WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!
What a long few days for Amy and me.
On Friday, we began the day by doing laundry. Our hotel offered to do it, but at the cost of two euros for a pair of underwear. Prices skyrocketed after that. So, Amy and I bundled up our clothes and headed off for the nearest waschsalon. Once we got there, we loaded all our clothes in the machines, but couldn’t find any slot for the money. We stood there for a minute or two looking around like morons. Finally, a nice, young Germany woman took pity on us. She showed us that you place your coins at a machine in the front room and then press a button that corresponds to the number on the machine. Now, we have clothes to wear.
We spent the rest of Friday as we spend most of our afternoons in Koln, sitting in an outdoor pub called Memos watching the day’s World Cup matches. Usually we are joined by some of our American friends from D.C. At Memo’s, beer is served by the meter. They bring out a meter-long tray that holds 11 beers. The whole thing cost 11 euros. The pub is right across from the Koln’s central fan fest, so the atmosphere is usually pretty incredible.
On Saturday, Kaiserslautern – the site of the U.S.-Italy mach — is about 4 hours by train for our home base in Koln. We grabbed a train at 9 a.m. so we could get in early and wander the city.
It was a nice quiet train ride and we were able to get a little bit of sleep. Amy flirted with a couple of German brothers who were amazed by how many World Cup matches we were going to see.
We got to Kaiserslautern around 12:30 and a giant American street party had already begun. Kaiserlautern is near one of the large U.S. military bases in Germany. Still, Italians were everywhere and not nearly as friendly as fans we had met from the Czech game. But as has been the case throughout the World Cup, we didn’t encounter any outright hostility.
(No Tuna, this picture is not of us…)
We made our way over to a gathering of U.S. fans at a local bar. But it was too crowded so we wandered early over to the stadium. All the stadiums we’ve seen in Germany are incredible. Big, beautiful temples to soccer. But we’ve been unimpressed by crowd management at most of the venues. Lines into the stadium are long. Bus stops and rail stations seem overwhelmed. Considering that these stadiums are full every weekend for club matches, we expected the Germans would be better at this.
We got into the area around the stadium, did a bit of souvenir shopping and got up on an outdoor stage with a bunch of American fans to sing “Born in the U.S.A.”
Since Amy and I didn’t get tickets together for this game, we wandered up to my seats in the last row of the stadium behind one of the goals. We watched Ghana beat the Czechs on one of the big screens, which, of course, was huge for Team U.S.A.
Energy continued to build as more Americans arrived for the match. The atmosphere was incredibly hopeful. We expected a better performance from our boys. The seats around us continued to fill up and Amy was ready to head off to her seat. But this incredibly nice couple next to us from Colorado insisted that Amy stay and squeezed together to make room.
At kickoff, the U.S. fans were crazy. The largest, loudest group of crazed U.S. fans that I have every seen.
Right from the start, we knew this game would be different. The U.S. team looked like a much better team. They beat Italy to every ball. They were faster and they made better decisions. Clint Dempsey look phenomenal. And yet, we still conceded the first goal.
But the American fans only got louder. And when we tied the game a few minutes later, the fans erupted with the more joy than I’ve ever seen at a sporting event. When an Italian player earned a red card moments later, pandemonium ensued. U.S. fans now believed that this was our day.
Of course, it didn’t stay that way. Two red cards later and our team was clinging on for dear life. Fans and players of soccer always insist that a crowd can lift and carry a team. I don’t know if that’s true. But it seemed that way on Saturday. Every time, it looked as if the momentum was turning against us. American fans would chant or sing or just scream their lungs out – and the team would respond by making a key stop.
When the final whistle blew, Amy and I had nothing left. We slumped against my seats. I have never been more exhausted or relieved at the end of a sporting event. While we were happy with the draw, many of us wondered about the red card calls and the disallowed U.S. goal. We really wanted to see the TV replays.
Fans were quickly running through the scenarios for our third group match. Our best hope: Italy beats the Czechs; we beat Ghana. We would be through to the next round! We’ll have to wait until Thursday when both matches kick off simultaneously at 4. (That’s 10 a.m. in Detroit!)
After the match, the train station in Kaiserslautern was incredibly overcrowded, and I became concerned that someone might actually get trampled. We managed to squeeze our way to our train. Amy and I have gotten smarter and now reserve seats for every train we get on. Otherwise, you could end up standing in the aisles.
We tried to get some sleep on the five-hour ride home, but a bunch of loudmouthed Americans talked loudly for most of the trip. It frightens me that we’ve met so many people on this trip, but the only really, really annoying ones have been Americans.
The next day, Sunday, we caught a cross-country plane to Leipzig to watch Korea and France. More on that later…
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