Gutted

By Jay Hipps · June 28, 2009

Johannesburg, South Africa — Back in 2004, I invited an English ex-pat friend of mine over to Solar-Powered Soccer Blog headquarters to watch the Three Lions’ first match of the European championships. England scored first and carried their 1-0 lead through 90 minutes and into second half stoppage time, only to see France net twice for a 2-1 victory. At the game’s end, my friend, usually quite sociable, simply muttered something about being “gutted” and left without a proper goodbye. Read more…

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Fans: USA vs Brazil

By Jay Hipps · June 28, 2009

The fans and the scene from the USA vs Brazil final of the 2009 Confederations Cup in South Africa. June 28, 2009. Photo gallery by Jay Hipps.

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Johannesburg game day — this time, it’s soccer

By Jay Hipps · June 28, 2009

As South Africa and Spain battle it out for third place, the soccer world is turning its attention to the match that kicks off later tonight in Johannesburg.

The buzz is significant here among the small American contingent here. Jessica Siegel, a fellow delegate on this tour, wrote a piece for ESPN relating the rise of the U.S. men’s national team to the similar change in the USA’s international profile since the election of Barack Obama. I’ll be filing a post-game report from our bus with my thoughts on the match, and you can enjoy the agile mind of another colleague, Eve Fairbanks, by following her Tweets at #confed during the match. (I may even be able to convince her to pass along some comments from yours truly as well.)

There also seems to be a lot of support for the Yanks from the neutrals here. I ran into a group in the hotel elevator that just arrived this morning from Botswana and they were eager to report that they would be supporting the boys in red, white and blue tonight. Whether due to the Obama factor or simply the pleasure of rooting for an underdog, they won’t be alone.

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It’s game day in South Africa

By Jay Hipps · June 27, 2009

Greetings from Jo’burg, where the talk today is of the big international match that will take place this afternoon at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria. No, it’s not the Confederations Cup final — that’s tomorrow. The big match of the day is rugby, where South Africa’s Springboks will take on an all-star team from the U.K., the British and Irish Lions.

This isn’t “Center Line Rugby,” so I’ll admit that I don’t know much about the sport. I can tell you this, though: the Lions teams are only formed once every four years, and one of my colleagues here, Rob Denman of Pathfinder Business, tells me it’s a huge honor to be selected for the team. Once assembled, the side travels to either South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand for a series of matches, which means they visit each country every 12 years. The Lions never play in the UK — they’re strictly a touring team — and we’ve been running into Brits following the tour in both Cape Town and here in Jo’burg.

Denman, a proud owner of a Lions shirt which he will be sporting today, says that following the Lions on tour is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most fans. So, despite my ignorance of the sport, I’m trying to appreciate the fact that my introduction will take place at such a special event.

• • •

There’s another match coming up for which I will be able to offer a more genuine appreciation, tomorrow’s Confederations Cup final between the U.S. and Brazil. Oddly, the buzz over here is probably less pronounced than it is at home. I haven’t run into a lot of American soccer fans here, so there’s still an element of unreality to the team’s well-deserved 2-0 victory over Spain and their unexpected position, one win away from their first trophy in a global tournament. Am I dreaming? It’s obvious that I’m not but I don’t think the significance of the event will really hit me until I arrive at Ellis Park tomorrow.

To answer the unasked question, I don’t know at this time how much access I’ll have to the team tomorrow. FIFA accreditation is a path with many bureaucratic hurdles, but I’m going to do my best to infiltrate the system so that I can give this match the Center Line treatment.

Fingers crossed? Good.

• • •

There’s good news today for CLS Supporters’ Club members. FC Gold Pride has stepped forward with a great ticket discount offer. Just present your CLS Supporters’ Club Card at the box office on game days and you can receive $5 off your ticket, in any category. Thanks to Gold Pride GM Ilisa Kessler for making this generous offer to CLS readers.

Their next home match is July 5 vs. St. Louis Athletica.

• • •

Finally, in the “local man vindicated by history” category, we note that goalkeeper Lous Crayton has been waived by DC United, an event which undoubtedly comes at no surprise to former CLS columnist and current Houston Dynamo goalkeeper coach Tim Hanley. You might recall that Hanley stated that Crayton was “poor and New England would be well advised to test him as often as possible” in an April pre-game piece for CLS, a comment that led to an apoplectic reaction first from Steve Goff of the Washington Post and then the DC United front office.

As a result of the kerfuffle, Hanley’s not writing for us anymore, but he’s been proven correct in his assessment of Crayton’s skills by Goff’s current report that Crayton “lost the starting job this season and had fallen to No. 3 on the depth chart.”

We’d love to have Hanley back, calling it like he sees it. Maybe it will even happen someday, when MLS decides that it’s OK for fans to have an adult discussion led by people who know the sport in depth, even if they’re also on the league payroll.

Cross your fingers on that one, too.

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