Football is best described as 90 minutes, 22 players and the Germans (and Brazilians) always win

Tough match yesterday. Thrilling for 90 minutes, and for the last 25 of regulation it seemed certain the US would find the winner. Harsh loss, but in the end deserved. Ghana earned it and the celebrations by all of Africa were pretty cool. Brutal walk of shame back to the car. This World Cup experience has been nothing but phenomenal. I'll talk more about it as I do some catchup blogging on the Algeria game. However, there was quite a lot of anti-American chatter from the neutrals (read non-Africans). Too bad really because the Ghana fans and the South Africans were excellent, wishing us nothing but good luck next time.

You may have seen me and my lot on TV if you watched the game. Reports have said we were on TV no less than three times. If you saw a doofy guy (your author) in a stars and stripes bandana and draped in an US flag next to another doofy guy (Mike) in a blue beanie waving a US flag, next to a lady in a red and white striped beenie and soccer ball sunglasses, well that was us. We sat first row by the "action" goal -- the one where all three saves were made. Our view of the Donovan penalty was fantastic and that moment goes down as my second greatest live sporting experience (behind only his goal in the Algeria game).

This trip has, other than the US loss, shown us nothing but good fortune. The morning of the game Mike and I bought some tickets off a couple of England fans who, as we all did, thought England would win the group. We got them for face value ($100 per), but they were lousy seats off on the far corner (it's a relative lousy though, it's a very small stadium). Alissa didn't want to go, but last minute decided to see if there were tickets available online. So she bought one and off we went.

When we got to the stadium to pick up her ticket we found that the purchase hadn't gone through. The ticket manager turned her away and told her she'd have to track back to the park and ride then drive another 15K to a ticket shop to get a ticket. One of the ladies behind the counter felt badly and, after getting the manager out of the room, gave Alissa a free ticket - front row. Alissa noticed that the ticket was part of an unsold block. We decided to sit with her and see if they sold (at this point we were an hour before game time). We figured the odds were in our favor. As it turns out, we were right, and we had a great game, not 20 yards from the touchline.