Last night's match had quite a different outcome than we'd hoped for when we headed over to the Royal Bafokeng Stadium to watch USA v. Ghana. The other matches we went to were definitely pro-US crowds, but last night's crowd was a decidedly pro-Ghana crowd. That's not to say there weren't many many many proud American supporters, but Ghana had the support of Ghana visitors, South Africans rooting for Mother Africa, and irritated British fans rooting against the US. It was clear during the national anthems that the American fans were mostly from America (we sang loud and proud), but few of the Ghana supporters knew the words to their national anthem.
I understood and appreciated the African support for an African team (though slightly stunned by the amount of Ghana gear and flags that South Africans own - was this all purchased in the last few days?), but the British fans were ridiculously annoying and rude. They were upset that the US victory over Algeria meant that their tickets for this match weren't for the first place English team (since they ended up in 2nd place due to their lackluster performance versus Algeria). We had one group of Brits in front of us who had special shirts made that said "Ghana's #1 Fans, by default" with the back stating "Donovan's a $#%!". They all decked themselves out in South African wigs and Ghana face paint. One of them spent the entire game standing, facing away from the pitch, yelling at American fans behind him, guzzling many beers. Ah, Brits, you slay me. And now I'm rooting heartily for Germany this afternoon instead of England.
But our Yanks put on a good fight last night. We were not embarrassed by Ghana, and, in fact, I would argue outplayed them for much of the game (not counting the first 20 minutes or overtime). We seriously lack a good striker to complement our strong midfield and decent defensive line. Altidore drives us crazy (laziness, slowness, lack of focus, inability to finish), and clearly Bradley doesn't have anyone he trusts on the other side. But it's been a great ride and so much fun to be in South Africa with a team to be proud of. Donovan has more goals in the tournament than many other heralded players (Rooney, Ribery, etc). While other country's supporters proudly wear their gear all the time, it's only been since the victory over Algeria/winning our pool that I've noticed a lot of American shirts, jackets, etc. as we tour around (our fellow zipliners yesterday were wearing matching USA soccer jackets). Go USA! Hopefully the future of American soccer is strong, and we'll have an even better showing in Brazil 2014.
Off to Zambia/Victoria Falls! More soon since we should have internet access the next few days (it's been seriously lacking the last few).
2 comments:
That game was not as fun, definitely. I'm surprised there weren't that many USA fans there -- on tv it looked like there were tons! Oooh, tricky television crews.
Oh well, though. Brazil 2014!
There were definitely a lot of US fans there, but every fan who wasn't a US fan was a Ghana fan. Previous games, most Safricans rooted for the US, so you added their voices to ours, and you got a clear majority. Not so much when Ghana was involved. Africa is very excited to follow/support their only African team left in the tourney.
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