I’m a casual soccer/football fan (I struggle with which term to use). I’m a long-suffering supporter of Canada’s national side, and enjoy watching European matches whenever I get the chance. I look forward to the big tournaments–the World Cup and European Championships–every two years.
The second most popular sporting event on the planet, Euro 2008, is on right now. As I’ve mentioned, we’re a TV-free family. I really only miss the thing for watching sports. I’ll go to my parents’ house or the pub to watch a game, but I like to watch the video highlights of each match on a daily basis.
Unlike North American sports, it’s ridiculously difficult to watch Euro 2008 (and World Cup, if I recall correctly) highlights on the web. No domestic network website–CBC, TSN, Sportsnet–shows them, and I’m denied by my IP address from accessing the BBC’s video. As far as I can tell, my only options are:
- Spend CAN $30 to watch highlights and ‘full match reruns’ of all the games. Given that every North American league makes their highlights available for free, that seems pretty steep. I don’t actually want to watch many games–just the highlights.
- Resort to ‘illegal’ highlights sites like the usually reliable FootyTube.
The Euro 2008 doesn’t offer a cheaper price if I don’t want to see full matches. Plus, they don’t give me any kind of preview of the video for which I’m paying. Am I going to pay $30 for YouTube quality streaming video (“hey, that pixelated blob scored on that other pixelated blog!”).
If I wasn’t going to Chicago next week, I might actually pony up the $30. Instead, I’ll rely on the less legitimate but free options.
I will say that it was a joy to watch Italy get their azure butts kicked today. Sneijder’s goal might stand as the best of the tournament.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
> I struggle with which term to use
Darren, use “soccer”. With Football, you could be talking one of many sports depending on where you reside.
Bobby: Except that, for 90% of the world, there’s no ambiguity at all. And, should the listener speak French or Spanish (among other languages), they’ll still know what I’m referring to. I generally refer to “Canadian football” or “American football” if I want to specify the sport with the oblong ball.
Darren: You’re right to an extent but let’s ask Wikipedia for a formal definition of “Football”
“Football is the name given to a number of different team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal”.
dude! I watched the Euro cup from the center of Prague on a 50ft screen set against the an epic old cathedral. and in a park with a similar screen in the middle or munich drinking 1L steins of great beer and eating pretzels bigger than my head. good times.
lol, 90% ? probably higher that that. Football = Soccer always everywhere in the world excluding 2 countries, otherwise they say American Football
Andriy: True, I suppose 94.7% would have been more accurate.