USA vs Guatemala 03/30/05 - First hand accounts from Birmingham

Not at the game, but watching the local news and they were showing outside of the stadium. They said about 30,000 are expected. Looks like there are a whole bunch of pumped up Guatemalans too. Just some of the places these Guats travelled from: Guatemala, Chicago, Miami, Philly, etc.

 

Reported attendance: 31,624

Pretty good. Not great, but more than alot of other sites in the US and the largest attendance for a US soccer game in Birmingham since the '96 Olympics.

 

US wins 2-0!

 

I heard them say that, but I dont believe it at all. There were probably alot more Guatemalans than people expected, but not THAT much more. They said there were more Guatemalans than Americans and that would mean that there would have to have been 17,000+ Guatemalans there and I just cant believe that at all. They were pretty vocal at times, but that crowd was DEFINITELY pro-American.

 

USA vs Guatemala 03/30/05 - First hand accounts from Birmingham

Wait a minute! Shouldn't this thread be entitled "USA vs Guatemala 04/30/05 - First hand accounts from Birmingham"

 

Just got back to ATL, here's a few quick thoughts...

-We thought we had walked into Guatemala when we walked into the stadium, it was insane. I can't really argue with the crowd being split in number, but that early goal took their crowd out of the game. It was hard to tell from the Sammers' section, but they didn't seem too loud.

-That was the worst officiating I've seen at any sporting event. I literally thought my head was going to explode after the series of calls/no calls before Ralston's goal.

-The "LA Reject" chant was good fun, Carlos had to have hated that.

-The pitch looked great, but wow is Legion Field OLD.

-It was my first time for a men's national team game and first time to sit with the Sammers. We're already talking about Mexico and Columbus in September.

 

Yes, Legion Field is old and badly in need of repairs. I believe it was originally built around 1927. There's a movement in Birmingham by some to have Legion Field shutdown and have a new dome built, but with all the history (both football and futbol), that will be a very controversial issue for some time.

 

Just got back to ATL and fought the same electrical storm. Drove over with MikeyMike and had a blast tailgating with JoeSoccerFan and wjarrett, among others. Excluding the endzone, the crowd looked 90% Guat. Those guys really came to represent, with jerseys and especially flags galore. The US fans though I think made up an "invisible majority", as they disappeared with random colors and no flags. As noted, much of the crowd stood throughout, particularly the side to our right. The cheering from the supporters section was a little uncordinated, as we often had two different cheers going at once or else had the same cheer going with half the section two beats behind. Also, its hard to keep up with a cheer when there is a stupefying decision from the ref every thirty seconds.

I really wish it was easier to come up with good anti-Ruiz chants. His name needs more hard consonants and to rhyme with more things.

 

Just got home, and I drove through the same storm. fun. It was my first game and I had a great time. It did seem like they had a lot of guatemalains. Especially when we walked into the stadium. They all had flags, and that made it look like they had a lot more people. The LA reject chant was fun, as was the you suck punta. I'm moving out to portland next month so I plan on being in Seattle for the Gold Cup games.

 

I think the Guatemalans had a much stronger "visual presence" in the sense they were almost all wearing jerseys and had flags. US fans had no real visual presence (besides the Sammers section.) People were wearing all kinds of colors (many even in blue & white) and not too many flags.

Granted, we had more to cheer for than they did, but I thought the US crowd got pretty loud at times both with applause and boos. I opted to sit (well actually stand) with my family for this one (I'm a Birmingham native, but live in Florida) instead of the supporter's section. I thought the "USA USA USA!" chants that popped up from the "general crowd" sounded good. I couldn't really hear what was coming from the Sammers (I was sitting midfield, about 30 rows up) but I think it was more do the "USA" chants coming from people.

Eddie Lewis received a big burst of applause when he got subbed out.

Also, 4-5 US players threw their jerseys into the crowd afterwards...something I haven't seen too often (I've been to about 10 US games.)

The players also seemed to hang out on the field afterwards a bit longer than usual too. They went to all three sides of the stadium to "applaud" the crowd, something often only done to the Sammers section, (one of the endzones was blocked off and empty, hence the three sides.)

I left my digital camera cable at home, so I'll have to wait 'til I get back to Florida to post pictures.

 

I forgot to add that my post above could be greatly colored by the fact I was visiting my hometown and family and that made it great for me regardless. Hopefully my perceptions approached reality.

 

i was at the game and it was amazing, it was my first qualifier, i had been to the 2 previous friendlies at legion field and there was no comparison between those and the game last night. i'm sure on tv it looked like the guatemalans outnumbered the americans, but i was there and can tell you that they certainly did not, they did however all have jerseys on and flags waving, also they sat in huge groups. the americans were in all different colors, i of course was wearing my red, and legion field was rockin at times, especially during the bad calls and goals and the goal called back. it was a big crowd of 32,000 to me it looked like there were more, i can say that if this would have been a weekend game and not during spring break then there would have been a crowd of 40,000+.

