Posts Tagged ‘Ghana’

We had the pleasure of seeing Ghana versus USA in Natal at Arena das Dumas. I say pleasure because we realized we missed the Ghana fans since meeting them in South Africa.

Notice the two he is holding up. That was not a peace sign.  It was the score they were predicitng to win by.

The stadium was much like Arena Pernambuco in size, layout and look.  We had a much easier time getting to parking and a decent walk to the stadium. While there was still no signage, we read up on the websites and mapped everything out. We chose the college to park for free and it was the best choice for many reasons.

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It’s been a few days since our last post.  A lot can happen in a couple of days.  we took our first drive to Natal to see the USA vs Ghana game.  We prepared a little better for this trip and did a lot of research before the trip to find out more about travel and parking for the game, as before we found nothing on the FIFA website, but fortunately found some very useful information on blogs and the Brasilian government website.  At Natal itself, pretty much zero in the way of signage to actually assist in the process, thank goodness for GPS and Waze.

Our seats for the USA game were much like the Ivory Coast v Japan game, right up there sitting next to St. Peter in the last but one row.  We don’t have an issue with these seats as the view is fantastic, although the really loud cheering crowds tend to be much lower down closer to the pitch.  Talking of fans, arriving in Natal was like a big party with the Ghana fans.  These folks were singing and dancing big time and they never stopped, not before, not during and not after when their team had lost, true fans just having a great time.

Here are a couple of videos of the Ghana fans, and Chris’s introduction video.

For those wondering these are the games we will be attending:

Saturday 14th June Match 6 – Côte d’Ivoire v Japan
Monday 16th June Match 14 – Ghana vs USA
Thursday 19th June Match 22 – Japan vs Greece
Friday 20th June Match 24 – Italy vs Costa Rica

Look for us on the Tele.

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.

One of the things I have mentioned on the IdoNotes blog here is how this is a community event.  Global community.  Countries really do not matter when it comes to who you talk to, walk next to, stand next to our share a bag of crisps.

After the Ghana versus Germany game, we were honored to meet some wonderful South Africans that allowed us to do the following interviews. Carl did the first one, with Andy playing the instrumental.

Andy took on the second interview of a wonderful couple that has traveled the world. They even took time after to teach the Shosholoza song

We raced back from Durban to rest about an hour before heading to the train station for Ghana versus Germany.  This promised to be a good game as both teams needed to perform to advance.  After our parking experience the other day when catching the train to Soccer City, we learned an important lesson about private garages around the parking zone.  Mainly when the main parking is free at the train platforms.

Let me describe free.  You are able to park on the street as well as in the lot, no charge for the World Cup event around Park Station.  However, when leaving, the staff runs to walk you to your car, make sure you back out correctly even if you are the only car and then expect some form of “tip”.  So in essence you do pay to park a small amount, just not officially.  The private parking charges unstated pricing depending on the mood and what you are willing.

So we parked on the platforms (the streets were full already) and as we entered the train station we were told that the last train to Soccer City was boarding.  It was a good 90 minutes before the game, for a fifteen minute train ride.  The end result is we made the train fine with Carl running.  Yes.  You read what I said.

After we moved with the sea of people, we did our intro video.

Inside it was loud as ever with huge grouping of German and Ghana fans.  In the opposite corner of our seats was an entire section of German fans that never sat down and were told to remove some banners.  A small disturbance of locals hitting each other with vuvuzelas to our left made the entire game interesting.  Yet the fans were wonderful, excited, talkative to each other and just there for a good match.

As you can see, the fans were awesome and we had excellent seats for the game.

See all of our World Cup photos at the group Flickr pool