that matter, unless they are riding roughshod over inferior opposition that they know well, goals are always going to be a problem area at the moment against a top side. Their two wins came in Chicago and Philly and now they are back in Seattle, where I do not think they have played for five years.
Ecuador were robbed of a Matchday 1 win over Brazil scoring a wrongly disallowed goal and were two down next time out to Peru inside 14 minutes, but they took a share of the points there and then beat Haiti 4-0, so have scored six without reply over the last 170 odd minutes, so should have no less confidence than the host coming in. They played clever against Haiti and removed players who had yellow cards as soon as possible from the action and were pretty much coasting from the 20th minute when they scored their second goal, the US had no such luxury.
The two met in Texas at the end of last month, both fielded strong teams, but the US had already played a warm up game and Ecuador not since March and had only just arrived in the US. It was a game of few chances, which the US won with a 90th minute goal, Antonio Valencia had not joined up with the team at that stage and they will provide much sterner opposition today.
Ecuador are a VERY left centric side and attacked almost exclusively down that flank against Peru, they can play with more variety than that, but obviousy saw a weakness and looked to exploit it, with US right back Yedlin out and Jurgen Klinnsmann having to make his first starting eleven change of the tournament, they have no other out and out right back btw, we could see more of the same from Ecuador .
I see them as favourites today and feel that 20-1 to win the Copa is a little too big, but keep this simple and opt for............ 1.5 units Ecuador 2.05 level ball asian line/Sportmarket.
Euro 2016 :
Euro 2016 previews today are only for subscribers to the full service.
Good Luck.
