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A Tale of Two Teams
We arrived to the city late in the afternoon, found our hotel on the outskirts of the city and headed straight to the Fan Fest. There was a big game that day which Dimitri (I'm not too sure about Nik) wanted to make sure he witnessed. The Fan Fest was located at the Volksfestplatz in the Southern part of town right near the Nazi's Congress Hall and Nazi Hall of Records. The game of the day as far as we were concerned was Saudi Arabia vs Ukraine. It was a great day for Dimitri's original homeland as they beat the Saudis 0:4 to record their first ever World Cup victory. I remember during the draw thinking to myself that was one of the Groups I wanted the US to get drawn into...but it wasn't to be.
Game day was finally here. We woke up, got all our gear and headed to the bar of choice for the US fans, O'Sheas Irish Pub - another fine event the Yanks Abroad group had put together. We met the rest of the ESC boys at a bar along the way and stayed for a drink and some grub. Eventually we made it to O'Sheas and the place was already swarming with US fans. Similar to the other two pre games, there were plenty of familiar faces drinking and singing songs. The mood was very high. Many of us were optimistic that the Italians would beat the Czechs and confident that US would beat Ghana. And how could we not be..the team had just played fantastic vs Italy and seemed to be back on track and back on its game.
Scoring 2 goals in one half was not an impossible task but it was not an easy one either, especially given how poorly we were playing offensively. You would have thought the US would come out with only 45 minutes left of their 2006 World Cup and play their hearts out, hustling for every ball, playing with a sense of urgency, but they did not. They played as uninspiring offensively as they had been and could barely generate any chances. In 45 minutes of action, I think they had two decent chances, one of which resulted in a header from McBride hitting the post. Towards the end of the game when they knew the task was near impossible it seemed like they stopped trying all together and were just playing out the last minutes of their 2006 World Cup.
This day has to be classified as one of the worst days in US Soccer history. The high hopes going into today's game. The possibility of advancing out of the Group Phase two World Cups in a row, 3 out of the last 4. An almost guaranteed Top Seed for the Group Phase in the 2010 World Cup. If they won the game, we would be heading to Dortmund, home of Rob's favorite Bundesliga team, to see them play in the Westfalen Stadium. There was so much on the line and the team didn't deliver.
We headed back to the main part of the city back to O'Sheas again to drink and drown our sorrows with fellow US fans. From there we did a little bar hopping down the main street where we were and met a lot of interesting people. Certain people in our party were very drunk and having a good time and wanted to continue the evening. We had met some German kids (and a very tall Bouncer like guy) who told us of a great club nearby and that they would lead the way there. 10 minutes into the walk, we were joking that we were being taken to a dark alley to get mugged. 20 minutes into the walk, we thought we were all be taking to a dark alley to get mugged. After half of an hour of walking to Dimitri's surprise and mine, there actually was a club in front of us. The club was pretty good but I wasn't that up for celebrating that night. I was rather bummed about the day's results. That didn't stop Nik and Rob from enjoying themselves and getting their grove on and enjoying the night.
Ed Kirwan
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Nürnberg, Germany - We arrived in Nürnberg well before the game vs Ghana. Since this was the first real city the US was playing, we got to the city a few days before the game so we could check out the city and all of the sites. We even took a day trip to München to check out the Bavarian city.
We had two days after that for our stay in Nürnberg. One day we would travel to München. So could we see all of Nürnberg in the other one day? Probably not, but we were going to try anyway. We started by going to the Hauptmarkt or Market Square. We passed the famous fountains and churches located there and headed to the Nürnberg castle. The castle dates back to the 1100s although it was damaged during WWII and had to be rebuilt. It was an impressive place and it offered up some great views of the city. Well worth the visit. After that we headed back to the Hauptmarkt where they had set up another Fan Fest type atmosphere and we ate lunch watching the previews for the days big game: Germany vs Ecuador. We decided to head back to the Fan Fest to watch the Germany game. The Germany game was fun and lots of Germans turned out, but I guess due to the location, it was not as much of a party scene as the Fan Fest in Köln.
The next day we headed to München to check out the Bavarian city and hit up one of the famous Beer Gardens. Since this would be the furthest South we would be, it was a short train ride away. For more about our day trip to München, check out Dimitri's report due some time in the Summer.
