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