We rolled into Salt Lake City later than we wanted, only to find out the game was an hour later than I thought (yay time zone change!) We got the info on the tailgate from Twitter via @RSLRoyalArmy and got waved into parking by the attendant impressed that we’d driven from Iowa for the game. We ended up parking next to a group of supporters that were having “LDS Singles Night” which entailed green jello shots (complete with carrot shreds!) and funeral potatoes with braiding each other’s hair replacing the usual kick around.
The tailgate ranged from that group, to Royal Army members, some Salt City Outlaws, to Salt City United, a group of tattooed group of supporters that seemed less than excited to talk with a not tattooed mom of two innocent looking blond children (little did they know…but more on that in another post). We found tickets, joined the Royal Army (because the answer to do you want a scarf for $25, or a scarf, patch, and RA membership for $25 is heck yes I’ll join the Army).
We went into the stadium, and the supporters section was divided up with the stage for Neil Diamond’s concert the next day. We started out sitting to the left of the stage with a group of season ticket holders that seemed nice…..too nice for us. As game time approached, we heard drums and trumpets from the other side of the stage, which was the only invitation my son needed to march on over and join La Barra, the Latino supporters.
The kids loved the atmosphere at Real Salt Lake. Between the two levels in the supporters section, there’s a terrace where kids from all over could run around and play. Both my kids found children to chase around or make confetti with, in between dancing to the constant music from Barra and spinning through the smoke bombs.
While the kids were excited to participate in the festivities, I was excited to have two USMNT players on the pitch, Jay DeMerit for Whitecaps and Kyle Beckerman for Real, or as the kids know them, “that guy from the movie (Rise and Shine)” and “the Jewish player.” I do appreciate having players for the kids to look up to, and since they live in a smaller city soccer-wise and they’re Jewish, we couldn’t have picked a better match to kick off the MLS Roadtrip, role model wise. Cap off the night with a 2-1 win for the home squad and I would call this an entirely successful trip.
The only downside is in order to make Portland in time for the next day game, we had to drive on right after the match. If there’s one thing we’ve learned at this point in the road trip, it’s that we could spend way more time than we have meeting up with all the great soccer fans along the road. Next up: Portland (or bust).
Filed under: Family Fun, Major League Soccer, Supporter Culture | Tags: LA Galaxy, MLS, Portland Timbers, Real Salt Lake, Sporting KC
This guy wants to meet your supporters! This year, the kids and I decided to do an MLS Road Trip instead of roadtripping to Grandma and Grandpa’s (I know, I was surprised they were into it too!) So here we go! We leave this week for Real Salt Lake’s Friday game, then will have one insane night into day of driving to Portland Timber’s Saturday game. We’ll make our way back via California, where we might hit the LA Galaxy World Football Challenge game, if I can see fit to part with $110 a ticket (not looking good right now…but we’ll wave while we’re in town!) Then it’s across the desert to see Sporting KC in the Open Cup final!
Two kids, one mom, 3 (or 4) MLS games, 5000 miles. Stay tuned, soccer fans…and remember…it’s not nice to wager on our survival, but you can Dwolla.com your support to @TanyaKeith Dwolla ID #812-460-2944 yeah, I’m talking to you, LA front office!
Truth is, I thought Chicago Fire had one supporter’s group: Section 8. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Section 8 is an association of supporter groups, that are all awesome and unique in their own right. I had a great chat with one of the founders of Whiskey Brothers about the history of their group and the Fire supporters in general. Some groups formed out of ethnic groups, Hispanic or Polish, and some were born out of a group of guys drinking and starting a supporters group as a bit of a joke and had it take off unexpectedly, a story the certainly rings familiar as the somewhat accidental founder of American Outlaws Des Moines.
If you go to a Fire game, take some time to tailgate and meet the various groups. They have their own personality and are full of great people. We hit it off with Husaria, the Polish supporters group. My husband is mostly Polish, and I’m part Polish too, but more importantly, when you buy their merch, you get to drink shots of some crazy Polish drink that is serious business, even thinned. Plus, their shirt with the supporter holding a lit flare over his head and the Chicago stars looks really good on my husband. Great booze, great merch…yeah…I’m home with Husaria. 
As if that wasn’t enough, they had a great anti-racism tifo complete with flares. I think I’m in love. 
A ripple went through the soccer world this week, as we passed the 10th anniversary of the US vs Portugal game in the 2002 World Cup. I smiled every time I read a “10 years ago I was….” post on facebook or Twitter, and I teared up watching babyfaced Landon Donovan in his disbelief scoring on the powerhouse on Portugal. As I thought about my “10 years ago today…” I got a little nostalgic.