We stuck around this time and didn't head early to stadium. We left with the ALL of the fans at the same time marching up the street toward the train station. Nürnberg had no clue what hit them. We stopped the automobiles dead in their tracks as we marched all around them beating drums, waving flags and singing our songs. All the locals and shop owners came out taking pictures of the spectacle of the impromptu parade they were witnessing. Crazy American soccer fans in Germany .... to quote Brent "Who knew?" We continued the march making noise, all the way down the escalator ... into the train station ... through the train station ... onto the platform ...on the train...off the train...all the way to the stadium. It was quite the site to see and I'm sure like everyone else, one of their fondest memories of the 2006 World Cup.
The game on the other hand, a different story completely. The US came out and looked to be playing a bit timid and scared against Ghana with everything on the line. The game was pretty even with not too many chances for either side until the 22nd minute. A poor back pass was made to Claudio who was already the last man back. It put him in a really bad spot and he was immediately stripped of the ball with a harsh challenge. It was another questionable call that went against us and Ghana was now in on a breakaway. A well slotted ball to the right post and just like that the US was down 0-1 as Claudio was still hobbled on the ground and would have to come out of the game. Considering if we did not advance, this would be his last game for the US, it was not the way he wanted to retire from the National Team. Instead of his last moments being walking off the field in Ulsan as Captain America with an American Flag wrapped around him....he will have this.
The US didn't give up though and right before half time in the 43rd minute, we tied the score. Off a giveaway DaMarcus Beasley slotted a beautiful pass to a on rushing Clint Dempsey and he made no mistakes about it as he emphatically pounded the ball past the keeper. I knew he was going to score in this game. He is the best offensive threat we have. I felt so confident, this was the first game I wore my Dempsey jersey since I got it AND I had the "Show Us your Clint" shirt with me as well. At that moment, we all thought we were going to pull it out. We had the momentum going into half time. We came back to tie it on the one mistake we made. We had 45 minutes to score one goal to get us to the second round.
All of the jubilation was short lived as Ghana was awarded a bogus penalty kick 3 minutes later in the 1st minute of first half extra time. A horrible decision by Bocanegra to keep a ball in play instead of kicking it out of bounds was compounded as he mis-hit the ball right to the top center of the 18 yard box. Gooch's man was behind him and Gooch headed the ball away, giving a little nudge to the Ghana forward who took that as his chance to embellish it with a full out dive. That was enough for the good Dr. Markus Merk of Germany to call a PK for Ghana. I used to think he was a good ref...not any more. Against any of the big nations, that would not have been called a PK. The fix was in.......FIFA wanted an African team to advance. Kasey Keller couldn't recreate the magic of 2002 and he conceded the goal. Instead of going in at half time tied with the momentum, we went in down a goal feeling dejected needing two goals to secure advancement.
Words could not really describe how I felt after the match. I was beyond disappointed. I had a hard time even applauding the team after the game. Did they even care? Didn't look like it by the way they were playing...What happened to the team that played so great and inspired against Italy. Did they think that because they tied Italy, they would waltz all over Ghana? Where were their heads? Where was the heart, the determination, the effort? Why did we start a must win game with only one forward? Why is our quote~unquote star player, Landon Donovan passing up a shot on goal from 10 yards out to Ben Olsen of all people. In a must win game, we can only generate 4 shots?? Where was our creativity, our initiative?
To top things off after the game, we lost Nik. We left our seats, found a clear spot in the stadium grounds and folded the flag. Nik was nowhere to be found. We folded the flag and waited. We went back into the stadium and checked -- he wasn't there. Based on his past performances, who the hell knew where he could be. His drunk ass could have passed out somewhere or he could have went off with some similarly drunk Americans. We waited and waited. Eventually we began to head towards the train station very slowly looking for Nik. We reached the exit of the stadium grounds and waited some more. Finally after 20 minutes of waiting there Nik came stumbling upon us. Apparently he went to the restroom and was forced out another exit and like a 3 year old he couldn't tell where he came out from, so he wondered around for an hour until he found us.
Before we hit the train station, we visited one of the Nazi sites located right outside the stadium. Nürnberg was a big city for the Nazis and they held all their big rallies in the city. Right outside of the stadium was the Zeppelin Tribüne where Hitler and all the Nazi higher ups would address and watch the parade precessions. It was a pretty surreal place to be imagining what went on here all those years ago. Upon leaving the Tribune, Dimitri ran into the lovely Michelle Lissel of the Fox Soccer Report and he was very happy to have his picture taken with her.
The next morning, Dave would have to travel back to Düsseldorf to head home. Like the USA, his trip to Germany was now over too. The rest of us were staying for another week. We were heading to Wolfsburg to visit our good friend Bodo and spend some time in the VDub city. To be honest, I couldn't wait to get out of Nürnberg.
