A year can pass by so quick. Who would have thought a year later we would all be reflecting back on the victory over Portugal?
0 min: was eating a bowl of cereal, tiptoeing all about the house so as not to wake anyone 3 min: went downstairs where there was a carpet and the floor didn't creak; starting jumping up and down, saying quietly "1-0 United States! 1-0 United States!" 21 min: switched to Univision; sister had it on in her room and didn't want to find out anything new ten seconds late 45 min: whole family was awake due to the noise; started browsing the websites hurriedly during halftime 46-70 min: much of the events blurry, all passed in a fog 71 min: collapsed onto the floor; what the hell was going on? 72 min: started singing "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" to pass the time under duress 80 min: started singing "American Pie" 89 min: started singing any three-minute ballad that would be accompanied by the final whistle 92 min: woke up the whole neighborhood chanting the final score from my living room God, that day was fun.
0' (2am PDT) - start biting my fingernails while lying on the futon in a different bedroom as to not wake up my wife and my then 1 yr old. I had already been up nearly 24 hours. 4' - JOB puts it in and I jump up and down trying to control myself. My wife marches to bedroom I'm in and tells me to keep quiet or I'll wake the baby. '26 - I thought Landon put it in (own goal) and I'm on the verge of tears. Again I jump and down and again my wife marches down to the bedroom to shut me up. The 1 yr old is showing signs of waking up. '36 - Sanneh to McBride for 3-0. I'm crying and pinching myself in disbelief. Tell me this is not a dream! My wife once again tears me a new one and the 1 yr old wakes up. As a consolation, my wife mutters a 'wow...' when I tell her the score. '52 - Agoos own goal. I crash to the floor thinking this might have been too good to be true. '93 (4am PDT)- whistle blows. I can't f***ing believe what has happened! I email everyone on the planet, I call my brother on the east coast who asks 'what the f*** are you doing up?' I experienced too many emotional highs and lows on that day. The adrenaline kept me up another 48 hrs. I went nearly 72 hours without sleep. What I'd give to relive this day!
What I remember most was that my wife told me in the morning (she went to bed 3-0) that she thought I had killed myself at some point. I said "Agoos scored an own goal" she said "I told you he sucks"
3rd minute. Ball goes out for a corner. earnie takes it. i can feel something important is about to happen. THe ball is struck. great header by someone i couldnt identify at the time. Baia makes a geat save. then, otu of the corner of my eye, from behind the goal, i see john obrien. My heart stops. i dont breathe. i dont move. i dont scream. i dont talk. He kicks the ball. it goes in. Silence in the USA crowd for about .01 of a second. everyone looks at the ref. he whistles. points to the center circle. bedlem. dammit. I was ************ing there. i still cant believe it.
I posted this about six months ago in this thread I was sitting at home that morning, waiting for the match...then about a minute before the match, my wife (she is Italian) calls me on the cellular phone from her job, talking all sorts of smack "Let's see if you guys can stay within 5 goals...remember that Italy destroyed Ecuador...We've already had a better WC than USA will have..."etc She's really letting me have it... Then I hear her coworkers in the background mocking me "USA! USA! USA!..." So she passes the phone to a coworker...match kicks off... If you remeber the very very beginning of the match Portugal had the ball for the first 2 minutes, we never touched it...so the guy is like.."So you guys gonna ever get the ball? This is pathetic...Can you guys even beat Saudi Arabia?..." Then Hejduk kicks it off of Rui Costa and ball goes out...Friedel kicks off...foul on McBride..Stew takes the free...out for corner..stew takes corner...GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I go ape$hit...drop the cell phone run around the house...after a minute or so...i pick the phone back up...the wife is back on...."Well at least you wont get shut out she says".... So i hang up and watch the match... Costa's own- goal comes up later...again another little scream/freak out session/dance around the house...I manage to find the phone, and call her back up.... "How about them apples!?" I yell...she has no words... I hang up again...and then 6 minutes later, McBride heads in Sanneh's cross and I lost it...I was still going nut's about 3 minutes later, and didnt even realize that Beto had gotten one back...I tried calling her back, this time no answer When she walked in the door that night, first she had to see my big a$$ USA flag hanging from the terrace...and after she saw my still smug face...she walked straight into the kitche and made herself dinner...she never said a word the rest of the night
i screamed so freaking loud... my dad told me to shut-up or i was going to wake up the family... i really didn't care so much... one of the best feelings i have ever had. god, i know what i am doing tonight. i am watching that game again.
