I had to go to DC all week for a training; the family came up as well to see the sights. Our favorite Soccer team, Chicago Fire, advanced the previous week in the US Open Cup and were paired up to play DC United on Tuesday, a perfect coincidence for us. Since it was a an Open Cup game and not an MLS Match, the game was not played at RFK and was instead held at the Maryland Soccerplex in Germantown, MD. We rented a car and headed out there for the match.

The Soccerplex was a nice little venue with a main stadium that held roughly 4,000 people. We got there too late to grab seats, so we had to sit on a grass hill behind one of the goals. It was not a bad view at all and we were able to see a lot of action sitting right behind the goal.  

The Fire dominated the first half and scored first in the 36th minute on a long ball over the top to reserve midfielder Daniel Woolard. The Fire had been successfully chipping balls over the top the whole half and the strategy finally paid off. A few minutes later, another long ball dropped in to Chris Rolfe to give him a one-on-one with the ‘keeper, but it was poorly struck right at the goalie and the first half ended 1-0. This miss would prove to be costly.

Unfortunately for the Fire, the second half was dominated by DC. United brought on Jaime Moreno in the 60th minute and he basically took over. About 15 minutes later, he stole a ball from a Fire defender and immediately crossed it into the box where an unmarked DC midfielder was waiting to tap it in. The score remained 1-1 for the rest of the half, but it was obvious that DC was on its way to victory unless something changed in the momentum.

In OT, Chicago brought on Cuautemoc Blanco to hopefully change the Fire’s fortunes. However, DC continued to control the game and scored off a corner from Moreno to Bryan Namoff in the 99th minute. The Fire found themselves down 2-1 with 21 minutes left in OT.

Blanco lasted all of 20 minutes as he got into a fight with Clyde Sims and punched him in the stomach. He and another player from DC that got involved in a scuffle were red-carded. Apparently, Blanco also got into the altercation with a DC employee as he was leaving the pitch. Not a good night for Blanco.

The game  ended 2-1, ending Chicago’s dominance of DC and also their run at a fifth Open Cup title in 11 years. This year’s team has blown a lot of one goal leads and this game followed that same pattern. If they are going to win the MLS Championship this season, they’re going to have to figure out a way to either score more goals to increase their leads or figure out how to successfully defend a one-goal lead late in games.

Funniest moment of the night: Chicago’s Goalkeeper is named Jon Busch. A DC fan behind his goal was razzing him all night, but the most clever line he threw out was “Hey Busch, you’re the worst President ever”. Everyone got quite a chuckle out of that one.

From the Guardian about my soccer team, FC Bayern:

“Bayern will still win it, of course, mainly because Bremen are more open at the back than a diarrhoeic humpback whale.”

Ew. 

After Todd contacted the offices at FC Dallas to inform them of our “Pizza Incident” during our visit to the game between FC Dallas and Chicago, one of their customer relations reps contacted him about attending a game on the house in the future. After he told her where he lives, she was kind enough to let me use the free ticket since I live in Dallas and was at the game with him when it took 15 minutes to get a pie. The free ticket for the Chivas game was for the 5th row at about the 20 yard line. It was Juan Toja mullet night and they were giving away free wigs to the first into the gates. I didn’t get one but did enjoy all of the people that were wearing them. The game ended up being 0-0 with minimal scoring chances for each team. I left a little early as I was leaving for Nashville the next morning. The concession stand that had issues with keeping pizza on hand last time passed the test this time and I enjoyed a cheese pizza during the halftime break.

Todd made his way to the Dallas area to attend the big match between FC Dallas and his favorite MLS team, the Chicago Fire. He got a ticket hookup from a fellow Fire fan that was driving in from Oklahoma City but we weren’t sure if the guy was expecting payment or if the tickets would be free. Anyhow, we made our way to Frisco, which is a northern subarb about 25 miles away which meant over an hour during the rush hour drive. Once we made it to Pizza Hut Park, we took a lap while waiting for the ticket guy, Ted, to show up. Once he did, we quickly found our seats just in time for kickoff. The tickets were good and very free. It was my first visit to Pizza Hut park and I must say it was quite nice. We didn’t move around much but the site lines looked really good. The game was scoreless in the first half. We missed a good portion at the pizza stand as they ran out of pies. Not good considering the name of the place.

Chicago scored to take a 1-0 lead early in the second half and it looked like they would cruise to a win. The ref added 4 minutes in stoppage time, which seemed a little excessive. Sure enough, Todd’s favorite Dallas player, Carlos Ruiz, scored the late goal that produced a 1-1 tie. For the sixth consecutive year, the Brimstone Cup would remain in Dallas, although it has lost a bit of meaning since Dallas gave up their nickname, which was Burn. Overall, it was a good game although the result was not too great for the visitor from Atlanta. The traffic getting out of there after the game was atrocious as the Tollway leading to the park is not complete so we had to go on service roads for the last 5 miles and they were congested before and after the game.

