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Heart & Determination
Kaiserlautern, Germany - Before the US even touched the field we were given a lifeline... Ghana had just beat the Czech Republic providing us with a glimmer of hope. Now anything other than a loss vs Italy would keep us in it and assure a meaningful final game vs Ghana.
It was a nice train ride thru the German countryside. Taking the trip allowed us to see parts of Germany that we hadn't really seen yet since we had stayed mainly in the industrial Ruhr. Eventually though we arrived at the Kaiserlautern station. The Yanks Abroad group had done another great job organizing a "Red White & Brew" event at the Brauhas am Markt. We headed down the "Football Mile" to the bar the US fans would be gathering. Kaiserlautern had shut down the main street in the city and set it up with tents lining each side of the street with all sorts of fun football related events, stores & food. As we were walking down a side street to the bar, we ran into a bunch of American wearing David Hasselhoff Fan Club shirts. Germans love David Hasselhoff, you know.
We left the bar before the majority of the fans so we could get to the stadium and set up the flag, etc. We followed the instructions posted all around and went to the approriate color coated bus station. Upon getting the station, we were greeted by one of the World Cup Volunteers who then informs us that there are no buses going to the stadium. Thus, we were walking it. The trek to the stadium was a very long one. Of course the stadium was nowhere near the town center nestled away up on a hill overlooking the city. We had to head back towards the train tracks and then head up this windy hill to get there. The trip would have been an easy one provided it was cooler out and we didn't have the Baby Flag to drag up there with us. As we began walking up the hill, we saw bus after bus passing us heading to the stadium. No buses, my ass! The only redeeming thing about hoofing it, was eventually all the buses hit traffic and we went walking past the busloads of people, packed liked sardines, stuck in the traffic heading to the stadium.
Once the traffic died down, we left the stadium and headed back to the train station. We ran into a lot of drunk and happy Americans along the way. We even ran into the League of Justice. We had a few drinks with the ESC crew waiting for our train to take us back to our hotel. We caught the last train to Clarksville, I mean Mannheim and then from Mannheim would need to transfer to another train to get to Mainz. We did not take the next train that came which was going to Frankfurt because Rob said there was another coming that would go directly to Mainz. He insisted we take this direct train, that it would be much faster. Well, this imaginery train never came as Rob had read the wrong schedule; he read the Weekday schedule and it was the Weekend. We had missed our train. I should have known better after Rob was persistent we get off at a certain Metro stop which we all knew was wrong for the US-Jamaica game in Washington DC way back in 1997. So we had to wait another hour for another train, take that one to Frankfurt and finally get on a train headed for Mainz. We didn't get to Frankfurt until about 4 in the morning. We didn't get back to our hotel until about 6 in the morning. Needless to say, we were not going to be doing much sight seeing that day in Germany.
Ed Kirwan
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We left for Kaiserlautern from Mainz early in the day. We met Rishi and his friends for breakfast and then headed to the main train station. We were armed with our new NJB Scarves which had finally arrived. Due to some Polish delays, we had to have the scarves shipped to Bodo in Wolfsburg and he finally received them after the Czech Republic game. He sent a few our way to our Hotel in Mainz and held onto the rest for us to get when we reached Wolfsburg later on in our journey. Get your new NJB scarf 
We got to the Brauhaus and it was already jam packed with US fans from all over. Fans were inside the bar drinking, outside the bar singing and hoping for the best. The police were out in force making sure nothing happened. Once the Ghana vs Czech game started, we began cheering for the African nation. Before we left for the stadium, a roar was heard from inside and outside the bar. Ghana had just scored. If they could now just hold on and win, the US still had a decent chance of getting through provided we could beat Italy or at least tie them today.