Ten years ago, I was five months pregnant, with my darling girl, Aviva. I had taken the long flight to Korea with my husband, trying to keep my ankles from swelling on our way to our second foreign World Cup. We knew a few people from Iowa that would be in Korea, and we had met a few people through the “Yanks in Korea” Yahoo group (remember those days?) but otherwise, we were on our own. We headed out to the bar where Americans were meeting up, and came across many of the people that we continue to travel with to this day. It was like another world from where we are today. I had no idea the potential that US Soccer would display at that World Cup, and had no idea the bonds we would forge that day would lead to lifelong friendships with so many people.
US v Portugal would be my first time taking my daughter to a USMNT match (we called her’s “obstructed view seats”) and would start a lifetime of taking my kids into the supporters section. I remember her doing what felt like a full 360 spin when we hit the “wall of sound” that was the Koreans chanting in unison at the US vs Korea game. I remember cradling my belly at the US vs Poland game when it looked like we were headed home, all our work in the previous two matches for nothing.
I realize now, ten years later that there will never be another World Cup like that for me, where the unknown wonder of what was to come for our family and the team I love was so full and bright. I have loved every time I’ve brought my kids to games, but I find it hard to imagine a World Cup so far exceeding my expectation, now that the bar has been raised so high. It was a great experience to see the Germany Weltmeister through my then 3-1/2 year old’s eyes, and to travel South Africa with so many good friends was fantastic, but ten years ago, I was that pregnant girl in Korea, and I had the time of my life.
***If you want to read more about our trip to Korea and you can’t wait until I finish the book I’m writing about our travels, pick up a copy of Andy Gustafson’s “23 Days in Korea.” He is one of the people we met at that first game, and tells a great story of his trip, albeit misspelling my name and totally misrepresenting how that cab WAS mine! It is otherwise a great read. You can buy it here.
Filed under: Family Fun, Supporter Culture | Tags: Bavaria Soccer Club, Menace, Open Cup, PDL
There were moments when I thought I may have made a serious error in judgement driving to Milwaukee for Menace Soccer’s Open Cup game. Most of those moments involved storm clouds and unfavorable scoreboards, but ultimately, you can’t go wrong seeking adventure around a soccer pitch.
The kids and I rolled into Milwaukee about an hour before game time, and seeing some pretty serious storm clouds and not yet having a hotel plan, we pulled into the nearest hotel to check availability….and walked in as the Menace players were walking out. My kids were awestruck, (as were most of the players, seeing visiting supporters) and my stock rose about 20 points, never a bad thing with hungry kids on the road. We checked out the Bavarian Soccer Park and ran into the referees, two of whom were former friends of mine from my serious refereeing days. We got the report that there would be a lightening delay, which was fine with my starving kiddos who did not find anything dinner-worthy at concessions.
In addition at meeting my long time Twitter friend, Scott Viar (@BackSeatGaffer), we got to meet Karen, ticket taker extraordinaire, and her two kids who were close enough to my kids age to make the game an instant success with Junior Menace fans. I like any game where I get to sit with Menace owner Kyle Krause and GM Todd Meiners and talk about building a soccer stadium in Des Moines, running the Menace, getting to know the players…whatever. Let’s face it, as a soccer geek, it’s always fun to shoot the breeze with other soccer geeks.
Enter my World Cup travel buddy, @Hoover_Dam, who noticed @PeterWilt1 posting about the Menace coach, and directed him to look for me. Allow me to clarify two things: my soccer geeking is pretty supporter focused, and I have a terrible memory for names. So all I knew about Peter Wilt was his Twitter profile, which states “i launch pro soccer teams and write.” Two of my favorite things! And really, I’m trying to watch a soccer game and keep track of two kids…I’m not going to Google him to find out which soccer teams, if you’re building soccer in America on any level, that’s good enough for me.
So I ask Kyle if he knows where Peter Wilt is, and he points him out and says “Wonder what he’s doing here.” Now, I could have thought, “Hmm…Kyle Krause knows this guy…and he’s surprised he’s here” but I didn’t, because me goto is to be funny: “He heard I was going to be here on Twitter and wanted to meet me.” Kyle rolled his eyes and said “Yeah, right.”
Which made it so much more epic-ly awesome when Peter walked directly over at half time, hugged me and greeted “Hi Tanya!” Kinda glad I didn’t know that he was the founder of the Chicago Fire, Chicago Red Stars, and a hundred other amazing things, or I might have passed out either then, or certainly when he quoted my blog to me and wanted to meet my famous “yellow team” singing son. Because I get pretty excited when I hear that ANYONE reads this blog.
I got to spend the game shooting the breeze with so many really smart soccer people, I didn’t even mind the two rain delays, a sprinkler delay later, or what had to be a 20 degree temperature drop. Menace walked away with the overtime win. We’re going to need to play better on Tuesday against Minnesota, but for now, I’m pretty stoked about my new friends made and met in Milwaukee. I did finally Google Peter Wilt (when I returned home and my husband saw my Twitter feed and said “Is that THE Peter Wilt?”) And yes, my toes did finally warm up again.
