Copa America 2011 - Here I come

I am waiting now at Frankfurt International Airport for the longest flight in the Lufthansa system. 

Flight LH 510 will take almost 14 hours and more than 7000 miles to bring me to Buenos Aires for the 43rd edition of Copa América.

I will attend 9 matches in 7 cities all over Argentina. My first match will be on Friday July 1, Argentina vs Bolivia in La Plata, a university town about 1 hour from Buenos Aires.

I will write about Malbec, about la nuestra style of football, about Kimberley in Mar del Plata, about World Cup 1978, about the love hate relationship between Argentina and England, about Bilardista, may be about tango, about a lost friend and more...

For this tournament, I will wear green shirts to pay tribute to Glasgow Celtics as well as to fulfill a promise to Caleb and Max. 

They are 2 New Zealand boys whom I met at their aunt's wedding in Suisse. Like me, they are passionate about soccer.

A week ago, I received a package from New Zealand. Caleb and Max sent me their club shirt and I told them I will wear it at Copa América. (That's the shirt in the photo above)

well the flight is about to board. If you want to follow some matches of this tournament, check out youtube. 

Argentina here I come.

------------------------------

• 

• Buenos Aires, 15th June, 2011:  Google today announced its strategic partnership with Traffic Sports, the exclusive global commercial righstholder of Copa America, whereby YouTube will live stream all the matches of the 2011 Copa America on its dedicated channel on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/copaamerica ).

A League of Their Own - WWC 2011

I went to Germany this weekend to give my support to the Women's World Cup and along the way, I learned a valuable lesson 'never make a promise to a woman and not fulfill it'

It started on Saturday morning when I walked around Heidelberg. I came across a nice hotel and met a player from Nigeria outside. I asked 'can I have a photo with you?' and 'what is your number?'

She answered 19. And then I told her 'I am going to the game tomorrow and I will suport Nigeria'

I then went into the lobby of the hotel and found out the French team was staying in the same hotel as their opponent. So I hung around and got a photo with some Les Bleus.

Women soccer still faces a lot of prejudice. If I have a daughter who plays soccer, I would be so proud of her. I imagine the parents of these female players are very proud of them.

Leaving the hotel, I walked toward the city center. After about 5 minutes, a French player walked pass me. I tried to keep up with her to ask for a photo but she was so fast (or I was so out of shape).

I followed her for a good 10 minutes and was about to give up when she went into a clothing store. I went in as well and pretended to be a shopper. After a while, she was about to leave and I came up to ask for a photo and 'what is your number?'



She said 13 and then she told me 'there are 2 other French players upstairs shopping'

I was so touched by her kindness that I said 'I am going to the game tomorrow and I will support France' 

Women soccer still faces a lot of prejudice. If my wife Lorraine plays soccer, I would be so proud of her. My friend Chris was a coach of a women soccer team and he met his wife while trying to recruit her to play goalkeeper for his team.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I went to Sinsheim to see the first game of the 2011 Women's World Cup. For the first half, I sat in the front row behind the French team.

I looked at the program and found out that the Nigerian number 19 was Uchechi Sunday and she played club soccer in Switzerland. And the French number 13 was Caroline Pizzala of Paris St-Germain. Both were not in the starting line-up.

I had trouble deciding whom to support.

It was a good match with no yellow cards. The French were better, especially number 14, Louis Necib. She had a really nice touch and was voted the Player of the Match.Her nickname is the female Zidane. 

For the second half, I moved to the area behind the goal and was with the noisy Nigerian fans. They had drums and trumpets and even though France won (1-0), it was a good atmosphere with these fans.

I like this French team very much but my heart belongs to Brasil. I hope Brasil will win the 2011 WWC. It is about time. In the last 3 major tournaments (2 Olympics and 1 World Cup), Brasil had finished second 3 times. In 25 year old striker Marta, Brasil has the best player in the world for 5 years in a row.

Despite such impressive record, women soccer in Brasil is not taken seriously yet. There is no professional women soccer league in Brasil and the best players (like Marta) have to go abroad to earn money.

Women soccer still faces a lot of prejudice. If my mother plays soccer, I would be so proud of her. I have a colleague/friend from Belo Horizonte. Mônica (my friend) and her mother became fans of my blog last year.

A few weeks ago, Mônica wrote to me to say that she just found out her mother had played in the first women soccer team in Brasil. This woman was a pioneer.

Força Brasil!

How I met the Honduras team at Copa Oro 2011

my work brought me to the New York City area and yesterday morning, when I went down to the lobby of my hotel, I met some players from the national team of Honduras.

my first thought was Bloemfontein June 2010. These were the players that kept the Swiss from advancing to the second round. My second thought was 'PHOTOS'

why Honduras is in NYC? At the moment, the Gold Cup (this is the championship of North and Central American countries) is going on. Tonight, I will go to the stadium to see Guatemala vs Grenada and Jamaica vs Honduras.

I am really excited about seeing these teams for the first time because I will hear their national anthems live for the first time, meet their fans live for the first time, and see their styles of play live for the first time.

The matches will be played at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. This is the home to the Red Bull New York ( a copy of the Red Bull Salzburg - it is fashionable in the US to have your soccer team named similar to European clubs).

Red Bull Arena is one of 9 or 10 stadiums built specifically for soccer in the US and Canada. My first visit to this Arena was last Friday when Red Bull New York played the New England Revolution.

