flickerfade.org

somebody broke the walk sign next to the hyatt

this was about three miles of driving in. another mile later i realized i was driving stick. silly zipcar

it was my first time at gillette stadium. the atmosphere is surprisingly lively even with the small mls crowd. families everywhere. i got my tickets on reuse probably from one such family. so few people go that even the bad seats are pretty damn good. there are some hardcore supporters, maybe a few hundred, not like europe of course. in fact, the side you don’t see on tv is completely empty and closed. i’d estimate 10,000 in the crowd, tops. probably more like 7,500 tonight.

it was not a clean match, lots of scrappy, hard tackles, and lots of injury faking. kevin hartman (opposing goalkeeper) faked injury, so on the next goal kick they did that thing where they build up the noise until he boots the ball, except instead of that loud yell they went with “you suck” instead. yooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuu SUCK! landon donovan did not have a very good night. i’d like to see twellman as a full international someday. he really works for the ball.

actually, the match was a very dour draw. these folks don’t have a lot of pace, and they really need to work on passing. i only saw two moves i’d consider slick on the night. one was broken up by an opposing handball; the resulting free kick resulted in nothing. the other one led to the equaliser, a penalty from handball in the area. the fans are pretty cool, though. one day, that stadium will be full. probably when i’m sixty. then it will be like i’m one of those hardcore supporters in england, who supported football before it became too money-spinning. except, not as hardcore.