Sweet Home Bavaria

Tuesday, June 13th
Where: On a train, just past Mannheim on the way to Munich
Listening: To whatever waiting four years and spending countless amounts of time, energy and effort waiting for something that ends up 3-0 in under two hours sounds like. That, and Jack Johnson.

Okay, so the first US game didn't go as planned. In fact, it didn't go anywhere near as planned. But more on that later. The trip up to Gelsenkirchen wasn't without its fun, however. In fact, the only thing that sucked about it was the three goals by an opportunistic Czech team that managed to send us to last-place in the tournament and all but assuring our early return home.

Since there's nowhere really to start, and too many things to really determine a hierarchy of importance, chronologically is the only way to go. The trip started in earnest Sunday morning in Munich. While looking around for where we needed to go to catch our train at the station, I completely walked across a stack of newspapers a guy was selling. Much funnier — you had to be there.

On our way up, we were seated next to a few American fans. A good sign while traveling to watch your country play soccer in a foreign land is a few friendly faces and some American flags worn as capes. A couple walked on wearing white #06 jerseys. Her's said "McBride" on the back, so the 06 wasn't an oversight on there part (he's #20), but a cool way to remember the trip. He was wearing the same jersey, same number and everything. They told us they were on their honeymoon and traveling across Europe to watch the US games (lucky bastard, this guy). Better yet, his jersey read "McGroom." They were from Santa Barbara and die-hard fans, to say the least.

Another good sign was a guy from Purdue who, we found out later (and, quite frankly, scared us) is a physics major there and doing the backpacking tour of Europe. He was saying how badly he wanted tickets to the game but was unlucky in his search, to which I peaked my head around the chair and told him about our two extra tickets. 100 Euros later, or just slightly above face value, I sold him the pair and absolutely made his trip. He was definitely going to have a good time, be rowdy and I just don't have the heart to charge an American fan (a good one, anyway) anywhere near the going-rate for the tickets. This good-natured behavior seemed stupid when Aaron would later sell three extra tickets to a Czech fan and a random scalper for 600 euros. Or, roughly, one and a half times what he paid for tickets to all the games. Grrrr....

Upon reaching Gelsenkirchen, to catch what we could of Holland-Serbia&Montenegro, we were struck for the first time that Gelsenkirchen is an absolute hole and is searching for enlistment on the top five crappiest cities in Europe. Actually, it's not that bad, just everything that one might find bad about Europe. The street near the station was hopping, but in general it was just crappy gift shops and kebab stands drumming up the business. Eurotrash was everywhere, it should go without saying. The city, visibly, has two things going for it: 1) it's spectacular soccer stadium — the Veltins Arena, home of Schalke 04, which features a retractable roof and pitch, for optimum condition and for the stadium's multi-purpose use — and 2) a completely indescribable abundance of hot chicks in a place that there's absolutely no reason to have a completely indescribable abundance of hot chicks. True, most of them were probably just skanky teenagers, and as Aaron's friend Carl said, might as well be from Jersey (he's a Jersey natives, and knows from where he speaks), but it was quite surprising.

After finding a decent place to catch what little we could see of the TV, we headed to Muenster, our base for the next two nights. Muenster couldn't be more different than Gelsenkirchen; it's pretty, relaxed, there's historical and cool sights, has a lot of students and is almost completely cheese-free (and I'm not talking about the dairy). After a harrowing bus ride — to give you an idea of how quiet this town of 50,000+ students is, it was not a stretch to say there were more people on the bus from the station than we would see the rest of the night — we were bounced all over the place by our extremely rough driver and steaming hot due to a recent and unexpected heat wave and the European's laissez-faire attitudes about air conditioning. After some getting lost, we found Joe's friend Steffi's house and went out to dinner. The town is really nice — it definitely has a Cambridge/Oxford vibe — and Steffi and her roommate Elstrid (spelling?) gave us a very insightful tour. They were proud to have guests visit and be curious about the place.

I was feeling adventurous at dinner and ordered the blood sausage (inside joke alert: I know it's past visiting hours, but can I please give you this...blood sausage). I wasn't a huge fan — I couldn't get the image or taste of blood out of my head and mouth — and was described as "brave" by the girls. Blood sausage is not restricted to the Basque country, by the way, and is considered a very Westfalian (the state we were in) meal.

Sleeping was easy that night. It was a long day, we probably were smelling quite ripe and the game was the next day. Monday, we got decked out and walked around Muenster wearing our jerseys and flags. The town seemed like it could care less about the World Cup, so nobody was amused by our outgoing behavior.

In Gelsenkirchen, obviously the mood was quite different. Americans were out in full force, and impressively so. Walking around Gelsenkirchen before we met Aaron at the station, we reconfirmed the fact that the town still blew, but at least the World Cup fever overshadowed any of that. To tie his flag as a cape, Joe wandered into a shop that sold mostly Arab trinkets and such, and bought a necklace. We have no idea what the necklace means, but we made sure to be well out of sight of the store before we went chopping it up and using it with an American flag.



We met Aaron and Dawn (and Carl) and immediately headed right out of the train station to Hibernia, a bar where American fans were congregating before the game. This was the place I was looking for yesterday, but of course, being so easy to find, we walked right past it. Today, the square was jam-packed with American fans, dressed in everything from Elvis costumes to Captain America to a giant hot dog suit. Tops were 5-6 guys dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters, complete with a bag that played the theme song non-stop.



We had a beer and caught up inside, where we met Grant Wahl and Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated. Wahl is easily my favorite soccer writer, and I enjoy his college basketball work too. He was incredibly friendly and sat with us while he ate his lunch. We talked about the game, why Mustafa Shakur is staying in the NBA Draft, etc. etc.



