Where, O where is our morning Copa?

Don't blame this column on our inner troll, but for us being super under-caffeinated. India, a great footballing spectator nation - let's not talk about its footballing prowess - has got all 'European' as footie fans here follow the Euro with the enthu of a masked Mbappe. And, yet, no channel, no streaming platform is showing the Copa America, the super carnival of football taking place in the US, where another tournament of another keenly watched sport is on now. Yes, because of the time difference, watching, say, Wednesday's glorious game between Argentina and Chile would have meant screen-gluing from 6.30 a.m. Squeezed between this ungodly hour for most of us who skip our daily Gayatri Mantra and the other ungodly hour past midnight when many Euro games are on, catching Copa can be an ordeal. But isn't that up to the football pilgrim to decide?

Why, oh why, dear broadcasters and streamliners, have you forsaken us? A Copa aficionado is likely to be a much more affluent, selective consumer (read: spender for ads) than a watcher of the Euro, which even your granma is now familiar with. ('This Griezmann boy is so handsome!') Which is where VPNs - and rebel sites like Soccerstreamlinks and epicsports - come in handy. Dodging geo-restrictions, some of us watched Lautaro Martinez's 88th-min goal on Wednesday morning. Yes, not legally, but...