I imagine that 90% of the time, the English FA will be the topic of anything that anyone writes for Skinbyrd on the subject of soccer/association football (from here out to be referred to as fussball so as not to offend/annoy anyone). But not right now. This weekend gone by was the start of the African Cup of Nations, hosted this time around by Ghana, and the tournament will continue through February 10. There has been a lot of whining coming from England and France in particular, two nations whose domestic leagues have increasingly come to rely on African players at all positions. Why can’t Africa have their national tournament in the summer when the European leagues are off? I can’t think of a better excuse than this: there is no amount of air conditioning that would help people trying to play 90 minutes in the summertime in Africa. So here we go.Before I even start talking about the teams/games, I have to explain to you all how to circumvent the “all the beers in this Safeway refrigerator are FUCKING WARM!!!!!!” type of frustration I went through before I finally figured out how to watch the matches in the USA. Fox Soccer Channel, GolTV and Setanta, (which I pay what like $30 a month for??!!!) have their budgets tied up in broadcasting the European domestic leagues and Argentinean league and Euro 2008 qualifiers and shit, I guess. Not that I imagine they got to broadcast the non-enthralling ball chasing that was the Asian Cup for free, but… well in any case, no Cup of Nations from any of them. I don’t have Dish Network so I can’t subscribe to some Arabic or French channel for a month. So off I went in search of an internet stream.There are a bunch of dodgy pay-per-view websites that don’t even seem to work (judging from people white-knuckling their mouse and posting about it on a bunch of blogs). There are supposedly a couple of Ghanaian or Kenyan TV channels that are streaming the matches, but I couldn’t get any of that stuff to work. So here’s what you need to do if you want to watch this stuff in the early AM American time:1) Have a PC. I guess there are ways to make this work on a Mac, and I have spent about 3 hours of download time amassing the stuff that I theoretically would need to, but I ended up just taking the easy route and doing it from my old Windows 2000 desktop PC.2) Download a program called SOPCAST—>Here3) Register on a website called myp2p.eu From there, it’s really a snap. Sopcast pulls up a short list of the channels that are streaming the event you want to watch, and then it buffers, and then some dude is scatting in Arabic. Wickeddddddddd.4) Instead of step#3, I think it might even be easier to go to here and get a list of URLS to plug into sopcast.So there’s the method I’ve found to watch this stuff live.Now, as for the actual tournament…If you have been paying attention to fussball for X amount of years, you have probably known that African teams have been kicking much ass at the non-senior (especially U-17) levels for time. Ghana in particular won the U17 World Cup in 91, and 95, were runners up in 93 and 97, and took 3rd place in 99. And if you pay attention to the Premiership or Ligue 1, much less the Eredivisie, Bundesliga, and the rest, you have come to admire the range of tenacity, finesse, etc. that players from George Weah, Abedi Pele through to the Muntari Essien, and Drogba have brought to the European leagues.Even as a whiteboy, I find it really frustrating that a country like Nigeria that is as almost as big as Brasil cannot find a way to keep corrupt political bullshit out of their fussball federation and can’t pay their players properly, and on and on, to such an extent that their Super Eagles didn’t even qualify for Germany 2006. But still, I have a running bet with some friends that in or before 2018, either an African nation or the USA will win the World Cup.But the silver-lining of that frustration, and owing to the insane “no points for second place” format of World Cup qualifying from Africa last go around (5 groups, 5 group winners went to Germany), was that 4 of the 5 teams that qualified had never been to the finals before. If you didn’t have a good time watching Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo freaking out and playing with totally infectious urgency in every match, then…you need to check your head. These guys were not playing to represent a bunch of snot-nosed English nay-sayers and pundits, they were bringing an uncommon joy to a lot of people who don’t have the NHS to keep them healthy….JUST BY BEING THERE! That’s why I had a Ghana shirt on. Well, that and because Ireland didn’t qualify.And from what I’ve seen of the African Cup of Nations, two years ago in Egypt and so far this year…that level of intensity and pride is totally on display. Drogba and Kalou are playing for Ivory Coast, not France, etc. etc. They have made a decision to rep their hood, and it’s amazing to watch them go at it for personal stakes instead of their wages in Europe.If you can find a way to watch this stuff, I guarantee you the noise coming from the crowd (holy shit, how many trumpets can you stick in one stadium), and the fervor coming from the guys on the field will blow your mind. Half-empty San Siros, “family atmosphere” non-terrace-style vibes from most everywhere in the big English stadia nowadays…these things pale in comparison.Anyway, here is the Beeb’s Cup of Nations page:Here!Each team has played its first game. No huge surprises, some great goals, EXCELLENT officiating so far (due in large part to pretty solid sportsmanship on the field).Hope to see some discussion in the comments here!Forza Ghana! Watch the riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!–McDuh