Road Trip - Nashville - Cbus - Nashville

Match 8 & 9: Olympic Qualifiers... El Salvador v Canada and U.S.A. v Cuba, Nashville, TN.

We headed out for 5 more games in as many days.  Shawn kept bar at Hooligans the night before and paired with our 5am departure, he was operating on 4 hours of sleep.  But on a road trip, sleep is a luxury so off to Nashville we went. 



After the 6.5 hours drive...and about 14 stops, we finally arrived in Nashville.  We immediately met up with Jay, Mike, and Chris.  Since this is our second road trip with Jay, the logistics were easy: park car + meet at a nearby bar.  Our like minds all took us to the same street and just a few blocks from each other which was conveniently near Big River Brewery.  Easy.  And they had pool tables.

Beer. Lunch. Laughter. Friends.

Soon after lunch, Matt and Becka met up with us and we were off to McFadden's join the AO tailgate.  Not only did they have PBR on draft, but it was still green which we hope was left over from St. Paddy's day.  Shortly Shawn and I left to head over for the first of the day's double header: El Salvador v Canada.  Our fellow Americans would join us later.



MATCH 8: El Salvador v Canada

We were excited to see El Salvador, for their fans won our hearts when we saw then play a year ago at the Gold Cup v Panama in Washington DC.  El Salvadorian fans took over RFK. Their passion was contagious and their love for El Salvador first, US second was evident. The outnumbered the US fans, at home, at least 10 to 1. But each contingency lent its voice to the other during respective matches.  In between the two matches at RFK we swapped tickets with the El Salvadorian fans so they could take the lower level seats to be closer to their team.  El Salvadorian fans who stayed in the upper level seats were still visibly passionate - they launched paper airplanes and they landed en masse on the pitch.  It was a great scene.

Back to Nashville....
Once we got into LP Field (Titan's stadium) the atmosphere was nothing like that which we recalled from RFK. And the stadium is enormous.  And not in a good way. There was no intimacy.  The excuse that it is a big stadium is not good enough.  We've been in Wembley when it was empty and it had an intimate and magical feel to it. LP Feield is an NFL stadium, complete with Jumbotron.  The elevation of seating is gradual, reducing proximity to the pitch and to fellow fans.  It was almost empty.  Where were all the fans?  Granted it was a Thursday evening, but I think we both expected to see a larger crowd.

The match itself held nothing spectacular. Just the understandable nerves that accompany qualifiers.  Two teams trading posession.  El Salvador quicker, but Canada bigger. Beginning play  is really punchy.  Canada seems defensively minded while El Salvador comes up short despite crisp passes.  It ended nil - nil. 

Shortly before the end of the El Salvador match, the AO march arrived.  It was small.  Had our trip to England and our past US match experiences blown our expectations out of the water?  Hope not. There was one AO member dressed as a drummer from the Revolutionary Period and he led a group that filled about 10 rows of a single section. 

Match 9: USA v Cuba
We headed into this first US match thankful because it was a guaranteed first team roster, well for U23s of course.  If they qualified on Saturday v Canada, it is likely they would field a second team for the Monday match.  (In hindsight, I wish this was the issue).

Cuba was handed a red, which could have been a yellow and it sent them to 10 men. This did not help the seemingly overwhelmed and disorganized Cuban team.  However, our fan section did a nice job despite small numbers and our own Jay got several rounds of "Oh Freddie Adu...you got what I need..." going and even prompted a responsive smile from Adu himself. 

This match went as expected, US 6 - nil Cuba.  Not much of a challenge for the US and as a result it let our backline off the hook a bit -- Kitchen seemed weak in left back, but Hamid was solid in goal.  Our attack was solid, but against 10 men - it should be solid.
We left the match feeling good about our qualifying chances, and to be honest a bit sad that we would miss the match on Saturday v Canada. Adding to our sadness was the news that our fellow soccer friend and QCO board member Mike was moving to DC for a few months. Mike we wish you well and come back soon.

But enough of that... our alligences lie deep: Crewsmas was just two days away.  Off to Columbus...