watch party for Guatemala game

wish I would have seen this earlier....oh well.

 

The watch party at BON had two...yes two...Big Soccer members present Wednesday night.
IMHO I was under the impression that more of my fellow Houstonians would have come out to the watch party that many of us have been looking to organize since the last hex cycle.
I enjoyed meeting you DNA, you are a very knowledgeable futball man. It was a long time waiting to drink some beer and talk soccer with a fellow U.S.A. supporter in a bar in my city.
However, I was reduced to talking about qualifying, EJ and what the National Team represents with the Bellaire Varsity squad as they had chips and DP's.
It really sunk in the fact that I was in Birmingham in March of '02 for U.S.A.-Ecuador and that night I was able to talk with Big Soccer members from all over the U.S. and drink beers with Mathis and take tequilla shots with Maiz.

I hope that in future matches....oh let's say England-U.S.A in late May....that DNA and I won't be so outnumbered by a bunch of Three Lion supporters. They will no doubt be in force at BON.
I brought my Stars and Stripes Wed. night so let's all rally around the flag and lay the groundwork for future U.S.A matches. Come Germany '06 we will want to have done our part so that eventually we can all enjoy a footie pub atmosphere that is common to many other fans of the beautiful game around the globe.

 

Tranquilo, meu amigo, tranquilo.

It's only been two games so far and one of them was set up with almost no notice. The Weds night gathering was announced the same day - and Easter Sunday at noon can be very difficult for a lot of people. Give it a little while for the word to get out and people can start treating Brian O'Neill's as the default bar for US nats games so that notice won't even be an issue for future games.

And let's be careful abouut chiding people about not showing enough enthusiasm or being correct enough as fans. There aren't enough US soccer fans for us to point the guns inward when we circle the wagons. If people just want to show up and quietly enjoy a Guiness while they take in the atmosphere and enjoy the game, that's perfectly fine. I say that as someone who stood in the middle of Mexican fans at the recent US x Mexico friendly at Reliant and was loud and obnoxious enough that a couple of my friends thought we'd get our asses kicked by halftime. (In fact, the Mexican fans also enjoyed having loud US fans showing support and we were all taking pictures together by halftime.) If some of us want to show up with face paint and waving US flags, that's great. If others want to be a little more low profile and just enojy the festivities, that's cool, too. It's all good.

 

Yeah, this was set up a little too late for me. I didn't even see this until a couple of days ago, after the game itself. And a Wed night is definitely hard for me to get off work and drive 45 minutes to the other side of town.

I was there for the US/Mexico game on Sunday, and will continue to go there for future watch parties, but I will probably only make it on a weekend. No way am I goign to try and fight traffic down 45 and 59 to get there after work.

I'm glad some people showed up though. BUt you can't fault all the rest of us for not. Sunday's crowd was a lot bigger, and I'm sure that some people couldn't come because of Easter. So when it's a weekend and not a holiday, I'm sure alot of the Houston people will be out in full force over there.