Near Post Blog

As I mentioned a few days ago, last night I was fortunate enough to have the US play within 1,000 miles of my house. I made the 90-mile trip to Tampa to watch the boys take on El Salvador. If you’ve never been to Tampa, let me just give you a little background information on the travel situation. Everything was rolling along nicely until I hit I-275. It seems like every road in downtown Tampa feeds into it within 300 ft, meaning traffic slows to a crawl, and that might be being generous. I watched the “Time of Arrival” feature of my GPS go from 4:15pm to 4:40pm during a 3 mile stretch. But, with that being said, I made my way to a local bar called World of Beer. I spent about a soccer match’s worth of time bellied up, and probably had 1-2 more beers than I needed, considering it was rainy and the voice on my GPS system is the most annoying thing in the world.

I got to Raymond James Stadium at about 6:45pm, and just made it to my seat as both teams were walking onto the field. Tickets were only sold in three sections of the stadium, leaving the sideline across from my section completely empty. You’ll see what I mean when I post pictures from the match. It was raining for the first 60 minutes of the match, but I was just stoked, and a little buzzed, so the elements didn’t bother me.

But what does bother me, not just in soccer but in American sports in general, is the lack of support of some of the fans. Myself, and three other fans from Atlanta, were standing after a good effort by the US team, and a group of people behind me started crying, “Sit down! We’re trying to watch a game here!”, and all that garbage you get from douchebag fans that have no business at a soccer match. If you want to watch a match while seated, save the $50 and watch it on TV. It wasn’t a little league game, it was the national team playing. Get off your ass and cheer the boys on.

But, aside from the boring, lifeless people that were sitting behind me, the match was great. The US dominated, creating chance after chance, and ended up pulling it out in the last fifteen minutes to win 2-1. And, the El Salvador goal was created off a bad mistake by Clarence Goodsen. Overall though, I thought we might get rolled based on the players available. But, I was pleasantly surprised, and I hope we can carry that momentum into the match v. The Netherlands in a week.