Outside again, the US fans were singing and cheering and basically overtaking this little square. It was by far the best spectacle of American soccer support I and anybody else had ever seen (it brought one guy wearing a Ben Olsen to tears at least twice), and an all-around excellent prelude to the first game. My favorite cheer was "You can shove Pavel Nedved up your ass! You can shove Pavel Nedved up your ass! You can shove Pavel Nedved, shove Pavel Nedved, shove Pavel Nedved up your ass!"

The trek to the stadium was, sadly, nowhere near as much fun. The bus was pretty jammed and it took forever to go a few kilometers. It was a good mix of fans, nobody starting anything until some drunk 16-year old Czech kid walked on a few stops in. He decided it would be funny/smart to yell obscenities to every American and mention "Vietnam!" "Iraq!" etc. etc. He left one stop later after someone yelled "USSR!" at him, which was well-received.

God bless the orderly system they have here at World Cup stadiums, but getting to our seats in Gelsenkirchen was a serious pain in the ass. One, we had to walk clockwise all the way around the stadium to get to our gate, and two, it was poorly marked. We did get to see the US team bus come in (the only team without a flag on it for security reasons) but high above from a distance. It remains whether to be seen whether DaMarcus Beasley was actually on the bus or not.


The gorgeous Veltins Arena, errr, FIFA World Cup Stadium Gelsenkirchen

After a pre-match meal of a brat and Coke (Coke in a World Cup stadium...FAN-tastic), and watching Australia pull three goals out of the hat late to beat Japan, and the moment was getting closer and closer. US fans clearly outnumbered Czech fans, despite some idiot reporter from the Boston Herald later bitching to us that American fans need to pick one color and stick to it, and we even had some good, loud chants and songs.



I'll admit, I had a good feeling about the game. The Czechs were aging, hurt and primed for an upset — much like Portugal four year ago. At worst, I felt we'd tie. Don't get me wrong — I was nervous as all hell, especially as the game got closer and I couldn't believe I was actually and finally here. Then BAM! Five minutes in and Koller scores. Haven't seen too many replays of the goal, but it's hard to fault Eddie Pope for not beating him to the ball when the Czechs can run free down the right and get a perfect cross into a guy that's at least 6-foot-7, in my opinion.

Despite being down 1-0, the US was maintaining control and putting some good combinations together. Claudio Reyna, for one, is very fun to watch live. You don't pick up his positioning and passing as easily on TV, and his field vision and ability to ping the ball around from the middle is really a joy to watch. I thought for sure his shot was going in, too. It was right in line with us, and another half-inch to the right, it's 1-1 and a completely different game. But, much like in France 98, the post was unfriendly and it ended up being a huge difference-maker.

Tomas Rosicky hit an absolute bomb to make it 2-0, and you really can only chalk it up to being an incredible strike. Down 2-0 at halftime, yet I'm still confident that we can turn it around.

I was probably one of the few optimists around in the second half, but the Czechs' defending (they almost always had 10-11 guys behind the ball and there were literally no lanes to make things happen) made sure I walked out of the stadium deflated. The third goal was nothing except to make our goal difference almost impossible to overcome and to give us the worst loss in the tournament so far. Great. Dead-last.

Afterwards, we stayed away from the mob-scene that was the bus and tram system, walking halfway back to town before catching a bus at Fan Fest. We were down, but not without our spirit. This may have been helped by Czech fans taking baths in a dirty pool that surrounded a building (not only were there no US fans in it, we were all repulsed by the idea of it all). Dawn, a pregnant woman wearing sandals, led the charge and set a blistering pace we didn't try to keep up with. At a crowded gas station, we refuelled with some badly-needed water.

The town was still abuzz from the game. Oddly, there weren't many Czech fans celebrating. Dejected Americans downed a few beers and we watched Italy beat Ghana 2-0. The highlight, or at least funniest moment, was when a waitress dumped an entire tray of beer on this poor little Czech girl who was so proud to be wearing her jersey. I've never seen so much beer spilled, and I'm sure it's scarred this girl for life.

-----NOW BACK IN MUNICH-----

Perhaps the two funniest moments of the evening happened back at the Hibernia pub later in the night. A group of American fans were heckling another group of American fans because two guys were wearing Beasley jerseys. This set off a minor argument that was quickly quelled, but added gasoline to the fire later on. In the middle of this, a guy at another table spontaneously combusted and stood up, tore apart his game ticket and yelled "DIE TICKET, DIE!" Unfortunately, this was overshadowed by two groups heckling each other some more, then out of nowhere, a guy in one group yells at a guy in the other group "Hey faggot in the tanktop! Faggot in the tanktop!" which was said in an almost girly way that me and Joe continue to giggle at it. Anyways, the two groups (of American fans) exchange words and try to fight, which did not please the peaceful group of Czechs at the table next to them. Seemingly the problem was over, but on our way back to the train station (which is no more than a block away), the two sides met again and provided us with even more entertainment.

We took the same train to Muenster with Grant Wahl and Steve (last name?) from the Dallas Morning News. They gave us some tidbits and comments about post-game reaction from the locker room. To neither of our surprise, Beasley and Donovan were called out for their bad performances by Arena, and Beasley will be lucky to see the field the rest of the World Cup for his play and negative comments in the media. It was a nice come-down from the hilarity and drunkenness of the arguing American fans, not to mention good company on the otherwise boring 45-minute trip to Muenster at 1:30 in the morning.

More details to come if I remember them as being noteworthy or funny, but I'm tired from a long day on the rails. We're back in Munich, which really felt like coming home. We watched Brazil-Croatia and laughed at the German commentator's continuous slagging on Ronaldo's weight. A great strike from Kaka was the difference in the game. Thoughts....incoherent.