Archive for the ‘Teams’ Category

Hello and welcome to 2018!  So the question we keep getting is “are you going to the World Cup in Russia”, and the answer is yes, yes we are.  We have our first set of tickets, and we have our flights booked, we’re going to the World Cup in Russia!

You’ll be finding us at the following games:

• France vs Australia
• Colombia vs Japan
• Iran vs Spain
• Denmark vs Australia
• Denmark vs France
  UPDATE
• England vs Panama

Last night we attended the World Cup Final at Soccer City in Johannesburg. It felt special to be there, and the atmosphere is something I will never forget. To see Nelson Mandela was something special, and everyone in the stadium gave him the standing ovation he deserves, football players are often referred to as heroes by the media (falsely), but Nelson Mandela is a real hero, and a great inspiration for millions of people.

The game did not flow very well, and compared to football played in the 3/4th playoff game from the previous night was disappointing, but lets face it, if I was only interested in the football I could have stayed at home and watched it on the tele with instant replays, attending the games has been as much about the atmosphere as the game itself. The Dutch played dirty and unfortunately their tournament will probably be remembered that way.

As with our other games, we met people in the stands, took lots of photos and did our regular video introductions…

Alex from the train to Soccer City

Andy introduces the World Cup final (be sure to listen to my score prediction)

Stacie, our gracious hostess, provides the closing comments

Yesterday we got to watch Germany vs Spain.  Didn’t get access to a computer until I got back to Johannesburg so sorry for the delay.  The best team won, Spain totally took Germany out of the game, no idea what the posession percentage was, but Germany couldn’t have had it much.  Chris Jr continues to get lots of attention, and is very popular with the ladies, much like Chris Sr.   There were some fans which missed the game because of issues with their flights, to them I say, what the hell were you thinking? Who leaves their travel to a flight that is supposed to get in a couple of hours early?  So now we will have a historic World Cup final, with neither the Netherlands or Spain having won the competition.  I have more friends that are Dutch, so I think I’ll be rooting for them.

We did see a person invade the pitch early on in the game, and unfortunately, the security didn’t beat the crap out of him as I had been told would happen. Oh well, I did video what happened.

Intro Video

Chris getting attention

Dumb ass Italian

See you at the final!!!!

While I was not there in physical presence, I certainly am there still in spirit and I am happy Andy and Carl are joining me watching the game in Durban.

Sorry for the noise they make, they get excited easily.

This evening we saw Spain vs Paraguay. This game was almost as boring as the Portual vs Brazil game. Fortunately it did not need overtime and after hitting the post three times in about 4 seconds, the Spanish scored. Spain looked alot like England this evening, poor passing, poor final ball and not pushing forward very much.

Here are this evenings opening and closing videos

Last night, I feel very privileged to have had the pleasure to go to the Uruguay vs Ghana game. The crowd going to Soccer City on the train was in high spirits, cheering and singing the whole trip. The noise in the stadium with the VuVuZelas and the singing was just incredible, I’m not very good at describing things in words, but let me try by saying the noise rattled your rib cage, it was loud!

The game was incredible, Ghana played really well and deserved the win, and if there was ever the evidence needed for the football equivalent of a rugby penalty try, yesterday showed it. Cheat and you can still get through to the next round of the World Cup. Ghana played great, passing the ball, using the wings, holding the ball up, basically they should have won. Sadly it was decided on penalties, and it looks like the English teams penalty coach has been training the Ghana team.

I did take the video camera with me, but it’s taken a little while to sort out missing codecs, but I think I have it now.

Intro video 1

Intro Video 2

Kristine, a pretty girl from Wilmington, USA who liked to dance and I think was very cheery cos of cheap Budweiser, I promised I’d post her video.

A few beers later, Andy doing the closing.

And finally, Andy introduces Chris jr to complete strangers on the train. This lady it turned out is Colombian and lives in Atlanta USA.