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It's 99 days until the World Cup starts, and it's the last designated day for international friendlies by FIFA. Those of you who follow the American team know that its friendly has been hovering in limbo because of the more-serious-than-soccer crisis entangling its Ukrainian opponents -- though, now, the match is on for 2 pm ET, in Cyprus, where its cabinet has just resigned and referees have been having their cars blown up, begging the question, "Might there be a safer, more stable country available to host this match?"
A number of Arsenal players are involved in matches today not as fraught with weirdness as USA vs. Ukraine, and some of the matches are available for viewing on American TVs. Matches include:
12:30 pm ET, Czech Republic vs. Norway: Tomas Rosicky has been called up for the Czechs.
2:45 pm ET, Germany vs. Chile: In a match that could be repeated this summer deep in to the World Cup bracket, a trio of Arsenal players (Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski, and Mesut Özil) will host one of the top South American teams, with Mark Clattenburg handling ref duties, and Galavision and ESPN3 carrying the match in the States.
2:45 pm ET, Poland vs. Scotland: Arsenal's top two goalkeepers (Wojciech Szczesny and Lukasz Fabianski) have been called on to face the Scots.
3 pm ET, England vs. Denmark: Merrie Olde has called up Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere for a match conveniently located at Wembley, while TGSTEL will go for a hat trick on behalf of the Danes. Fox Deportes and Fox Soccer 2 Go has the action.
3 pm ET, France vs. Netherlands: Three Arsenal players (Bacary Sagna, Laurent Koscielny, and Olivier Giroud) host RVP and Co. in Stade de France for this match of two World Cup-bound European teams. Univision Deportes and ESPN3 will air this match.
4 pm ET, Spain vs. Italy: In arguably the best of today's friendlies, Santi Cazorla's been tapped to play in this rematch of the Euro 2012 finals at Atletico's home stadium. ESPN2, 3, and Deportes will have the action for stateside viewers.
Carl Jenkinson will play a U-21 match against Wales today, and Yaya Sanogo played the first 56 minutes of France's 1-0 win against Belarus, with new Chelsea signing Kurt Zouma scoring late in the match to break a scoreless tie.