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Few countries in the world offer as much for soccer fans in the United States. Within range, there are tons of soccer-crazed bars and pubs, and the occasional national team game.&nbsp;&nbsp;This&nbsp;summer alone, we’ll see Barcelona, Manchester United, MLS games, Copa America and much more. However, when it comes to watching the most important&nbsp;tournament for the United States national team this summer, a difficult decision hangs in the balance for&nbsp;many soccer fans.
The Gold Cup is an important step for the men’s national team this summer, but more selfishly, it offers a&nbsp;chance to see the US team play meaningful games at convenient times. These are games where fans do not&nbsp;have to get up at 6am to watch their team play, nor do they have to risk being fired for watching the game at&nbsp;work (ATDHE, you are a gift from the gods, but please stop putting viruses on my work computer, my bosses&nbsp;are getting suspicious). Meaningful weeknight games are a rarity for US soccer fans, and the Gold Cup&nbsp;delivers plenty over the next three weeks.
Unfortunately for fans that also subscribe to Comcast, Fox Soccer Channel is not yet available in HD aside&nbsp;from the “test markets” of Albuquerque, Philadelphia and Seattle. The rest of the country is stuck watching in&nbsp;standard definition, or so we thought. Lucky for us, Copa Oro is wildly popular with the Spanish speaking&nbsp;community as well, evidenced by the 80,000-plus that witnessed Mexico’s beatdown of El Salvador at&nbsp;Cowboys Stadium this past weekend. Telefutura and Univision are also carrying the games, and both of those channels&nbsp;are available in HD. I found myself watching both Costa Rica vs. Cuba and Mexico vs. El Salvador without even&nbsp;checking to see if they were on FSC in English.
When the USA takes on Canada Tuesday night, many fans will be faced with the dilemma of watching on FSC&nbsp;with American commentators or on Telefutura HD with Spanish speaking announcers. The difference in&nbsp;picture quality is such that the decision is not a difficult one in the least. Telefutura’s presentation is not&nbsp;overly fancy or intrusive and after a few minutes, it is just as easy to ignore their commentators as it would&nbsp;be to ignore JP Dellacamara or whoever else is in the FSC booth (I’d be OK if I never heard JP say “This is&nbsp;better from the US” again).
The one oddity of the Spanish broadcast is the restarting of the scoreboard clock at halftime. It takes a bit of&nbsp;adjusting to when you see “2T, 26:00” and have to add 45 to that to realize it is actually the 71st&nbsp;minute. It&nbsp;doesn’t make much sense but then again, it doesn’t make&nbsp;much sense to bring a 37 year old Cuauhtemoc Blanco to the World Cup either.
Ideally, fans would have a dual-TV system where you could sync it up to have the FSC commentators turned&nbsp;up and watch the HD feed on mute. Realistically, that is probably not an option for most people so the&nbsp;decision must be made: Copa Oro or Gold Cup.
I, for one, will be choosing Copa Oro, and while I understand&nbsp;that will be met with criticism with the fierce USA-Mexico rivalry undertone, it is simply a personal enjoyment&nbsp;decision. Soccer in HD is head and shoulders above SD, and while FSC/Comcast lag behind, Copa Oro is a far&nbsp;more enjoyable experience. The occasional “goooaaalllll” call never hurt anyone either.

A Comcast-driven Dilemma: Gold Cup or Copa Oro?

A Comcast-driven Dilemma: Gold Cup or Copa Oro? - World Soccer Talk

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A Comcast-driven Dilemma: Gold Cup or Copa Oro?