Send-Off Series: USA versus Latvia

The crowd: 24,000+ Americans, maybe 100 Latvians, and one misguided Aussie

The Hartford Currant noted this morning, "Good, Better, Best". The reference was to the scores in a Send-Off Series for the U.S. Mens Soccer team. A 1-0 loss to Morocco on Tuesday, a 2-0 victory against Venezuela on Friday, and a 1-0 defeat of Latvia on Sunday at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, CT. It was a perfect night for soccer; the weather was perfect, the crowd was enthused and the team put together a good match to set the tone for the World Cup.

We all know that these games were just a prelude to the World Cup, and the teams we played this past week will be nothing like what we face in Germany: the Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana. But, there's a buzz in the air. We have a good team. Everyone believes we have a stronger team then we brought to the 2002 World Cup: and that was a pretty good run to the Quarterfinals.

Finally, to reward us for getting up at 4:30am to catch our flight, we found that coach Bruce Arena and defender Oguchi Onyewu were on our flight from Hartford. While the soccer fan base is growing in the U.S., they were able to enjoy their breakfast with only a few hints of recognition from the passerbys. We wished them good luck in Germany. A very excited 10-year old boy (and his mother) had their picture taken with them. And, in case you are wondering, they travel first class.

Our Itinerary

Mark and Lisa take the World Cup! Here's our travel plans.

Our journey starts in Munich where we'll watch Costa Rica take on host Germany (go Ticos! although someone's heart will be with Germany). From Munich we will head to a small town, Cesky Krumlov, in the south of the Czech Republic before heading up to Prague to enjoy the sites and watch the number four-ranked U.S. play the number two-ranked Czech Republic (does anyone know of any American-friendly pubs in the heart of Prague where we can cheer on the U.S. National Team?).

From there it is on to Amsterdam, where we plan on enjoying some biking, tulips and all Amsterdam has to offer. We'll even try to find some enthusiastic Dutch fans with whom we can watch the Netherlands versus Côte d'Ivoire match. Then it's back to Hanover, Germany to watch Costa Rica take on Poland.

The last half of our trip sees us slowly make our way down south again. We plan on renting a car to enjoy Nuremberg, Bamberg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber for a couple days. While in Nuremberg, we will make ourselves at home in the main town square with several thousand other fans to watch the U.S. play Ghana on the big screen.

Our final match will be determined in mid-June. We will either be in Stuttgart or Munich, potentially watching England! Now that would be an experience to top off our trip!

Yahoo provides a full schedule of the 2006 World Cup matches.

Road to Germany

After six years of waiting for the 2006 World Cup in Germany we are now one month away from kick off. And we mean kick-off. Due to his remarkable patience and ability to hit "return" on the computer for hours straight, Mark was able to score tickets to follow Costa Rica in the World Cup this year. Although we don't have tickets for the U.S., due to the luck of the draw, we have tickets to the opening match- Costa Rica versus Germany. We may have to change our red, white and blue face paint for the red, black and gold of Germany. We hope to chronicle our adventures through this site and send back some pictures to our friends and family at home.

Above picture: Picture from a weekend trip to Columbus to watch the U.S. play Jamaica. I am not sure what happened...our tickets were in the middle of a group of Jamaicans.
Below picture: Labor Day weekend 2005, Columbus again. This time to watch the U.S. defeat Mexico 2-0 to qualify. The best sign we saw at the game: "Peanuts-$2, Beer -7, Ticket to the game-$20, Beating Mexico- priceless"