The U.S. loses to Argentina, with class coming out of its earholes

At halftime, when the score was still 1-1, I was gearing up to write an embarrassingly gushing post about our brave young band of second stringers and their glorious performance against Argentina's A team. But Messi, Tevez, and Co. ended up winning 4-1 (although the U.S. team certainly never embarrassed itself). So I will quote instead from a few of GolTV announcer Ray Hudson's classics, as lovingly gathered on Wikipedia (nothing from tonight's game yet, but I'm sure there will be soon):

* "Cannavaro is running around like a three-legged giraffe out there, but it's effective."

* "Brad Davis has class coming out of his earholes."

* "As electrifying as a hair dryer thrown into a hot tub, my friend. Absolutely breathtaking! It puts the Haitian Voodoo rattle on this one. When he finishes -- oh! Like Betamax, they do not make them like him anymore! What more can you say? An extraordinary goal by an extraordinary player! That will send these people into their dreams tonight thinking of heavenly things. Absolutely bamboozles his defender with this virtuoso goal and little blondy says I wanna be like him. I doubt it very much. Look at this, gets all of his angles right, sets it up for himself. Cygan is just a spectator, looks down at him and says, 'That's not human.' And it is not. It is superhuman." -- November 2006, Barcelona versus Villareal, after Ronaldinho scored a spectacular overhead kick

* "Just like a Turkish bellydancer on a surfboard, Ronaldinho skipping through the tulips"

* "Cheekier than a monkey in a monkey tree."

* "Kovalenko for me was outstanding also in his football, not just his gritty performance. He's a footballer; he's got great feet. He's a good link man, a great outlet, he challenges ... he would stab his grandmother in the eye for another bowl of porridge."