I just got goosebumps like you wouldn't believe...wow! Middle of the night, with all my soccer buddies at the Pavillion next to Arrowhead. Just as we're settling in and realizing out World Cup has started, we win a corner. Thats cool.... Wha? Huh? McBride header, wha......GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!! About 10 people jump on me, we're all hugging and chanting. Never realizing that 30 minutes later we, along with the rest of the world, would be absolutely shocked.
This thread is giving me chills as I read it and I'm grinning from ear to ear. Yep, it's time to watch it again, followed by "Our Way". Go USA!
Its giving me chills too. My experience was like the rest of yours, so I won't give you the same thing to read over again. What a great day today is though, 1 year anniversary of a US victory over Portugal and hey, I graduate today. Hurray for June 5th!
One of the greatest days of my life. I was walking on air the whole day. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/davies/020606.html
Silence Like most folks, I watched the World Cup in silence... with roommates sleeping throughout my house. I watched this match by myself, but as the tournament went on had additional fans joining me... I didn't scream, or anything. I was more stunned. The fact that they let McBride get but a sniff of a header off a corner was amazing and showed how under prepared Portugal was for the match. I do remember kind of groaning with excitement and pumping my fist when the whistle blew.
It's a great, great day. what a great anniversary. i can't believe it was a year ago. the Summer's crowd was incredible. we danced in the streets of Arlington afterwards and strangers were embracing. all the 'normal' folks getting up for work looked at us funny, and some even joined in.
well, I was there.... and it was sweet, even more so than beating Colombia in 94.... The players families were all sitting about 10 rows behind us... and I got to speak with Earnie Stewart's dad afterwards.... can we say happy.....
Well, it was summer in DC, and as the game approached kick-off I was sitting on the couch literally shivering with nervousness despite the heat (AC busted). First few minutes weren't too inspiring as the US saw little of the ball. Also depressed over not having Mathis (an outrage I thought) or Reyna (injured) in the line-up. But within 4 minutes O'Brien scores and the nerves die down somewhat. Hey, I guess we won't get shutout. Time goes by and Portugal fail to look dangerous, then comes the fluky goal by Donovan. Sweet, maybe we'll get a tie out of this thing. Around this time a friend of mine shows up to watch. Minutes later McBride scores and I'm about to lose it. 3-0 against Portugal, is this for real? This is simply unprecedented. And the look on McBride's face! Please, don't give up a goal before halftime. We give up a goal before halftime. OK, 3-1, still looking good. Second half Portugal begins to press. Agoof gives up the own goal -- C'mon Bruce, you bench Mathis but start Agoos -- and it's nail biting time. I literally pace back and forth for the remainder of the match. Last ten minutes things are still up in the air, but I'm gaining confidence that we will win for some reason. As the end approaches I can hear the US fans singing "Na na na na, hey hey hey, good-bye!" Big s*** eating grin on my face. DaMarcus picks up a yellow for delay of game. Portugal boots it out of the back, a US player heads the ball, and it's all over. US players rush the field. I just try to soak it all in and congratulate myself on deciding to tape record the game despite my initial foreboding about the US getting killed. As the Brits would say, I'm in dreamland. Go to work, get on the net. Lead story on the Drudge Report has a photo of McBride's header with the caption of "Surprise!" Wow, the media actually gets it. O'Brien's celebration with one finger in the air is all over the newspapers. Hell yeah.
I had told my roommate a couple days beforehand that if we beat Portugal I'd quit smoking, not really expecting much. of, course, I smoked like a chimney throughout the match, and at 90 minutes he came in the room grinning to watch me put out the last one. it lasted for a while, but how was I supposed to make it through the germany game without nicotine? Still wired with adrenaline, it took me ages to get to sleep after the game. I wisely took the day off from work (how could I sit still?) and finally got some sleep. I woke up at 7 that evening, but thinking that it was 7 am the next morning. I rushed out into the backyard with the dog and found my horrible evil witch of a next door neighbor gardening, and wanting to talk to me. For some reason, I didn't really register that there was no way she'd be out there at 7 in the morning, but whatever. She says something to me like "big game, huh?" Amazed, I start to enthusiastically tell her about it. She then tells me that she had been really scared, and had considered calling the police during the game. Apparently, my screaming "TAKE THAT, FIGO, YOU LITTLE B!TCH!" over and over with the window open had made her think that there was some kind of domestic dispute going on. seriously! I told her she should've called the police if she thought I was beating my b!tch Figo. funny sh!t. I couldn't have been happier, that woman was awful. IN any case, I was still stumbling about in a half-dream state and couldn't have been bothered by anything.
