Damn it all to hell…

So the US’ run in the World Cup is over. After eating a shit sandwich in the Czech game the US came out and kicked ass on the greasy Italians before the ref started tossing players out left and right. And don’t get me wrong – I hate complaining against the officials but holy shit, there were some bad calls in this tournament. And for the most part, it’s been consistently bad. I mean, the Pablo Mastroeni red card was definitely a foul… but was it a straight red in a World Cup game? And the Eddie Pope call? He got the ball! Yeah, he came from behind but he did get the ball. Again, is that worth a red card in a World Cup game? Still though, the US battled in that game and got a pretty good result considering. The really cool thing is that that tie kept us alive and gave the third game meaning.

So on the morning of the 22nd, Rick, Bryan and I boarded a train to Nürnberg. When we got there, we had some time to kill before meeting our clan so we took a stroll around the part of the city nearest to the train station. After an hour of sightseeing we met the rest of our group and headed off to the stadium.

In case you don’t know, Frankenstadion is located within easy walking distance of the Nazi Party rally grounds that Leni Riefenstahl made so famous with her propaganda films. We got off the train to the stadium and re-invaded the Nazi rally grounds. What a sight it must have been for any Germans that were there. Hundreds of American flag clad soccer fans crawling on and around the grandstand and podium where Hitler stood and addressed hundreds of thousands.

After visiting the rallying grounds we found a nice beer garden to throw a few back at before heading to the stadium. A live band was playing a pretty diverse mix of old American songs from the Doobie Brothers to Bon Jovi. There was also some Clapton for good measure.

We headed off to the stadium in good spirits and we were treated to the sight of Frankie Hejduk in the stands in the section next to ours. That was pretty random but cool. I mean, our seats were actually pretty good but you’d think an actual member of the team (before suffering injury) would have better seats than us. Still though, while we started off in good spirits, things quickly turned sour when Reyna gave the ball away and allowed a breakaway. First goal for Ghana. One thing I will say about US fans though: though we may have a shitty reputation as a soccer nation (and at this point, deservedly so) our fans kept singing and chanting. We aren’t like the Italians or some other soccer powers whose fans only sing when they’re winning.

A while later, DaMarcus Beasley actually did something right and gave us reason to keep singing when he made a good defensive steal and passed to a streaking Clint Dempsey who absolutely rifled the ball into the back of the net. I swear, Dempsey, Gooch and Jimmy Conrad were some of the few that actually showed up to play at this tournament.

The joy from the goal was quickly dispelled though when the ref called a bullshit penalty against Gooch in the box. Penalty kick. Great. Another shitty call by the fucking retard refs. Still though, just to be clear on this point: the US wasn’t robbed of the game by the refs. We could have overcome that and we SHOULD have overcome that. It wasn’t to be though. All we needed on Thursday was a victory and an Italian win over the Czechs. Well, word started spreading throughout the stadium that the Italians were winning but that meant nothing if we didn’t do our part. And, of course, we didn’t. Fuck.

After the game we headed back to the beer garden for some professional drinking. We got lit and after a few hours, headed back to the train station to catch out train back to Munich. Some of us, however, were more lit than others. While Bryan and I were content to sing some disallowed songs with some rowdy English fans, Ricky went a step further and gave away his nearly $100 jersey to a German man that he must have thought was nice. Good job. We though he may have traded for something of equal value but no… he just gave it away.

We finally made it back to the train station only to realize that Ricky had disappeared. Great. If Bryan had gone missing, Rick and I would have taken the train back to Munich because Bryan could find his way back. If I would have gone missing, Bryan and Rick would have taken the train back for the same reason. But Ricky? We had to stay and try and find him because he wouldn’t have been able to locate the platform the train was departing from. And if he DID make it back to Munich, he wouldn’t know what subway line to take. And if by some miracle he DID take the correct subway line, he wouldn’t know what stop to get off at. And if by some miracle he DID get off at the subway stop, I’m not convinced he would have known what direction to start walking in.

And that’s if he was sober.

Ricky was not sober.

Bryan and I had hoped against all hope that Rick made it to the platform so we went to have a look. No Rick. The train pulled up and still Ricky was nowhere to be found. Again, we couldn’t leave him to find his way back because, well… he’d still be in Nürnberg even now if we left him to his own devices. I told Bryan to stay put while I went on a desperate run to find my fool brother. The good news is that he had somehow wandered back into the train station meaning I didn’t have to run through the whole city. The less impressive news is that he was asking a restaurant owner how to get to the train leaving for Munich and he was using his match ticket. Like looking at the game ticket would give the dude any clues that could help Ricky out. Knucklehead.

In any event, we sprinted back to the platform and found that, by what must have been a delay of some sort, our train had not left us and we were able to board without further incident. Ricky was not in good shape though. Though there were some harrowing moments on the way back, I will detail them later. Suffice it to say, Ricky was fucked enough to pass completely out on the floor of the subway on the way back to the apartment. Notice the gray undershirt where the Donovan jersey should have been? So did he - the next morning - heeheehee...