Monday, June 08, 2009

Amarillo! Tarjeta amarilla por favor!

US soccer is one of my favorite things in the world. Everyone has their own obsession that no one else fully gets (whether it be music or cars or theater or...World of Warcraft?) and this is mine. And I frankly, to this day, have little to no idea how that happened.

We aren't really a soccer family at all, and in the US, it seems like you have to be born into a soccer family to pick it up. I mean, I played soccer as a little kid and I was pretty good, but every little kid played soccer and I'm sure most of them were pretty good. But I'm sure playing soccer isn't the key, as the many opponents and teammates I've met through playing soccer have yet to produce another US soccer fanatic quite like myself.

I think it started in 2002, when the US did well in the World Cup in South Korea/Japan. I remember seeing some news story about a big upset they had, and my 11 year old self somehow decided I would get really interested. I even woke up at 4:00 AM to listen to one of their games on the radio (something I fondly recreated last year during the Olympics, albeit with a TV that time). However, after that World Cup ended, soccer faded back into a passing interest for a long time, until the next World Cup in 2006 I guess.

My return to soccer fandom (and the start of the serious fanaticism) is chronicled in the classic June 21, 2006 post I might have to start liking Yellowcard by default. In this post, a 15 year old Blake claims to have "gotten really into following soccer lately" amongst a host of other chubby, nervous drivel. The point is, my love for the team grew from that summer (which, as I noticed looking back at old posts, was momentous in a lot of ways. Perhaps this will be chronicled in another post) to the full-blown obsession it is today.

Anyway, through all of this, I had only been to one US game before, in the summer of 2007 when the love was still blooming into half of what it is today. That's what made going to the US soccer game on Saturday such a big occasion for me.

And what an occasion it was. Considering my hopes for the day were higher than probably any until the day I propose, I wanted to make sure everything would go perfectly. I assembled a superteam of the Hanke brothers, Meyer, Becca, and Paul soon after the game's location was even announced. Then I waited anxiously for the gameday in much the way I wait to use terrible similies when I write this blog.

And there it was, June 6th. We left for Chicago in the mid-afternoon to get there before the 7:00 kickoff. The car ride was fun yet uneventful ("funeventful", if you will) and we got to Soldier Field with about an hour and a half to kill. We didn't really have a taste for the gameday atmosphere until we emerged from the parking garage to see mass seas of blue-and-white clad Honduras fans.

Walking around the stadium before the game, you would never have believed that this game was in Chicago as opposed to whatever city is in Honduras. Our little pack of 6 US fans was absolutely surrounded by Hondurans the whole time we hung around museum campus. We did brave the Central American swarms to get Chicago hot dogs (celery salt FTW) before we entered Soldier Field. Everything going to plan so far, for the most part.

After we got into the stadium, we located our seats, which were a whole lot better than I had expected them to be. They were further up than the ones we had for the last US game, but I almost preferred it because you could see the whole field a lot better. It's a toss-up.

However, the location of our seats ensured we were going to be mostly surrounded by Honduras fans (which made up an estimated 75% of the almost capacity crowd), although we did manage to land in a little pocket of fellow US fans. I wasn't complaining, it's fun to go back and forth with the other team's fans a little.

It did get a little obnoxious when the Honduran majority passed this HUGE Honduras flag back and forth across the upper deck over all the fans before the game started. This happened like 6 times, but it did make for a couple interesting incidents. As a USA diehard, I refused to help pass the flag along, and even took the liberty of spitting on it a few times as it passed over my head (which is actually pretty standard international soccer fare). However, one of my particularly voracious spits came just a fraction of a second after the last part of the flag had passed over me, and hit an anonymous Honduran maybe 5 rows in front of us. He then proceeded to beat me to a bloody pulp.

Nah, he actually didn't notice. It was pretty ridiculous. One or two Hondurans around me laughed a little bit and boy was my face red. The flag did exact its revenge on me during another trip across the stands, hitting me in the face and flinging my glasses 3 rows back. Fortunately, some friendly Hondurans returned them to me unharmed. Jake suggested how bad it would have been if they had broken and rendered my eyesight useless for the whole game, which caused me to shudder and rank it as the second most horrifying "almost happened" worst-case scenario in my life. I'll only tell you the number one most horrifying worst-case scenario if you're really special. I've probably never told anyone, actually, as it is that horrifying. Moving right along...

Soon enough, the game started, and it definitely did not start well. We came out looking shaky and Honduras capitalized almost immediately, scoring 5 minutes in. Fearing a huge collapse and expecting a loss, I swore loudly many times. I'm going to exempt that moment from my new year's resolution count, due to severe emotional distress. We slowly started to put it together as the first half wore on, but I was still pretty miserable to see us losing, until right before halftime one of their defenders gifted us with a stupid handball in the box...penalty kick time.

The minute or two before Landon Donovan stepped up to take the penalty kick may have been the most intense in my life. All the passion I've been saving up for the US team came to a head as he stared down the keeper with a chance to tie the game up before halftime. He just HAD to convert that PK. If he didn't, Honduras would carry that momentum to a win, and I also would die of hypertension on the spot. The pressure kept building and building as what seemed like an eternity passed before he ran up to slam the ball goalwards. I don't have asthma but it felt like I just developed it on the spot. The air left Soldier Field and the entire crowd held their breath as Landon's cleat struck the ball.

Tie ballgame.

Just as the emotional buildup before the penalty kick was so immense, the release was equally epic. I nearly had tears of joy as I watched the small but passionate contingent of home fans jump around wildly as their team's talisman celebrated his unstoppable drive to the top of the net. That was a moment of joy and excitement unrivaled by anything I can remember in my life and served as a reminder of why I love this team so much. That was a feeling I hope I never forget.

The half ended a few minutes later and I felt confident that we would be able to get our winner in the second half. The raw emotion of Donovan's PK and ensuing celebration seemed to be enough to give our guys the swagger and momentum they needed to grab the second.

And sure enough, it came. After a frustrating number of half-chances and coulda-woulda-shouldas, it was captain Carlos Bocanegra with the gutsy diving header that was either going to end with a goal or a kick to the head. Fortunately, it was the former. 2-1 USA.

I was able to really let loose after that, after an incredibly tense first half, I was back to being jovial as I watched the crew make sure Honduras wouldn't score again. That's when some of the back and forth with the surrounding Honduran fans began, which fortunately all stayed pretty good natured. Because of my research into all things soccer, I knew a few things to say that would get the attention of the opposing fans. I got a few chuckles from the Hondurans for cheering a few ole's for the 'gringos'. Being ahead actually allowed me to have a little fun instead of giving myself coronaries over turnovers and bad crosses.

There were a couple of scary moments as Honduras desperately pressed for the equalizer, but Tim Howard and the D ultimately held strong and we made it out with a gritty 2-1 comeback victory over a tough opponent. I felt euphoria as the official finally blew his whistle after 4 long minutes of stoppage time...for I got to witness my obsession grab a determined victory and I got to feel the highs and lows as they did. The 5 who left the stadium with me may never before have seen a happier Blake and I rode that high all the way home.

A lot of people have asked me how the game was. I've mostly said "a lot of fun" but ^that^ is what I've really meant to say.