Gelsenkirchen - I was there - First Hand Accounts [R]

Just a quick note on the infrastructure support for Gelsenkirchen - after readins posts here about previous games, I knew what to expect - which was the estimate of "15 minutes" to get to the game from the Hbf was WAY off. The station was packed. My group opted to pay about 8 euris for a cab which was very quick.

On the way back, we decided to do the same. After wating for over 30 minutes in an evr-growing line for cabs with only a handful appearing, we decided to hoof it, and ended up catching one on the main blvd outside the stadium. Expecting a madhouse scene at the Hbf, we paid 30 eurs to have the cab take us to the Essen Hbf where our ICE train to Mainz was.

The one thing that burns me up is that we went to Munich yesterday and got back to mainz around 0200 - there were more taxis lines up at the Hbf there than I saw at the stadium in over 30 minutes of waiting! Go figure.

 

I don't have much to add to whats been said, other than to emphasize that other posters have not exaggerated the atmosphere outside the Gelsenkirchen train station. I arrived around noon, and for the next 3-4 hours there were hundreds of US fans crowded into the center singing the entire time, and hundreds more around the periphery taking it easy. We sang the national anthem several times, God Bless America, America F--- Yeah, about twentz versions of We're All Part of Bruce's Army, and about twentz other songs. It was like the 20 most hardcore people from a txpical qualifier, multiplied bz 20 and transported to Germany.

The game itself was a kick in the groin of course. It was the inverse of the Portugal game in that we were taken out of it 4 minutes in and never reallz looked like getting back in it. Mz feeling was Gooch, Reyna, Convez, and Eddie Johnson were the onlz guzs who looked decent. The overall sense of our team was that we were plazing at a different pace than the Czechs- pass, trap, hold, look, pass as opposed to Czech pass, pass, pass. I reallz dont know what Bruce could have done to change that, as the team on the field was one of our more skilled.

I posted a bunch of pics at http://gwleibniz.blogspot.com. The best one was meeting Frankie Hejduk before the game. He is exactly as laid-back cool as zou would expect.

 

WTF?

 

Anything but the 1994 version!

 

I'll send Andy a note to see if he wants to sell them.



USA-Italy - THE COLOR IS RED!