Wade Jackson and I were there. Wade even caught Jeff's shot in his photo collection: http://www.ibiblio.org/footy/2002wc/0605_usa_por_a_wj_index.html (photo by Wade Jackson/YCJ)
For those of you who don't have it on tape http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2002/minutebyminute/story/0,11927,727563,00.html
LOL! Classic. I woke up late (the game started at 6 a.m. in Buenos Aires) and missed the first goal . The same thing happened during the Mexico game, which I saw in a hotel in La Paz, Bolivia. Two wonderful days, nevertheless...
Well, I *should* have been there! My buddies and I wanted to see both Japan and Korea on our trip, and since we only had 2 weeks to visit, we decided that we would forgo one USMNT game in order to see some of the sights of Japan. Naturally, we chose the game we thought would be a blowout....the other way!!! Ugh..... I saw the game in a pub in Tokyo surrounded by other expats and Japanese soccer fans. Still incredible though. My favorite personal highlight was drinking with some English fans who then wanted us to stick around to cheer for Germany against Ireland. I thought that was hysterical, that the English would rather have the Germans beat the Irish, "Two World Wars and One World Cup" notwithstanding....
I remember going to bed the night before and checking the alarm clock like 3 times to make sure it was set. After watching a whole round of games, we were FINALLY about to start. I woke up at 4:50am, found my red 1998 US jersey hanging in the closet and put it on. It had been a good luck charm all through qualifiers. I put it on and went out to turn on the TV. I watch the promo about how the players can trace their histories back to 4 continents anda ll that then watched as the lineups were announced. No Regis? Wow...that Italy game screwed him up. Game starts, we have no possession for the first 3 minutes. Not a good start until we win a throw in, a free kick and a corner in quick succession. All of a sudden McBride rises and there's a deflection. O'Brien? GOAL. OH MY GOD I leapt off my coach and gave a yelp and then ran out of my apartment and downstairs shouting YES YES YES. to avoid waking my wife. But what made me almost as happy is that we didn't go back into a shell. We came out and played. We possessed the ball, we defended in numbers we got on the break. DMB ran by people, Landon was on, Hejduk was chanelling back 4 years. And check out Tony Sanneh, he's staying right with Figo. Landon crosses that 2nd ball and I stare is disbelief as the ball goes in. By that time my wife is up having heard my yelp on goal #1 and I tell her 2-0!!! She retureats to the otgher bedroom to work on the computer when Sanneh drills the perfect cross to McBride for the diving header. By this time I am going nuts. 3-0 I start to run out of the aprtment and then stop, go to my wife and say. "3-0. We're up 3-0. Do you have idea how good Portugal is? We're killing them!!!!" How cool was it to hear the "Overrated!" cheer 7000 miles from Home? It's only a minor let down that Beto pulls the goal back because that was too good a team to keep off the board for long. But half time comes 6 mins or so later and I'm feeling good. 3-1. I think of calling a friend in DC but decide against it as he's got a young kid. I settle in the for half #2 and we continue playing well. I 'm wonderin why Portugal hasn't brought in Nuno Gomes espeically as it appears that Portugal turns up the heat. Then Agoos' scores what I heard the Univision announer refer to as an "autogolazo" and put my hands to my head. Please no. Please no. The US doesn't bend, even when Pope goes out and eventually the Portugese tire. BigSoccer whipping boys Sanneh and Cobi Jones (the latter with a tremendous slide tackle to break up a counter) have solid 2nd halves and I'm starting to feel it. The "na na na, heyyy good bye" chant can be heard. I'm jumping around now, my wife is watching the end of it now as injury time begins to run out on Portugal. Final the 3 whistles and I collapse and start crying. I NEVER thought I would see a day like this. I thought of Big Soccer posters like Frank Cunha and RuiFigo who would not shut up for the entire month of May. I thought of the Iran loss and how many times I had heard "32nd place 4 years ago". I though how many games i ahd watched, how I hungered for American soccer respect. I layed on the floor for a good minute just sobbing my eyes out because I was so happy. My wife snapped my picture as I stood up and you can see the tears of joy as I hold my jersey by the US badge. Someone called me and we started screaming at each other in happiness. Only after calming down did I ask who it was. It was my friend Juan, a law school calssmate and the guy I was going to call at half time. After talking for about 5 mins, I united my flag from my balcony and just as I had done after US-Colombia, ran with it outside, this time around my parking lot. I went into work and was suprised that people were asking me about the game. I have a soccer website and I remember doing a recap of the game and concluding something like this: Whenever the United States would win a game against a world power, there would always be talk about who was and was not there for the other team. This is just an exhibition. The US is only good for beating Bside teams. Today there can be no excuses. On the world's biggest sporting stage, the US not only beat a heavily favored opponent but did so with out its captain and one of its top forwards. The US earned its respect today and there is nothing anyone can say to take that away.