We got to Fritz Walter Stadium and found our seats and lo and behold, we were in the front row off to the left behind the goal, near the right side corner flag. We had a huge net seperating us from going onto the field. It reminded me of the nets I always saw crazed South American soccer fans scaling whenever their team scored. We had a great view of the tv monitor in the far corner and we watched the rest of the Ghana vs Czech game and cheered like crazy again when Ghana scored pretty much sealing their victory. We were even so close to the action, we could see Drew Carey and all the photographers. Similiar to Hartford, the cries of "Carey, Carey buy us a beer" soon began and pretty soon, a pair of 100 Euro bills were passed through the netting to Rob and Nik to go buy the section some beer. Drew Carey Rocks ... and so does Cleveland.
Although the US was playing better, they found themselves in a hole after 22 minutes as the Italians scored on a free kick situation. We were not silent for long though as only 5 minutes later we got our break. A well placed ball on a US free kick, forced the defender to play the ball......right into the Italian net. 1-1. We went crazy. Rob, Dimitri and a few other fans began to climb the netting...the few streamers that we had went flying...the flag came out... AND during our rapture, something BIG had happened on the field and we didn't even realize it. Brian McBride was elbowed in the head and had blood gushing down his face. The Italian defender was red-carded. In the span of 2 minutes we went from be down 0-1 to being tied 1-1 and up a man. Things looked so promising for the remainder of the game. That would all change as the US could not even keep their man advantage going into the break. In the 45th minute, Pablo was red carded. Then in the 47th minute, Eddie Pope received his 2nd yellow, also getting ejected. In another span of 2 minutes things went from promising to dire. Now we 
would be forced to play 9 on 10 for the rest of the game. Still the US pressed at the right moments and it appeared that DaMarcus Beasely scored the unlikely go ahead goal in the 62nd minute, 2 minutes after he came on for Clint Dempsey. We went even crazier than after the first goal. Rob nearly tore down the netting he was climbing it with so many people. Our joy didn't last long as the goal was called offsides and NONE of us could figure out why. Beasley was not in an offsides position at all. It seemed like the fix was in. Only later did we find out it was because Brian McBride was deemed to be in an offside position which was not passive. Not the worse call in the world since McBride did lift his leg to avoid the ball, but rarely do you ever see the passive offsides called. The last few minutes were nerve racking as Kasey Keller was forced to make some great saves to keep the game tied. When the final whistle blew, we could not be that upset the result. Win vs Ghana (with some help from Italy) and we were through to the Round of 16.
After the game, every player on the team made it a point to come over to our section to applaud us and give us the thumbs up. This game was such a 180 from the last US game. It was like watching a different team. The team actually played with urgency, heart and hustle. The insertion of Clint Dempsey certainly provided a spark and he made numerous runs down the right side of the field and showed that he was not scared to take on defenders and try to beat them one on one. Landon Donovan looked like the 2002 version playing inspired ball making some really courgeous runs throught the game. And the fans, we certainly fed off of this energy or maybe even, it was the reverse, the team fed off our energy. The US fans were amazing. Dare I say it, but the Best show of support for the USA, I have ever witnessed. The layout of the stadium was great. It allowed you to see every seat in the stadium from your seat since there was no upper deck to the arena. Whenever I looked back from the front row, all I could see was a sea of people all wearing red,white and blue cheering, waving flags and making noise. It was easier for the chants to get going from the bottom to the top and it was nice to hear fans outside of the normal group singing along with us and not just chanting U-S-A, U-S-A. The Italians and Germans who were sitting in the seats to our right seemed a little stunned at the support for the US team. So many articles they see are about how the US doesn't get soccer and the fans don't get it, I think the whole stadium was suprised to see that is clearly not the case. We get it. The whole country may have not yet gravitated to soccer like the rest of the world, but those of us who have, we get it.
We headed out of the stadium with the masses of people and realized it was going to be a long trip down the hill with all those people. We stumbled upon a soccer field right outside the stadium not being used. We brought the ball and began to play a small game of kick around. Little by little more people kept joining us and eventually we had a mini pick up game going on between all the US fans. An Italian fan jumped on the field waving a yellow card, at which point we all proceeded to dive to ground claiming to be fouled which drew laughs from the Italian and everyone watching. Its funny because it's true. I had never seen a team flop around pretending to be fouled more than the Italian team.
