Watch Ireland Slovakia in Euro 2008 Qualifier in KC, MO
Here’s a familiar post, but what the heck.
Get your green on. You’re Irish today. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Ireland kick off against Slovakia in just under an hour. This is football (soccer) and again it’s at the home of Gaelic Games, Croke Park - which nobody is talking about much any more.
So where can you watch the game in Kansas City?
It’s not on the regular Setanta channel that some of the pubs get via DirecTV.
It is on Setanta Premium Pay-Per-View that none of the pubs can afford because no more than half a dozen people are interested in turning up.
And surprisingly Setanta don’t have it listed on their broadband service for you to watch online - which incidentally if they did, it would be prohibited to use to show to patrons in a pub or club or to make money from. But you can’t anyway, so there.
Ireland’s national television service, RTÉ are webcasting the game live but only to people in the Republic of Ireland - presumably based on IP addresses - so unless your fake proxy facility is better than the facility RTÉ use to find fakes, you’re stuck, unless you were to have a root around the web and find that somebody has taken that webcast and streamed it out to the general public regardless of territory.
And since we’re talking about what you’re not supposed to do to see a game that effectively somebody has secured the rights to ensure you can’t watch it, there is always that other online option.
If you were to use a Peer-to-peer piece of software for television and scour the offerred channels, who knows what you might find being shown and then it’s just between you and your conscience.
I can’t chat here all day however, I need to go and, ahem, see a man about a dog.
In our group the Czech Republic have just beaten Cyprus 1-0. I’m more and more coming to the conclusion that our group is just rubbish - and that’s not intended as a defence of Ireland manager Steve Staunton.
Commentary is available live on RTÉ Radio 1
UPDATE at Half-Time: Ireland are 1-0 up from an early Kevin Doyle goal. In the other game going on in our group right now, Wales are beating San Marino 2-0 in Cardiff.
In Belfast, David Healy, keeps up his incredible scoring rate for Nothern Ireland to quickly cancel out a Swedish lead.
Meanwhile Germany, the only decent team in Ireland’s group, played Denmark earlier today and lost 1-0 at home with a gaping defence. And England, who are funnier than Ireland these days, because they’re better, are currently scoreless against the mighty Andorra. At half-time
Update 2: An hour in and Healy does it again at Windsor Park, 2-1 the North.
UPDATE at Full-Time: A nervous finish, and Ireland missed a great second-half chance, but Doyle’s first-half header low to the near post from a free kick gives Ireland all three points at Croker.
• N.Ireland have beaten Sweden and in the process leap-frog them to head Group F
• England have scored two second-half goals to lead Andorra 2-0
• Wales are 3-0 against the Most Serene Republic of San Marino
See Related Sports Posts:
• Meeting Diego Maradona in Ireland
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Wearing Green and Ignoring Ireland
• Ireland & USA: Little Differences #2 - Watching Soccer
• Their Hooligans Have Nothing On Our Hooligans