I went out to the Silverbacks game on Saturday. It was Matt Bobo (their best Defender) Bobblehead night, so I figured it was time to catch my first ‘Backs game of the year. We made it a family affair and this was Olivia’s first Soccer game.

They have made some progress on the stadium since last season; they now have an almost fully completed walkway around the top of the stands, giving it more of a bowl look. When completed by the end of this season, the capacity will move to 4K, then to 7.5K by next season. Their final phase is to increase the stadium to 20K, but I don’t see that happening as I don’t think their attendance would justify or finance such a move, unless they get an MLS team.

The game was great; the Whitecaps are the defending USL Champions and are on top of the table this season; however, the ‘Backs dominated them from start to finish. Warren Ukah, a Grady High School grad, had both goals in the 2-0 victory. I would’ve coached against Ukah his Senior year (my first), but he didn’t get along with the coach at the time, so he didn’t join the team. His brother is on Grady now and is a strong player as well, but I doubt that he’ll be at the same level as Warren.

Martin Nash, Steve’s brother, plays for Vancouver. I was surprised how ineffective he was, considering that he starts for Canada’s National Team. I was waiting for him to take over, but it never happened. I guess he doesn’t have the Field General skills that his brother has on the court.

for me to become a bigger fanboy of Christian Laettner:

http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070108&content_id=81370&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp

Ribery- Dr. Evil and Mini-Me

Camoranesi-Furio from Sopranos aka Jackie Chan

Was it Lang that made a Zurn Klinsmann call?

Matt made a Van Basten - Kiki Vandeweghe call.

The Atlanta Silverbacks, our 2nd Division Pro Soccer Team, recently opened up a Soccer-Specific Stadium right off of Northcrest Road where I-85 and I-285 meet. The stadium, which currently holds 3 K, is part of an ambitious plan by its ownership to eventually build up in various stages a 15 K venue with several practice fields and a youth system to feed into its Professional ranks. This is very similar to the European mold of Soccer Organizations. Right now, there are two stands that run along each sideline and there are two full-length practice fields on the property- a good start for the organization. After years of playing at the dumpy DeKalb Memorial Stadium, it was nice to finally see the day where the ‘Backs actually had something worth visiting.

Ismail and I went to this match on Friday night, their third game in the new digs. After watching the World Cup for the past three weeks, it was painfully obvious that the talent on the field was lacking. The teams played very hard, but lacked the kind of crisp passing and accurate shooting that i’d become accustomed to in Germany. The Backs would take the lead right before halftime on a goal from Scott Buete, a former Chicago Fire player that never lived up to his potential as a first round draft pick. The second half was pretty chaotic as both teams had several opportunities. Charleston hit the post twice in the match and looked poised to score a late goal. The Backs would somehow hang on to the 1-0 victory and win the Southern Derby Cup, a tradition between fans of the various southern Second Division teams that goes back to 2000. About 25 Charleston fans made the trip over from South Carolina and were very passionate for their team. It must’ve been a disappointing game to come all that way to see their team lose not only the game, but the Cup as well.

I definitely will try to catch a few more games this year; it’s an intimate little stadium that let gives the fans the chance to be close to the field. For us, it’s also very easy to get there from my house (only 20 minutes). Plus, it’s free for me because I have National Soccer Coaches Association membership, so it’s cost-effective as well.

On Saturday, 6/24/06, I went to the Munich Olympiastadion with my friends Matthias and Bettina to watch Germany play Sweden. The main stadium of the 1972 Olympic games and for 33 years the home of FC Bayern, the stadium is only used now for major concerts. On this day, they opened up half of the Stadium to the first 30 K people to watch the match on a big screen set up on the track at the bottom of the stands. We got there at 2:30 for the 5 PM start and there were already thousands of people waiting to get in. It was a very hot day and waiting in line for 45 minutes was a hellish experience, but it would end up being worth it. We had to wait in our seats for almost 2 hours, but during that time, the Germans were already getting into the spirit of the game and were chanting various Soccer chants and waving German flags. This display was typical of the whole experience- Germans finally having the chance to once again show their Patriotism. For almost 60 years, Germans have been told that it’s wrong to be patriotic because Patriotism can lead to Nazism. This was the first time since the war that the majority of Germans have shown some pride in their country and their team. Everywhere you went, people had flags or wore Black, Red and Gold apparel. Every German that I spoke with commented as such and were happy to see this happening.

The game itself was great for Germany- Lukas Podolski would score twice in the first 15 minutes of the match and Germany displayed an absolute dominance over the Swedes. The atmosphere at the Olympiastadion was incredible- I don’t think it could’ve been better at the actual game (also in Munich at the new Allianz Arena) than it was that day. People were in full voice with such various chants as “Berlin, Berlin, we’re going to Berlin” and “Stand up if you’re German”. When the match ended and Germany had advanced to the Quarterfinals, everyone in that stadium was ecstatic. I felt like I had actually been at the game. Even though I watched the game on a big screen instead of at the Stadium, this would be my favorite World Cup Experience.

