I love international breaks.

A great international day for me, since all three of my teams pulled out wins. The Spain and England ones weren't as solid as I'd like, but hey. Meaningless friendlies, a good break from the Premiership, and the World Cup exactly 100 days away.

England 2 - Uruguay 1. I hereby take back everything I've said about Joe Cole. (His website, though, does give me pause.) And there's Peter Crouch's first international goal! I was skeptical about him early on, but he's come back to form recently. I think he's definitely earned a spot at the World Cup. (Discussion question of the night: what does Sven have against Jamie Carragher?) I only listened to this game, and didn't see it live, but it sounded like a pretty good game overall, though I'm a bit concerned that playing at Anfield made England similarly unable to convert easy chances. I was impressed by Carrick, though not as much by Bent.

Best moment of the game: compare the numbers on Crouch's shirt here and here. And these are the people we're trusting to find the new England manager?

Spain 3 - Ivory Coast 2. OK, Spain is my secondary team, and I'm happy they won, but this is really an excuse to talk about how much I love Xabi Alonso. The Liverpool-City game, he had a copiously bleeding head wound, got 10 stitches for it, and then tried to come back on. The ref was all, "Dude, you're still bleeding, no." He got back in for about five or ten minutes, but had blurry vision, and did I mention TEN STITCHES? It was awesome. And then he and Garcia give this interview today, and I love them both even more.

USA 1 - Poland 0. I won't lie, I kinda wanted this one to go the other way. My brief love affair with the USMNT may be over. Those PANTS on McBride. Jesus. I do have to respect both those teams for playing through a snowstorm. By the time that game ended, the field was completely white. It was beautiful, but must've sucked for them. However, I had to watch the second half on mute, because the commentators are godawful. Three notes:

1. Every time you say "well-defensed," an English major cries. That English major is me.
2. Keepers are not "in the nets." Nor do they have "shutouts." They keep clean sheets, and they are between the posts. I know you just came over from some other sport, but honestly.
3. Find a better way of saying there haven't been any goals yet than "nothing-nothing." I understand nil-nil sounds silly when you're an American, but still. I could accept zero-zero.