 

THis is pretty much how it looked from my TV set too. Great job by you guys. There were plenty of times where you could hear Sams Army loud and clear. I loved 'LA Reject' that was good stuff. You're right though the whole of the crowd outside of the Sammers section was really fired up and really vocal. Smart soccer crowd. Of course they had a lot of reason to ride the ref but seemingly every call that went against the US all you could hear was "BOoooooooooo".

There was a really cool moment where you could tell that the US fans were bringing it harder than the Guat fans. The ball was being played down the right hand side in the first half over the top to I think Ruiz. You could hear the Guat fans start cheering them a late offside flag comes up and the whole place goes crazy for the US. Neat stuff. Lot more people than I expected and a lot more Sammers than I expected.

 

From my couch I could hear you all chanting "Beat The Traffic" as the Guat fans were heading out early. Then the Adios chants were also a nice touch

 

I have to say that when I walked into the stadium at 6:00, I was stunned by the visual presence that Nico describes. My first impression was "where in the world did all these guys come from?" By kickoff though it was evening out, and what the rank and file US fans may have lacked in color-coordination and quality of chant, they more than made up for in quantity.

The Guatemalans were obviously in their seats early and they were vocal all during warmups. They also brought banners and signs. These are things that the casual US fan simply does not do, because the casual fan doesn't know any better. The casual US fan shows up 30 minutes before, gets settled, opens up his $10.00 program and starts trying to figure out who's playing where. He's not chanting, he's reading. That's the difference between the US (a fine soccer nation whose national psyche hasn't admitted it quite yet) and the rest of the nations in CONCACAF. (Except possibly Canada, eh? Hard to imagine that kind of road support for a US-Canada Hex match.)

I think it's fair to be critical of the USSF publicity machine as it repeatedly fails to get the word out for the home fans to wear red. We in the local community can only do so much by word of mouth. They don't help themselves by not having red kit - you can bet that more fans would be wearing red replicas if only they were available. As it was, 80% of the USA clothing on display yesterday was recent-vintage white (with some recent vintage blue), so it's not surprising that on TV it came across as neutral or possibly even Guatemalan (when in close proximity to other Guats). Maybe we can get one of the sponsors (Anheuser Busch?) to issue red logoed bibs to fans as they enter the stadium.

 

Too much beer since then for me to remember, but that's the idea. I think more people would put on a bib (practice jersey, pinnie, whatever you want to call it) than a T-shirt though.

 

What a great time and great result. The nats played well and agressively and the crowd was into it.

We arrived at the parking lot at about 4:15. I'd say that 90% of the Guatemalan fans were already there. They all had on national colors and they all had flags and banners. We found a knot of US fans and began our tailgating, not without some concern that homefield was just a myth. This is a good time to say that all the Guatemalans we encountered were very cool and respectful. At 4 o'clock they outnumbered the US fans by 8-1, but they smiled and shook hands. I haven't been to any away qualifiers, but I imagine the hatred for the US is more intense there, such that even though there were many Guatemalan supporters, they were "US filtered" and were not likely to do any worse than cheer for their team.

Well as 5 and 6 o'clock rolled by the US supporters started to increase steadily in numbers. There was no shock and awe with the US numbers, though, as the vast majority did not dress in red or carry flags or the like. In the stadium, the Guatemalans were showing their blue, and it looked 50-50 at the best, but as kickoff approached, we could tell that the US fans definitely outnumbered the visitors, but were not coordinated in any way. The flags make a HUGE visual difference, and the Guatemalans had those in spades.

At kickoff, the US fans seemed to be in place and ready to cheer, and it seemed like a "homefield" throughout the game overall. I'd estimate that about 11,000 Guatemalans were there and about 20,000 Us supporters. The Guatemalans were visual, but not very overly vocal, so the noise was probably in proportion to the crowd figures throughout the game.

Sam's Army was working hard and we tried to keep the songs and chants going. It was great to unfurl the BAF, including the half-unfurl for the goal that was called back. LA Reject, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap, was definitely a hit. It was also nice to hear the whole crowd react to the ref and the goals and start their own USA chants. The sequence from the Donovan non-goal to the Ralston goal was loud and intense with a strong, strong pro US feel.

It seemed like every player was working hard on every play. On one sequence, in the first half Boca made a mistake and thought (why, I don't know) Keller was going to come 20 yards off his line to clear a through ball, which put a Guatemalan through on the right. Onyewu and Gibbs (and probably others too) dug hard to stay right with their marks as the cross came in and wnet out harmlessly for a throw. Keller was slapping butts on that one and applauding his central defense.

As the game wound down, the "beat the traffic" cheer was popular. After the game, the Sammers hung around for a while enjoying the moment. It was a fun night with a great outcome, and it was nice to meet many of you who were there.