Because of the Gold Cup tournament, Red Bull New York missed about half of their starting line-up so the coach had to play some reserve players. One of them was number 16. He came on as substitute late in the game. His name was John Rooney.



He is the younger brother of Wayne. From what I saw, he is not as good as Wayne and I read that he wants to play for Ireland.

And the best Red Bull player I saw was the captain. a french guy named Henry. His pass led to an own goal in the first half and in the second half, he scored a fine solo goal. And he did both without using his hand.

And the strangest thing on Friday night at the Red Bull Arena? Before the match, I saw so many fans wearing Croatian shirts. Including my good friend Chris (but he wore the shirt only by coincidence).

During the match, a huge Croatian shirt was unveiled in the stadium.

I asked around and could not get a good answer. As far as I could tell, there was not a Croatian player on either team.

And then half-time came, and Davor Suker came out. Apparently, Mister Suker and the Red Bull New York were partnering an event to raise money for the Croatian American Charitbal Foundation. Some tickets were sold at a reduced price of 25 USD if you said the magic word CROATIA and a portion of the ticket price then went to this Foundation.

I was so excited to see this Real Madrid legend so I went all around the VIP area hoping to meet him. but Mr Suker disappeared.

this is me and Chris at the Red Bull Arena

Soccer Made in Kansas City

Last night, I went to see a professional soccer game in Kansas City. It was the first soccer game in a new stadium built specifically for soccer. Here are 10 things I like:

1) the name of the stadium is the Livestrong Sporting Park. Livestrong is a foundation created by a certain cyclist and yes, the 7 time Tour de France winner was at the game.

2) The name of the home team is the Sporting Kansas City (probably a copy from Sporting Lisboa). Last year, the team was called the Kansas City Wizards. The owners decided to rebrand the team.

When I asked around why they were called Wizards, I was told 'well we have the KC Chiefs who play American football, the KC Royals who play baseball, and we used to have a basketball team called the KC Kings. Chiefs, Royals, Kings, Wizards - these are names denoting leadership'

I asked 'you don't think it is for the Wizard of Oz? We are still in Kansas!'

3) Livestrong Sporting Park was advertised as the most technologically advanced stadium in the world. Free high-speed wireless access and 2 high definition big screens. How the fans will find time to watch the game is a mystery to me.

Stadium officials said 'the free high-speed Wi-Fi will allow fans to access mobile applications, social networking sites, and more.' (Anthony Weiner would love this stadium!)

4) One of the team sponsors is a bank and this bank was offering to take photos of the fans with the players, free of charge. The girl from the bank told me I could go on line to download my photo for Facebook publication. I said I don't have Facebook and she thought I was from outer space. 'You don't have Facebook???'

5) Despite the high tech promise, all the stadium gift shops were not able to open for business due to a computer malfunction for several hours. That was cruel to deny Americans the pleasure of shopping at a sporting event.

6) So with nothing to do before the game, I walked around and admired the soccer fashion. Most popular were the Sporting shirts, Second were the old Wizard shirts. And third were shirts from Mexico. Lots of Mexican fans because Omar Bravo played for Sporting.

7) The last time I was at an inaugural soccer game in a new stadium was in Zurich and I was confused with the bathroom sign. No problem this time.

8) Because the Livestrong Sporting Park was not ready when the season began in April, the team asked the league to let them play 10 away games first. The league said yes.

In the 10 away games, they won 1, drew 3, and lost 10.

9) So last night was the first home game of the season for the Sporting Kansas City team. And the opponents were their rivals, the Chicago Fire.

I sat near the away fan section. Just before the game started, a few Chicago fans started a small fire since that was their name.

The security guards did not like that and went in to eject a few Chicago fans from the stadium.

10) The game ended 0-0. The two most exciting moments were when the Sporting goalie got a red card for touching the ball outside the box in the 67th minute and when a fan dressed up in an animal costume ran onto the field.

This fan carried a soccer ball with him and he ran across the field and kicked the ball into the goal of Chicago. It was the only time in the match a goal was scored.

from the Livestrong Sporting Park, this is Sebastian



How I met the England team

In less than 24 hours, I am back at Wembley stadium for the big match, England vs Switzerland. This is a must win for Switzerland if they are to qualify for the EURO 2012.

A few months ago, the captain and the all time leading scorer of the Swiss national team decided to retire before this game. Despite scoring many goals for his club in Basel, Alex Frei had problems scoring when he put on the swiss shirt.

So in his place, a young player from my team, Grasshoppers Club Zurich, has been selected for the first time to the Swiss team. He was born in Nigeria and grew up playing for FCZ youth team. After a promising season in the swiss second division, GCZ bought him and in his first season in the top league, he scored around 10 goals and missed many.

Some fans called him 'Chancentod' meaning the killer of chances. But he is fast and his name is Innocent Emeghara.

Sebastian and Innocent

I hope he will score a goal at Wembley tomorrow. Against England.

and now about how I met the England team. The players were really nice to me and polite. It happened last Tuesday evening at my hotel next to the Lord's Cricket Ground.

I was having a drink in the bar when I spotted the team. I was a bit nervous to approach them but I got my courage up to ask them for a photograph before they went to bed.

Sebastian and the England cricket team

Hopp Suisse!