In 1898, the U.S.S. Maine was destroyed in Havana’s harbor by an accidental coal bunker explosion a nefarious Spanish plot. Well, now it’s time for revenge. Sure, we declared war on you and took what little remained of your colonial empire, but that really hasn’t worked out for us (The Philippines got Japan pissed off at us and subsequently declared independence, Puerto Rico just voted for Hillary Clinton, and don’t get me started on Cuba. On the other hand, Guam is quite nice.). Anyway, we did to liberate Cubans living under Spain’s colonial yoke (our subsequent puppet-regime yoke was much better)…and because we really, really wanted Manila. But all that’s in past. In the present, these bastards persist in using “vosotros.” If “ustedes” is good enough for Latin America, it’s good enough for Spain. For all this and more, it’s time to demand satisfaction from Spain in the most meaningful way possible: an international friendly.

            With that in mind, the USMNT travels to El Sardinero in Santander in order to set historical wrongs right, and try our players out against world-class opposition. The quick-witted reader might recognize a slight problem with this. The U.S. only has three world-class players, and they all play the same position: striker. I don’t know how Coach Bradley will be able to fit the immeasurable talents of Nat Jaqua, Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff into the same lineup, but coaches all over the world would love to have our dilemma of too much attacking firepower.

            Okay, so that last paragraph is not entirely true. In the real world, el equipo de los Estados Unidos es, uh, fucked for this game. You know how bad we looked against England? Well, Spain’s better across the board. David Villa and Fernando Torres will cut through our defense like Dewey through the Spanish fleet, and Carles Puyol’s Euro-mullet once killed a man just for fun. To top it off, Iker Casillas is a wall in the net. Not a metaphorical wall: an actual fucking wall with brick and mortar.   

 Carles Puyol’s hair has something to say: ¡No Pasarán! 

There are games that we should lose and then there are games like this. If Spain plays their first team there is no way in hell we have a chance of winning, even if we play like we did against Germany in the 2002 quarterfinals. If we play like we did against England, a full-strength Spain could drop 3 on us just going through the motions.