I felt very confident that the US would win this game and advance to the knockout stages. We played so well vs. Italy and I didn’t expect that the Ghanians would repeat their performance that they had vs. the Czechs. We left Berlin that morning and arrived in Nurnberg (Nuremberg) at 2:30. After checking our luggage in, we boarded a train to the Frankenstadion. Although it’s only a five minute ride to the stadium from the main train station, it took 30 minutes to get there because once they jammed us into the train like Japanese commuters; we just sat there for 20 minutes before the train actually left the station. When we arrived, I saw that a girl had passed out from heat exhaustion and they had to give her medical attention.

When we got out of the Stadium train station, we headed for the main attraction-no, not the stadium, but the Nazi Party Rally Grounds right next to the stadium. I knew that they were close by and planned all along to visit them while I was there. Because most things related to the Nazi regime wre destroyed in World War II by the Allied forces, it’s almost impossible to find anything related to the era in Germany these days. Not all of the structures still exist, but the big marble steps and platform where the Nazis used to give speeches each year are still there. After exploring this area, we headed into the Frankenstadion for the big match. For this game, we had what were supposed to be the best tickets of any of the games that we attended (based on ticket price); however, we were in the upper corner of the stadium pretty far from the action. The stadium was pretty nice and had a similar feel to Kaiserluatern in that it was smaller than the stadiums in Gelsenkirchen and Hamburg. We were in the US section and there were definitely more Americans than Ghanians in attendance.

The US started off pretty well and Ghana showed me nothing. Our dominance would be short-lived as Claudio Reyna got his pocket picked and the Ghanian quickly scored on a breakaway. It looked like Reyna got fouled on the play, but apparently no one on the US felt as such because no one really argued it. The equally bad part about this play is that Reyna got hurt on the play and ended up coming out of the game shortly after. 15 minutes later, the US would be rewarded for its play after Beasley picked the ball off one of their defenders and crossed the ball into Clint Dempsey, who was the only American to score in the World Cup (the Italy goal was an own-goal). Dempsey was really the only field player that played well in all three matches.

The goal was just what we needed and word passed through the stands that Italy was beating the Czechs; this meant that we could advance if we could win our match. Right before halftime it looked like we would go into the locker room full of confidence and ready to win the game in the 2nd half. Then the worst happened- Ghana sent a harmless cross into the middle where only one Ghanian player and “Gooch” Onyewu were waiting for the ball. Both players were jostling for position, but the referee determined that Googch came over the Ghanian player’s back and fouled him in the box. This was a terrible call to make in that both players were fighting for the ball and Gooch did not gain an advantage by fouling or take away the Ghanian player’s opportunity to cleanly win the ball (he was also using physical contact too to win the ball). I’ve seen this play hundreds of times and it almost always goes against the offensive player because any time the offensive player uses physical play to gain the ball, it looks like a foul. The referee will almost always defer to the defense on this sort of play. That would not be the case in this instance; I think Gooch was mostly penalized for being taller than the Ghanian and was judged for going over the other player’s back. Anyway, Stephen Appiah of Ghana scored the penalty kick to make it 2-1 and the US would head into the locker room demoralized.

The second half was very unorganized for the US; they were playing well the first 15 minutes and created several opportunities, but couldn’t finish. Eddie Lewis had a nice cross to Brian McBride. McBride headed it nicely, but it hit the post. For the last 25 minutes, the US lost its shape and couldn’t create any significant chances on goal. In the final few minutes, Donovan had a chance to tie it when he had a one-on-one with the ‘keeper on the right side; instead, he dropped the ball back to the top of the penalty area to a player being marked with two Ghanians. This was typical of Landon during the World Cup- scared to take it to anyone and showing no leadership skills.

When the final whistle blew, we were out of the Cup. The whole US World Cup Experience was disappointing because I knew we were much better than what we’d shown in the last 3 games. We had absolutely no business losing to Ghana and deserved a better fate. Ghana didn’t do anything to impress me that game and they definitely did not deserve to leave Nurnberg with three points.

This was my last game of the trip and I was kind of glad that I didn’t have to suffer through another US game. In some ways, it felt like a waste of money to go watch them play. I was happy that I got to go the World Cup, but the poor performances definitely put a damper on the experience. The one good thing about Nurnberg (besides seeing the Rally Grounds) is that on my way to pick up our bags after the match at the Station, I found a Samsung MP3 player on the ground. At least I got some of my money back.

We were in the final stretch of our trip and that night headed to Munich for four days to visit my friends Moritz, Matthias and Bettina. Also, I was looking forward to visiting the FC Bayern training grounds and the Fan Store. While there, I also went to Munich Olympiastadion to watch Germany play Sweden on a big screen with 30K Germans. I’ll recap this in my last blog.

(I don’t have digital pics for this one; my batteries an out. We did take pictures with a “real” camera, so once the film is developed, i’ll scan the pictures and put them online).