Filed under: Family Fun, Supporter Culture, Uncategorized | Tags: kids, parenting, soccer mom, Stadium Language, supporters section
You may remember a while back, I posted about my son going to a Chicago Fire game and learning their song “Why Are You Such A Yellow F—ing Team?” I knew one day, he would hear the “Yellow Submarine” song it’s based off, and there would be some hilarious follow up story. I just hoped it wouldn’t involve a Principal’s Office.
Well, that day arrived Friday. My daughter’s school has All School Sings, where the school has an assembly and sings songs and shares what each classroom’s projects. This one was celebrating an art project that I had worked on, so I brought my son to the thank you ceremony. And as luck would have it, one of the songs for the day was “Yellow Submarine.”
My only regret is that I don’t have video to share of his sweet little face, as it morphed from excitement about the Sing, to recognition of the tune of “Yellow Submarine,” to the horrified look of further recognition that hundreds of kids were about to drop an F bomb, to finally sweet, blessed relief that there was a second set of lyrics to this tune. It was truly a priceless moment with him, and a great story for the dinner table that night.
I stand by our decision to bring the kids into Supporter’s Sections every chance we get. They get it. And then when one of our friends accidentally curses in front of them, they understand that there are some places where that language is acceptable, and many more where it’s not. That’s a lesson I’m to
Let me preface by saying that I did NOT want to come to Slovenia. There was a rumor that the US would play Germany on this date, and I was all about going to Germany: I have friends there, I speak the language, and I love watching Germany play almost as much as I enjoy watching the US. So when Slovenia was announce, I was pretty upset. I almost decided against making the trip entirely: I don’t speak Slovenian, I’d only heard of the country because they were in our group in the 2010 World Cup, and who knew how they felt about that experience. But after grumbling for a few days, and realizing that I could still see my German family friends after Slovenia, I decided to continue with my dream trip of Eurotour 2011 planning.
I arrived at 2 AM on game day, and felt lucky to find a pizza stand open who called a taxi to my hotel for me. I checked in and slept until 15 minutes before breakfast closed. I spent the mid day checking out the city of Ljubljana with two other American fans, and headed to the stadium bar around 3:30. Our first stop in the stadium neighborhood was to pick up tickets. I’ve been to enough games to know that if you haven’t seen a bunch of Americans walking around, we’re probably going to be a small crowd at the game, but I had no idea how small our contingent was until we got the the visitors ticket booth. I walked up, and as I was fishing my passport out of my back pocket to show ID to pick up will call, I said “Hi, my name’s Tanya.” And before I could get my passport out, she handed me an envelope with my name on it. When you can get tickets with a first name and no ID, it’s going to be a VERY small crowd.
We headed to the All Star Bar, and on the way, found the Slovenia Supporters selling scarves which I had to buy, and fell in love with when I saw the top read “Majhna in ponosna – little and proud.” How could I not fall in love with Slovenia? I talked with the guy selling them, who turned out to be a leader of the supporters for Slovenia. We had a good time chatting, and as I was leaving, he gave me a really nice Slovenian flag. All I can say is “you had me at “majhna in ponosna.”
We had five Americans at the All Star Bar, and several Slovenians that looked confused to find us there. The stadiums in Europe are all alcohol free (yeah…take a moment to let that sink in, AO nation) and it was unbelievably cold and damp, so I quickly switched from cold beer to Kuhalo Vino, a hot spiced wine that was going down real easy. We compared notes on travel, and came up with my favorite phrase of the night. When people speaking foreign languages without the listener understanding, the listener just nods and says, “What you say is very interesting.” It was a well used phrase for the night.
We headed to the stadium, wondering if our section would even fill a row. Would they have riot gear cops around a single row? If 7000 Slovenians got pissed, exactly what were we going to do about it? When we got to our seats, we were about 2/3 the way up the lower deck, almost in the corner.I was happy to see several serious looking riot geared up police behind our section. We got the AO Des Moines banner hung in our corner, and then went down to the front row of where the US boys were warming up. We were SO close to the field, it was really great. The intimacy of a women’s game, but with the men’s team. It reminded me of the old days, when you could run into players anywhere, before anyone knew about soccer in the US. We realized that it was minutes before the walk out, and no one had kicked us out yet. I ran up to the old seats and grabbed our stuff, updating the only other Americans (a couple from Austria) that we were permanently relocating and they were welcome to join us.
