When the buddy system fails....

We decided to go scope out the parking for the game about 6 hours in advance (at the advice of FIFA). Luckily we thought ahead and brought everything we needed because spots were filling up fast and we ended up staying. We found the closest spot possible to the stadium in this locals front yard for a mere 50 Rand aka about 6 dollars which is the cheapest I have ever paid to get close to a sporting event. We would have paid 50 dollars to get this kinda spot.




Our old ball was still flat from the barbwire in the complex but fortunately we had purchased a sweet new orange puma soccer ball. This came in very handily to kill the 6 hours of time. We juggled with the locals, riot patrol guys in combat boots and some other random fans. We met some resident English fans who were surprisingly friendly and tailgated with us on our Rio and showed us how to get 1 dollar 25oz beerz. Sadly.. we were quite the spectacle of amazement with our juggling 'skills'. We received the following comments: "Are you from England?", "Looks like you've done this before", "I can't do all that stuff, where you from? Argentina?", etc.. Basically no one thinks anyone in the US is capable of playing with a ball and not falling down.

The game was awesome... Started off with me entering the stadium pretending to be blind. We purchased a US flag and it came with a long PVC pipe that looked like a blind mans cane thing that we used to our humorous advantage. The security guards were very concerned and very courteously escorted me through the security lines. Not sure why they bought the gag so well but the were genuinely worried first time they'd seen a blind guy at a game, or a blind guy in general for that matter. Not sure why a blind guy would go to a game.. oh well. It was quite depressing seeing the lack of US support at the game; there were England flags strewn over every banister and only a light sprinkling of US flags.






Although the support for the Americans was scattered we were kind of glad more didn't show up. Turns out American fans are huge douche bags. One guy tried to fight with Jake about flag laws in the US and then kept screaming "Welcome To America" to each English fan that walked by. It really made no sense at all. Another super annoying thing about american fans is the lack of creativity when creating chants. The English side have an elaborate catalog of songs with actual words and meaning. US fans tend to take any song at random and replace all of the words with "USA". Imagine Eye of the Tiger with every word U.... U..S..A.. U..S..A.. U..S..AYYYYYYY.. it hurts.

The first goal happened right in front of us and was a dagger in the heart. Right after the English scored they all slid right in front of our section, salt in the wound. US controlled play in the first half minus the early blunder and eventually put one in. From where we were we had a bad angle but it was one of the most amazing moments once we realized it actually crossed the line. Jumping and hugs ensued. The game ended in a tie but was exciting none the less. The one super annoying thing about the game was there was no scoreboard. We had no idea how much time was left and had no chance to catch any replays. Well played South Africa.

Once the game ended it was chaos. When we were trying to head back to the car Jake was cut off by some drunken English fans and we were separated. Panic ensued. This post had been written by both of us but we had to keep it in Tim's voice because it would sound weird otherwise. We will now switch to Jake because it would be easier to explain how he almost died.

Once I was cut off by the stupid Brits I thought I saw Tim exit the stadium. Wrong. I ended up walking around looking for him and ended up exiting out the wrong side of the stadium. Once out of the stadium i tried to backtrack but the police kept blocking off all the roads back to our car. It was about midnight and i started to panic realizing the crowds of people would be gone soon and i would be stuck on the streets in Rustenburg, alone, and in the middle of the night. Mind you we were not in the best area, street lights we very scarce. I started to run.


Eventually i realized i had taken a picture of the stadium from our parking spot. I compared my position to the one in the photo and finally made it back to Tim who was waiting with the owners of the house whose lawn we were parked on. They were all very nice and we hung out with them for a while before leaving. I was very sweaty at this point having ran like 5 miles. Sigh. We are working on a new buddy system so no worries.

We are off to the reserve today and then Swaziland tomorrow. More to come!!