before i slip off to bed tonight i wanted to give a big shout out to everyone in Sam's Army for making my first USMNT game freakin' awesome. the guys in the front row with the coon-skin caps and 'Recuerde el Alamo' sign made me feel right at home even though i was alone when i arrived. you guys freakin' rock! dos a cero!!! uno a cero!!! i don't know how i'm going to work tomorrow at my tech support job since i'm hoarse right now, but F it - that was one of the greatest experiences of my life!!
Mad props to SA from the NYC Brigade! Glad to see you bhoys on tv reclaiming our land! When you folks are ready, please post your game experiences here. I'd love to read about em. Did the US players come over to SA after the game to join in the celebration? fotos please! Good job Sam's Army !!
Dunno about the other broadcasts but HDnet showed the players coming over to SA and celebrating. Also, two smoke bombs were seen, one during the game the other after. They also caught the upside down flag during goal celebration tho
Hell yeah they did - i didn't know the Bruce ever smiled - much less like that. d00d, they were just as pumped as we were after the game. Maestro and someone else threw their jerseys up into the crowd and a couple of people threw small flags down to the players. totally unbelievable atmosphere.
you guys looked awesome on tv throughout and there was no place i would have rather have been than the sam's army section after the game when the players came over to both congratulate and accept applauase from the gang. well done!!
i'm not sure, but the Mexicans were hanging all kinds of banners so there really shouldn't have been a problem. i saw the discussion about it though, just not sure what was said. as far as the smoke bombs go - the one guy was taken out of the stands for throwing the second one onto the pitch, but he only did that because none of us could breathe at all. i don't know where it came from originally.
excerpt from my post on another list...definitely worth the flight out from Raleigh-Durham for this one... ...At about the 75 minute mark I turned to the guy standing beside me and commented "This game has to have a goal in it for the US...it's just a matter of when." I didn't realize that they'd wait until the 93rd minute to find it! What a finish. Of all the US games that I've been to, that was surely the most fantastic finish. The play was on our end of the pitch so it all unfolded right there in front of us and the whole Sam's Army section exploded (quite literally...someone set off a smoke bomb) There were easily 35,000 Mexican fans there and Sam's Army gave them a run for the money all night. One of the coolest things I saw was quite a few fans carrying flags or signs for both Mexico and the USA. I thought that was pretty classy. A lot different than the situation down in Guadalajara a few months ago. Many of those fans came by the Sammer's section after the game and sang with us a while. After the game, pretty much all the players and even Bruce Arena came over to the Sam's Army section and celebrated with us. I haven't seen Arena that excited in a long, long time...pumping his fists in the air, shouting, and giving mad props to the Sammers section. Several of the players tossed their jerseys up into the group. I was about 5 feet away from being the proud owner of sweaty #25 kit (Mastroeni)...
It was freakin amazing. It was my first USMNT game and it was a trip. Loved how we got everyone involved. Only thing I didn't like was Andy FN Mead yelled at me for holding up my Arsenal scarf. Hey it was red, white,a nd blue and the USMNT had alot of arsenal last night. If I had stayed where I was standing most of the game i would have been right up there fighting for the #25 jersey. I tried to get Armas over to trade my Dr. Sauess hat for his jersey, but he never came over. On the other hand, it was fun saying it never gets old beating Mexico loud enough for them to hear.
Those of you who stood in The Army last night - I've never been prouder of Those in Red in my life. Never. And I was in Jeonju, and Suwon. Admittedly, I wasn't in Columbus. But unlike Korea - where it was 1,000 v. the stadium - where usually (except for the game against Korea) you had *some* fans for the other team, here it was vastly pro-Mexico, and you never quit, and you held your ground, no matter the odds. And there were two things I enjoyed last night above all else. One - the players. They were SO pumped after the game - I've never seen them so pumped! Two - we beat the Mexico fans into submission. Understand, this is different than Jeonju where we took an early lead and that took them out of the game. No, last night they were in the game the whole time - granted, hanging on by their fingernails, but in it nonetheless - but because we chanted louder and harder and better than they did, they quit. And here is what got me the most - you could tell they knew it. They knew they had been beaten. Sure, early on, when we did chants, they tried to get something going to counter it. And based on numbers, they should have drowned us out easy. But they didn't. And then they saw that not only did they not have the voice for it, or the organization, or frankly the PASSION, the killer was they didn't have the STAMINA. They couldn't keep up! 300 v. 40,000? We'll take those odds.
Fair enough, I was really notified. Just told to wear red and make noise. Now I know and knowings half the battle. GI Joe!
A bit more - the one game that might have compared to it was the game against Korea - that was 1,000 v. 70,000 - and it was a no S 70,000. (It might have been 65,000.) But they were ALL supporters - granted, they only did two or three things, but they ALL did them for MUCH of the game. And The Army did very well there, too. But for reasons outside our control - mostly where we were positioned - we couldn't have the kind of impact on the players that we did last night.
I never understand why people always want to bring signs or start chants to the effect of "Remember the Alamo" when we play Mexico. Do people not realize that Colonel Travis and his men were all killed at the Alamo. Yeah, Texas eventually won the war, but they all died at the Alamo. When we play Mexico, we're not doomed to a certain death. We own those b!tches. It's nothing like the Alamo. I think these tools just like to say "remember the alamo" I forgot to post paddycaddy's (from the Yanks in Korea list) great song idea for when we play Mexico. To the tune of the song which we all thought was "Ohhhh . . . Peace in Korea" but it was actually, "Ohhh . . . pilseung Korea" which apparently means Great Korea! "Re---cuerdo Korea Re----cuerdo Korea Re----cuerdo Korea Gana U.S.A Hey, Hey, Hey" (repeat) And to ArsenalTexan, we all get that you wanted to wear red and show that you like soccer, just find something else to wear.
Where were you yesterday?!?!?!? That would have been AWESOME! Although I must admit - most fans who didn't go to Korea might not get the musical reference...
Two Beasleys-I don't think you understand the meaning of the phrase. The Texas Army used this is a battle cry. Actually they said, "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" during the battle of San Jacinto. This cry was used as last as WWI by our troops. It's not that you are waxing nostalgic at a massacre, you are using this to fight harder, to remember your fallen comrades and help inspire yourself to victory. Appropriate for a soccer game? I guess that's someone's personal opinion. Sorry if you knew this already, but your post did not indicate so. In any case, it was my first national game and one of the cooler experinces I have had. I will definitely try to get to as many as I can.
I think also to a certain degree it was poking fun at folk trying to inject politics into soccer - I mean, how were we supposed to respond to "Osama"? "Winfred Scott"?
Pied and Drum'r Boy, I get the usage, I just don't respect Mexico enough to think that we need to drum up energy by remembering a courageous loss. It was a loss - losing sucks. If i were in WWI, and some dude yelled that at me when were trapped in a foxhole, i'd shoot him and just get it done with. Anyway, on how to respond to "Osama!": either a) nothing or b) nothing. Just don't respond to those schmucks. We OWN them. If you want to respond, fire your XXXXXX (I can't say it or i'll get carded).