Mandatory minicamps start by mid-June. In the meantime, IT’S THE EURO AND COPA CENTENARIO! The U.S.A is hosting the Copa and already teams are dissing the travel arrangements. Are you gonna take this from invading Peter Kings? Many are leftists. Or are WE, COMMENTISTS, GONNA POST SOMETHING ABOUT IT!1!1

As humans, the best we can get until the Hall of Fame Game are stories of X player being “really focused” this offseason, that Y is “way ahead” in his injury rehab, and additional words passing as observations that sound like events. In the meantime, the best soccer players in the world will be playing, for country, against countries they hate. (Wales-England and Poland-Germany come to mind.) This is an invitation: make your own post on the countries playing, for publishing here.

We already have distributed several posts, but due to a rich cultural diversity and matters of sports sovereignty—OK, there are 40 countries total. The posts are about the countries: could be a preview, or on fútbol, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s up to the writer; maybe you’re not up to speed on how Colombia and Bolivia are faring in the World Cup Qualifiers, but maybe you can explain the differences between their respective cocaine. Or maybe tell us about that time you took a fuck buddy to a family gathering and your grandma started to scratch her eyes with a fork while yelling “Gipsy! Gypsy! Gippppssseeee!” (Please include the stitch count.)

The Copa América Centenario starts on June 3. It commemorates 100 years of the Copa América, the tournament of South American nations. It will be played by 10 South American countries and México, some of which sneer at having to play the U.S.A., Panamá, Haiti, and Jamaica. Costa Rica also plays, and their goalie is one of the best in the world. The other tournament is Euro 2016 in France, who hosts 23 European countries and the winner becomes the continent’s champion.

The idea is to have the posts for a country publish before its first game. The table of teams is below; the groups detail the four teams that will play each other before some are eliminated and others go to the knockout stage. The date at the top is when each group game starts, so the posts should be submitted before that date. The taken and available countries are:

This is the link to the updated spreadsheet up to now… nish . The picks are made in the comments. I’ll field them and send you a message with an email address to send your post. (Messages are the Private Dick Jokes, in the Menu. Oh, sorry: Cock!) No changes or alterations in the linked spreadsheet will be honored, unless they are crude personal attacks or other hilarious crap.

Of course, emboldened by the awesome EPL Posts on Saturdays by King Hippo, some of us lesser footy heads will weigh in on the teams or action. Yet let’s be honest here: nobody knows what the fuck is happening in the Albanian league. But something is happening, unlike this walkthroughs and shorts part of the offseason. And it’s pretty interesting to watch foreigners kick a ball around and shove themselves with contempt, even when playing for a lucky 1-0 win, in lieu of concrete vindications after being humiliated in wars, other historical wrongs, and the decades-long “Yeah yeah, whatever” to a request for a goddamn sliver of access to a coastline (Chile-Bolivia, Group D). But I totally get if you’re not into that.

In many ways, fútbol is the anti-NFL. Soccer flows uninterruptedly. There are no packages and personnel boondoggles at the start of each snap, no glee after the quick count 12-men on the field. There are no timeouts, no TV timeouts, no replay review, no New York review. Nobody has to parse through the 16 subsections of what constitutes a catch, nor play around (what, 6?) officials on the field, nor recur to a measurement that is only for getting a breather. And in fútbol there is absolutely no staggering  micromanagement and double guessing on a 4th and 2 that’s kinda long for a field goal, while down by 6 on the road early in the fourth quarter. *Sigh* The month of May fucking blows.

And even if you don’t get riled because 15 countries are coming to the USA to condescend and stomp angrily because Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are Calling Yo’Selves America”, that’s fine too. Pick one and let that country take you into tangential fugues of stuff that YOU LIKE TO WRITE OR POST. Sometimes it’s good for your conscience knowing that the “Published Author” on your résumé is accurate, no matter how wasted you were at the keyboard.

***DISCLAIMER: [DFO] and DFO Concerns Amalgamated [LLC] neither confirm or deny that trade secrets have been divulged in that last sentence.***

But hey, this is also an open thread. Leave your picks, and feel free to generate international heat to go with your taeks on Warriors @ Thunder (1 – 1?) and Penguins @ Lightning (2 – 2! Holy shit). All games are at 7 PM DFOST. Plus, ‘course, the usual wonderful crap on all areas, from mammal to non-mammal, that make each open thread like a rare and unique orchid with lotsa tentacles.

ONE LAST THING: Our football connoisseur in all manifestations Balls of Steel, will post the first country tomorrow.  Maybe you can goad him to tell you his pick beforehand, but I’m pretty sure it’s a country where they speak that most elegant of languages: Spanish. Los aprecio canto de cabrones.