7 hours ago
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27 min: Juve win a corner, though I’m surprised Yildiz wasn’t offside before delivering that cross. Courtois easily claims the corner and distributes quickly.
26 min: Trent ends up on the left side of the attack during the corner kick, and he and Bellingham combine to strip the ball deep in the Juve half from Conceição.
Another Real corner leads to a hard-driven but wide shot from Vinicius Junior.
No cooling breaks today?
25 min: Juve defending with a flat line of five and an arced line of five. Real opt for a long shot and are rewarded when Di Gregorio unnecessarily touches it on the way out.
23 min: CHANCE for Juve as a cross pings in from the left and is headed at a 90-degree angle by Conceição but right at Courtois.
22 min: A Real possession dies with an errant pass by Alexander-Arnold – or “Trent,” as he’s called on his jersey.
Juve move the ball from side to side looking for an opening but find none, as Real’s midfield have settled quite well.
20 min: And now Juve’s attack is deemed unfairly physical.
My fellow Georgians are writing in today. Rafeed Rahman Turjya: “Watching the game from Athens, GA! RM fan here, never seen them press like this in a long time!”
They’ve been energetic, absolutely.
18 min: Juve attempt to pop the ball up to Kolo Muani, but he loses the aerial battle. At the other end, Vinicius Junior wrestles a defender until the referee reminds him that he’s playing a different sport.
17 min: Rugani shields the ball back to his keeper to hold off another Real attack. Alexander-Arnold presses to keep Juve pinned back.
You could argue that Juve have had the better chances so far but that Real have had the better of play.
15-minute score reminder: 0-0, but both offenses look industrious and full of energy despite the steamy conditions.
14 min: Kalulu gets the magic spray and squirts some water on his leg. Does that really help? Ever? He’ll continue.
12 min: Perhaps the “feels like” temperature feels comfortable to these teams, because this is being played at considerable pace. After Juve’s squandered corner, Real Madrid break, and Courtois manages to collect at the top of the penalty area under some pressure.
And Juve defender Kalulu is down for reasons not immediately apparent.
11 min: Yildiz cuts back to create a nice shooting angle, and his shot deflects off a Real Madrid foot for a corner.
9 min: Valverde shoots from some distance and isn’t particularly close.
Adam Hazell writes: “Greetings from metro Atlanta! Not a fan of either club but am a fan of mister Robert Cray, so your coverage is off to a great start.”
Is Athens considered part of metro Atlanta yet? That’s where I grew up. Most of the space between the two cities looks like concrete and asphalt now.
7 min: Vinicius Junior passes to the right for Trent Alexander-Arnold, who immediately loses it and Juve are off to the races! Randal Kolo Muani gets past the defense and streaks toward Courtois, but his attempt to lob the keeper sails high.
6 min: Bellingham wins the ball near the center spot and immediately sends the ball skittering through the Juve defense in search of Vinicius Junior, but it’s overhit.
5 min: Real Madrid are pressing! An uncomfortable pass back to the keeper maintains possession for the Italian side.
4 min: Some incisive passes for Real Madrid lead to a rather speculative shot from Vinicius Junior that deflects toward goal but loses much of its venom as it deflects.
2 min: Well now – Yildiz glides past some Real Madrid midfielders and starts a promising possession for Juve, awkwardly cleared away in the end.
1 min: Real’s defenders pad their passing stats just shy of midfield.
The referee, Szymon Marciniak of Poland, brought out a young fan to conduct the coin toss but decided he should also flip the coin himself. Hard to tell whether one end is staring into the sun or not, so it likely doesn’t matter.
And TWEET … we’re off!
Service has been restored, so the room is now glittering with the player introductions in front of what looks like the light show at a Metric concert.
Football Daily says the score will be 3-1 Real Madrid, but they didn’t tell me who will score, so I’m keen to see that.
Speaking of storms, a very nasty nearby lightning strike has temporarily (we hope) interrupted my feed of pregame punditry. Eek. This could end up being like the old story of baseball commentators inventing foul balls to delay things when they lost their phone connections to a distant game …
The forecast ...
… calls for pain.
Well, not really, but why not give Robert Cray a shoutout today?
It’s apparently 82 degrees F (or just shy of 30 degrees C). The humidity is Florida – in other words, 77%. The “feels like” (wasn’t this formerly called a “heat index”?) is 89. Supposedly, there’s not much chance of a thunderstorm, but it’s Florida, and you may have seen that the USA’s weather forecasting ranks are depleted. Either the radar shows patches of rough weather floating about or I’m paying the price for staring at the sun a little earlier.
Forecasters or no forecasters, summer in Florida means heat, humidity and the occasional “hey, we’ve never seen this in Europe” weather, so we’ll see.
Lineups: Mbappe is ...
… not starting but might appear later.
Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah, Juve’s US players who have bypassed a chance to face Guatemala in the Gold Cup semifinals to be in this event are also on the bench.
Real Madrid: Thibaut Courtois; Dean Huijsen, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Antonio Rüdiger; Fran Garcia, Arda Güler, Federico Valverde, Jude Bellingham, Trent Alexander-Arnold; Vinícius Júnior, Gonzalo García.
Fifa’s site believes this to be a 4-4-2 with Alexander-Arnold at the back, but more likely, the former Liverpool man won’t be spending much time near his own goal unless something’s going wrong.
Juventus: Michele Di Gregorio; Lloyd Kelly, Daniele Rugani, Pierre Kalulu; Andrea Cambiaso, Khephren Thuram, Manuel Locatelli, Alberto Costa; Kenan Yildiz, Randal Kolo Muani, Francisco Conceição.
The European squads have been rotating a bit because they think it’s hot in the USA. Speaking of which …
Preamble
Well, this tournament got interesting last night, didn’t it?
For those who didn’t stay up until almost midnight Eastern time or until nearly dawn in Europe, Al-Hilal won the Game of the Century. Each time Manchester City came back to tie the game and steer it toward a penalty shootout in which you would have favored the English titans, Al-Hilal found a goal out of nowhere and reclaimed the lead.
Today? Just two big European teams, one of whom has a couple of players back in their home country of the USA. On paper, Juventus won’t have much of a chance against Real Madrid, but what chance did Al-Hilal have last night? Strange things happen in the heat of the USA.