I’ve never been prouder to belt out our national anthem than I was at that game. It was so patriotic to be there, with my four new friends, cheering on our boys. And when we scored, what seemed like immediately, it took a moment to realize that, although the stadium was pin-drop silent, we had scored! We went nuts, and there was the deafening roar of five people cheering. It was completely unreal and fantastic all at once. The field was veiled in fog, so thick that we couldn’t see the far side benches from our front row vantage point. It was an amazing night, on an amazing field, with a great host. The Slovenians got some chants going, and they had a great coordinated fan group in the end zone. Their supporters got call and respond chants going with the other fans in the stadium, and created a great atmosphere. They were great sports being down or tied, and were great sports shaking hands with us post game leaving the stadium and back at the bar.
Of course I’m glad that the US is playing better, and happy that the Klinsman plan seems to be coming together (I told you all to stop worrying). I was glad to catch Boca’s 100th cap… I remember when he was a new guy on the team… they grow up so fast! But there’s something really special about going to the “rare” games. I like being part of the tiny little group of supporters, cheering against all odds. I love all US Soccer matches, but I will always have a special (WARM, finally) place in my heart for Slovenia.
Filed under: International Soccer, Supporter Culture, Uncategorized, US Soccer | Tags: Friendly, Paris, USMNT
My trip in Paris has been really lovely, but I’m typically pretty incognito as an American in Europe. Most Europeans assume that all Americans have long hair, and I speak enough French and plenty of German, which is not typical, so I was surprised to see how my interaction with Parisians took a nose dive once I was in my USA gear for the game. Then after the game, on the Metro back to my hotel, still face-painted and decked out, but in good spirits, the drunk French boys were a little ridiculous.
Four of us Americans stopped for food next to the stadium to let the Metro traffic die down, and around the stadium, the French were pretty nice. People shook hands, took photos with us, it was relatively friendly. Jason, a supporter from New York, and I took the Metro most of the way home together. When I left him, I had a transfer and one stop til I was back at my stop, “La Fouche” (my new favorite word to say in French). I beat the gate closed for the second time (is there anything as exhilarating as making the last train with only minutes to spare?) But then I was trapped on the platform, waiting for the last train, with a bunch of drunk French kids who hadn’t bothered to go to the game, but felt they knew enough to be obnoxious with me.
Here’s a lesson kids, even in a foreign language, it’s tough to out insult me. So here’s my guide for dealing with drunken, obnoxious French fans:
1, Be friendly. I think it was Jason that initially said “When we travel, we let the away team have one goal, to be a good guest.” Most people laughed and shook our hands. But a few were determined to changed my mind back to the belief that French people are really just a bunch of d bags.
2. When the comeback is “Yeah, but you still lost.” My next comeback was “You didn’t even go to the game, and I had a great night there. It was a good game.” Which they’re supposed to see as, dude, it’s just a friendly, lighten up.
3. But some didn’t, and to those, you must start speaking English very quickly, although still with a nice tone “Look, you won by one point in a friendly, big effin deal. I’m an American, you think I’ve never been to a loss before, get over yourself.” You can rattle on here as long as you want, but as you walk away, slow down your English a little and say “Hey, in the 2010 Coupe du Monde (World Cup in French…and you must use French just there), where were you guys in the 2nd round? (You can hold up 2 fingers, just to make sure they get it). Granted, I didn’t have a huge sample set, but that wiped the smile off 100% of drunk French boy faces. Except the one guy, who was particularly amused watching me fend off one particularly drunk fan. As the drunk fan stumbled away with his sad face on, I caught him smirking, and asked if he spoke English. He said yes, and we just smiled and laughed about the whole “drunk guy getting hauled off by his girlfriend” scene. All in all, it was a great night in Paris.
One more day here, then it’s the night train to Florence for 2 days there. I speak zero Italian. Should be interesting….
Filed under: International Soccer, Supporter Culture, US Soccer | Tags: Friendly, Paris, USMNT
It’s been a busy summer at our house. I closed my store, moved our house, and it was generally chaos around every corner. So I took some time off from this blog, (except for that stadium policy thing…that needed to be said.) but I’ve decided to make a comeback in style.
I’m in Paris for the USMNT friendly vs France, and then headed to Slovenia for that game. These are my first two away friendlies, and I’m very excited to be here…too excited…plus the jet lag is not helping my sleep situation. All I can say so far is every French person I’ve talked to is surprised that Americans are here, (and 1500 strong, according to US Soccer). My favorite response so far to the why are you here answer: “But you’re a woman.” I thought of making a joke that I was aware of that, but let it slide because it was delivered with such a great French accent. French accents make just about everything sound better. Have a French person say “Kentucky”. It’s almost sophisticated.
But I digress. Paris has been great today, although there seems to be a low level of game promotion going on. If you’re here in Paris with me, please join me at the American Outlaws meetup before the game. Details can be found here: http://www.theamericanoutlaws.com/events/us-vs-france-111111
See you all tomorrow, or later today Europe time!
Soccer....Family Style 