the only real positive to the match was the tremendous turnout of american fans. it’s unfortunate that the match turned out the way it did. the second goal knocked a bit of wind out of the fans’ sails, but it wasn’t probably until the last 20 minutes of the match when it had almost completely died. post half-time there really wasn’t much until eddie johnson came on.
i’m not going to ramble on about how crappy the u.s. played since plenty have already. for me, the only bright spots were gooch and eddie johnson. why was beasley not subbed? anyway, if eddie and dempsey aren’t starting against italy i will be very disappointed. the switch to the 3-5-2 didn’t really do it for me either. it was nice to see a tactical move towards a possibly more offensive format, but the problem was the formation. it was the execution or more specifically, the lack of any.
saturday against italy is a must when. a tie means we aren’t dead, but you might as well club us over the head and throw us on the cart.
it’s been a day since i initially wrote this. i couldn’t decide what pictures to post so i put it off. i just decided to go with these. there really weren’t any that were that great.
soccer head and his significant other were our fearless leaders from soccer travel after getting off the train in gelsenkirchen.
captain america, freaky elvis and some guy who may or may not be a porn star. it’s tough to tell with the mustache.
there were a few people wanting to take the tram to the stadium in gelsenkirchen. it turns out that taking the bus to the stadium is a better method since it’s direct to the stadium without making regular stops.
just after half-time.
on the train to gelsenkirchen, i sat next to andy mead from yellow card journalism. he had been hired by soccer travel to take pictures on the trip. supposedly, the plan is to maybe send out a cd or dvd with pictures after the trip. i’m sure he did a better job than i did. i should have gotten better pictures of all the u.s. fans in downtown (?) gelsenkirchen before the match.
Okay, saw the game at The Original… during lunch. It was a disappointment to spend a long lunch on this one.
Sounds like things are going great. Keep the pics coming.
i just hope the disappointing result doesn’t negatively affect in progress made in support in the u.s.
does the original… have the high-def screens?
Freddy Mercury is not dead!