Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

Another trip to Soccer City in Johannesburg.  We were off to see Argentina and Mexico in the final 16 at World Cup 2010.  We took our normal route of driving to Park Station to catch the direct, free train to the stadium that is offered for games.  This is our third trip using the train and we think we have a system worked out in parking, getting on before and after the game and then getting away from the traffic.  One of the benefits of riding the trains is interacting with fans of the teams about to play, and fans that just love the sport and want a good game.  Carl was able to grab an interview with another group today on the train ride in.

As you can see, it isn’t hard to find awesome people everywhere we go.  We get insight into things to do, how the city was before the games and what they hope it will be in the future.  Once off the train today we sensed the size of the crowd would be different as we enter the final 16.  TV stations, cameras and crews were all over the grounds between security and ticketing.  Once again we stole some lighting to make our own intro shot.

Both Argentina and Mexico fans were fully dressed out and ready to show support.  Carl has a ton of pictures in the VVorldCup picture pool on Flickr.

The game was well played by both sides, much better than Portugal and Brazil the other day in Durban.  We had our first encounter with some fans that had a bit much to drink.  They didn’t have issues with us, but with each other in close proximity of our seats.  It goes without saying that the fun of that moment escapes until the issue is resolved.  Once that passed, everything jumped back to normal being loud and fun.  We stuck around long enough to watch the stadium empty and take more pictures with fans and of the pitch.  Look at the Flickr album to catch them all.

After the performances in the group stages I think no one will be particularly suprised that England didn’t progress furhter than the last 16.  As I said earlier, I don’t mind if England lose as long as they try and in my opinion it looked like they tried against Germany, so I can’t complain.

Refereeing during the entire tournament has been sligtly suspect and the referee and his assistants made a huge mistake by not allowing the fantastic Lampard goal.  Did it alter the game, sure it did, England had to put more players forward to try and score more goals which in turn opened up their back end.   Still Germany did win, but I don’t think they will be this years winners.

So does this result have any impact on the games we’re seeing or fun time we’re having over here, none whatsoever.  We never managed to get tickets to an England game, and I sometimes wonder if the fans at England games would be quite as friendly as the fans have been at the other games.  We did witness our first bit of football violence yesterday at the Argentina vs Mexico game in Soccer City, where an Argentinian fan threw another Argentinian fan down a couple of rows in the stadium, from what we could see it was pretty much due to alcohol, but still not something you like to see.

I am continually impressed at how friendly the South African’s are, everyone of them seems to be on a campaign to have you return again in the future.

We were lucky enough to get last minute tickets to this game in Rustenburg with USA taking on Ghana. We had seen Ghana play twice already and USA once, knowing both teams would provide an excellent match.  We were not disappointed.

Security was the tightest we had seen and we found out later former President Clinton and other stars were there. I am sure adding to the complexity.  We made it in just in time for the flags coming out and the anthems to be played after Carl’s skillful driving from Durban.  It was a long drive as we fought traffic out of Durban and then the last few kilometers.

The game itself was well played as everyone knows by now.  It was the fans that made it for us.  There ups and downs emotionally were apparent in sound and facial expressions.  Carl captured many fans around us at times of cheer and the same fans at times of frustration.  The entire collection is in the picture pool on Flickr.

www.flickr.com More in VVorldCup 2010 pool

The atmosphere after the game was a mixture of cheering for Ghana from both US fans and anyone in South Africa and appreciation to the US team from both US fans and anyone in South Africa.

We have more action and fan shots from the game in the pool and coming in another posting.

After some pictures and our written review of the World Cup 2010 game between Brazil and Portugal in Durban, we wanted to make sure the videos were posted as normal.  We had a delay as we immediately drove to Rustenburg for USA v Ghana and couldn’t find the required Internet bandwidth until now.

Intro Part 1 with Chris

Intro Part 2 with Carl (See Flyboytyler Flickr feed for references made, mainly this photo)

Outro with Andy

We had the great pleasure of visiting Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban one more time.  Unfortunately, it was a waste of 96 minutes of our life watching Brazil and Portugal play. They were evenly matched and were not trying to get anyone hurt before they moved on to the final 16.

The rest of the time there was an incredible experience with over 61k in attendance.  The crowds were well split between the two teams showing excellent support for both.  At the end of the game we even saw fans changing shirts and jerseys from both sides.  A true showing of community.  This was the loudest game we have been to so far at any stadium.

Security was at it’s maximum with helicopter gun ships, crowd control SWAT teams in full gear and more officers than we have seen.  Yet there was not a single issue we saw until the large boo at the end from the disappointed fans.

We have a large amount of pictures uploaded to the Flickr group for this event.  Please head over to the Flickr VVorldcup photo group.

The stadium into videos will be up shortly (as uploading speed allows) for your review.  You can always check TheVVorldCip YouTube channel direct at any time.

This time Carl does our stadium intro as we get to see an awesome game with Japan winning.  The stadium itself was not as full as one would have hoped with the placement of a team in a bracket on the line.

But the Japan fans came out in full force.  Carl managed to capture some incredible game pictures as well as fan pictures.  The full set can be found in the VVorldCup photo pool on Flickr. Here are some of our favorites:

The drive itself was the same as last time, but lighter in traffic.  The smoke, however, was constant and almost burning to your throat at some points. They have begun making fire breaks in the land due to the dry winter. Fire breaks can be a wide swatch of land or all of the sides of the road for miles. we were able to see an entire mountain side on fire at one point during the drive making the road an entire fog. Now we get 5 hours of sleep and drive the opposite way to watch Brazil down in Durban play. But, we enjoy it so much.