Off to the World Cup - 2006!!

We dropped all our luggage in the Frankfurt Hbf on Saturday afternoon, and headed out to the Stadion for the game between Portugal and Iran. This was the best fan excitement so far, particularly with the Portuguese fans. They sang, chanted, kissed the pretzel girls, and made a heck of a lot of noise.

The Iranians were enthusiastic, but much more polite. We sat in the end stands, a little obstructed by the railing and the occasional sightseer, but right next to a Portuguese fan with a blow-up girl on his shoulders. Yeah, the Iranians were a lot better behaved!

Since the train connections to Kaiserslautern were going to be tight, we headed down the stairs in the 60th minute, just in time to hear the first roar. We let Brad run back to the stairwell long enough to see the score (1-0 POR), and then marched him off to the train station. Ah well, the second game where we missed the good stuff at the end! It seemed at first that we had just missed the last train until 5:00, but got straightened out, and got back to our bags in Frankfurt.

The trains down to Mannheim were delayed for a half hour, but even with another stop at the luggage lockers, we were still only 10 minutes behind schedule getting into Kaiserslautern. We wandered through the center of town, through the Fan Festival, and up the long hill to the Fritz-Walter Stadion. It was hard to believe, but the fan excitement was another level higher, this time with the American fans! We found our seats down in the corner, and were just knocked back by the enthusiasm and noise. This was great! The US fans weren't sitting down from the singing of the Star Spangled Banner (very loudly!) until the last whistle, and it seemed like the team responded to the support. They attacked the ball hard, passed effectively, and pressed the ball into the Italian end for three quqrters of the first half. I finally got a shot of a US goal, helped appqrently by the Italian defense. There were three red cards, and a lot of Beer cups thrown from the US stands down at the field, but the US hung on, and after three minutes of stoppage time, they came down in our corner to thank the fans. What a game!

We had a visit at half time from friends from back home, and after a long ride back in to Mannheim, the boys played late-night drag-racing through the station, as we waited for the Orient Express.

# posted by Rob : Monday, June 19, 2006