The Big Day

6/24/14

This is it! This is the day! This is the game, Costa Rica v. England, that will determine CR’s place in the group. We know that the Ticos will advance to the round of 16 (woo hoo!) but we don’t yet know if they will qualify first or second. It would be historical if they qualified first and this is definitely what we’re hoping for. But it would also make our trip a million times easier if they won first place because it would mean that we don’t have to change any of our travel plans! [Nick: When we bought our team-specific tickets to the Cup, it was to follow Costa Rica no matter where they qualified in the group. At the time, we knew Costa Rica might not qualify for the next round, since they were up against some pretty strong teams, in which case our tickets would default to whichever team qualified first (or 2^nd if CR qualified 2^nd). So I made a full set of travel plans assuming that we’d follow the 1^st place team out of our Group of Death. I would like to claim that I was that confident that CR would come out first, but in reality I was that confident that CR would not qualify, in which case our tickets would have us follow the winner of the group. Some analysts, like Goldman Sachs, gave CR a 1 in 1000 chance to advance. So I had also made some hotel reservations in case CR qualified 2^nd, but I would have had to change all of our flights and car rentals. We were really lucky that CR was first. It worked for Fe and Filipe too, as they assumed that we’d be following the group winner which would have us go to the Semi-Final in Sao Paulo near their home. They planned to work that week and would have had to take off even more vacation if we instead went to the 2nd place Semi –Final.]  

Nick ready for the game

So off we went – two Costa Rica fans and one England fan to the Belo Horizonte stadium! Little did we know it would take us 2.5 hours to get there! First the special FIFA bus, which was easy enough to catch, took 1.5 hours to move 9km (5.4 miles) due to traffic. Then, for some unknown reason, the bus dropped us off over a mile away from the stadium. So in the sweltering heat, we walked – for what seemed like forever – through the neighborhood and around the back side of the stadium to our gate entrance. This was the first time in any of games we’ve attended that I felt like the organizers did not have their shit together. Despite all the negative news you heard in the U.S. leading up to the games about how Brazil was not ready and there was all this unrest in the streets, we had experienced none of it. So far, all the accommodations, amenities, stadiums, and public transport had been great. But getting to the stadium in BH felt like they just didn’t know what they were doing. It was incredibly inconvenient and inefficient. But what can you do, except make the long walk in the sweltering heat.

Nick, Cat & Sam at the BH Stadium

Our view

Teams filing out

National anthems

Sadly, we didn’t get to sit with Sam, as we had purchased our tickets separately, and unlike previous games, our seats were in the nose bleed section. Not to worry though, we still had a great vantage point. But oh my god, what a stressful game! Costa Rica wasn’t playing at all like they had the previous two games. It was so painfully frustrating (Literally, it gave me a stress headache). They were all over the field, no formation, no communication between players – the passes were constantly intercepted by England and they just couldn’t make it on goal. Thank goodness we had Navas! If it weren’t for his saves, England might have won the game. We learned that England planned to play their second string players – not a bad idea to allow those that had come to the Cup but not played yet to get some field time in a game that didn’t matter at all for the team. But that seemed to make it harder for Costa Rica. The young English players were much more aggressive, giving it their all, and Costa Rica could do nothing but play defense. I was a wreck by the end of the game. Nick kept assuring me that this was the best outcome we could hope for; that the English played a good game and Costa Rica maintained their first place qualifying status out of the group of death. But 9 points is clearly better than 7! Oh well. We didn’t win all three games but we advanced to the round of 16 in first position, so we wouldn’t have to change any of our travel plans. Hallelujah! [Nick: Costa Rica’s goal was different in this game than in the previous games. They just needed to tie or even lose by only 1 goal to advance as first place, so they altered their play to give them the best probability to get the result needed. Unfortunately that meant giving up the initiative and letting England control. Still they fulfilled their mission and Costa Rica beat out teams with a combined 7 World Cup trophies to take first place.]

CR Fans

England fans

Ticos Chanting

Prince Harry also showed up to the game

The interesting thing was that, even though there seemed to be more Costa Rican fans (many of whom I’m sure were Brazilian but rooting for the “zebra”) at the stadium, the smaller crowd of English fans completely drowned everyone else out. Their solidarity and nonstop chanting was impressive. Even more so when England decided to play one of their star players in the second half, Steven Gerrard, who just so happened to be Sam’s most favorite player and one of the main reasons she came to see the Cup in the first place. We were so happy for her – it was the one thing she desperately wanted to happen: to see Gerrard play before he retires soon (since he is at the ripe old age of 34). Sam couldn’t be happier and really got chocked up after the game. Soccer is a beautiful thing.

Mexico fan 

Brazilians celebrating with Ticos

We had a long walk/ride home but it came with some surprises. Nick was an instant celebrity – as a decorated Tico waving his flag, tons of Brazilians wanted to take a picture with him. Several even asked if he would trade his Costa Rican flag for their Brazilian flag. Sadly, they had no chance. We also had the good fortune to stumble upon a capybara (world’s largest rodent!) on the walk back to the bus. It was just hanging out on the edge of a lake, munching grass and totally oblivious to gaggle of tourists around it, pointing to the “giant beaver” (ay dios) and taking its picture. The bus ride home was another spectacle, as the first half of the bus was filled with Ticos and the back of the bus was mostly English fans. One Brazilian, who had cleverly painted his entire body to look like Beckham’s uniform (captain’s band, socks, and all), though thankfully had on a pair of actual blue shorts, led everyone in renditions of Beatles songs and badly mangled Bob Marley songs in between the front of the bus’s chants of “Ticos, Ticos.” It was an entertaining ride.

Sam & English fan

 

Cat & Nick with traditionally dressed Tica

Capybara

Sadly, I was done for the day. The tension of the game had given me a wicked migraine and I was out for the rest of the night. I need not to get so anxious about the game next time. Nick and Sam generously grabbed me some food from down the street and I nursed my broken head with some nachos and a quesadilla (gracias amor). Being the old fogies that we are, Nick and I crashed that night but Sam, fortunately, was still able to head out to the block party and enjoy our last night in Belo Horizonte.