| August
21, 2004
ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO
The
game against Japan was high-spirited. You could tell
that it was going to be that way before the match even
started, just by looking at our fans. Painted on jerseys
with G-O U-S-A on the stomachs and numbers on their
backs. To add to the noise, our husbands, boyfriends,
kids and family members beat on kiddie drums to show
their support. Then in came the huge bass drum of the
Japanese contingency. If it was a battle on the field,
it was in the stands as well. The fans rarely sat down
or stopped yelling, and never thought about us going
home.
Although we are always responsible for the outcome of
the game, they definitely gave us an added boost of
enthusiasm to push forward. (Here is where I have to
thank my husband Jerry for spending his afternoon in
search of face/body paint. He almost resorted to house
paint, but thankfully he knew that turpentine and skin
don't really go together.)
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Preparing
for Japan
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The
91ers
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The match was a good one. All the dramatic elements
were present. Two countries with a history, a recent
tie game, world quality players on both sides, a beautiful
field to play on. Like always, as is true with games
in the knock-out stage, it went down to the wire. Though
Japan didn't really have too many shots on goal, we
did plenty of defending. They are supremely technical,
with a terrific understanding of space and timing. It
was a hard-fought game in the midfield, due to the fact
that we had 3 and they had 4. Julie, Tarp and Boxxy
had to bust their backsides not to make it easy on them.
As for the forwards, they were also a huge reason that
we were successful on the defensive side. They forced
the goalkeeper to clear balls, make saves and turned
their back line around a number of times. In the back,
with Bri cleaning things up behind us, we had success
in changing the point, rotating up to defend at times
in the midfield and covered one another quite well.
With all that said, Germany are the World Champions,
and came from behind yesterday to win versus Nigeria
2-1, scoring two goals in the last 20 minutes. It not
only takes sharp strong bodies to play them, but focused
minds and the will to go the extra mile (or step). We
are now headed back to “our” island, where we played
our first Olympic match. We definitely made ourselves
at home floating on the Mediterranean. Our friends and
families will be following us, and if they thought they
had their hands full with the Japanese fans, they will
find Germans in numbers on the island. Crete is a popular
vacation spot for Germans. Mr. Sobrero already tried
to buy the drums off the Japanese fans for 50euro but
they weren't biting. So in closing, does anyone out
there know of a band in Heraklio, Crete that would be
interested in going to a women's football match and
playing a bit of music???? We are willing to pay!
GO USA!
Brandi
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