Avoiding the Drop

This match had been on my radar for quite some time.  I had tickets in my hand for the Philadelphia Gold Cup quarterfinals for awhile but this one was a different story altogether.

I have a couple of mates, one a Scouser and one a Manc, and both love to take the piss out of me and any London club supporters.  I’ve heard so much over the past 20 years about northern English football being so much more enjoyable and rowdy and any other adjective you’d like to hear, and while I’m no Chelsea lover, neither Arsenal or Spurs were coming to the States this year, so this is what it was.  Now, those two hate each others clubs with a passion almost all year long (but they’ll oddly shut up if the other club is playing a French club – everyone in England still hates the French, it seems), but they both will agree that London football is shite and there’s no getting around it.

Well, then, with all that in mind, we talked about tickets to this one for months.  My Manc friend Charlie has nothing positive to say about anything, really, let alone a car ride to Baltimore to see Chelsea.  Yet, he seemed sort of oddly fascinated at the thought of potentially seeing Ronaldinho, whom he’s always admired.  So, he got two tickets, one for him and one for Bill, my Scouser mate.  Now, why he didn’t get a third for me remained a mystery to me until Thursday as he often said “Yeah, yeah, I’ve got another ticket, I’m not sure what’s going on” and he would never elaborate any further than that.  Bill and I speculated that it was in reserve for a potential ladyfriend who never materialized.  At any rate, I got the call late at Thirsty Thursday that if I wanted to go, I could go.  I had assumed as much all week, but still, I hadn’t fully cleared it.  It wasn’t an issue, and off we went.  Of course, I didn’t think it was important to let Bluesfan or any of the UF’ers know that I’d be there, because I’m just that much fun.

Stay or go? Stay, apparently.

Charlie had booked a hotel room at a place that turned out to be right next door to the ubiquitous Pickles.  The place is no better than a smelly shithole, but given that it’s right next door to Camden Yards, and about 1 1/2 miles from M&T Bank Stadium, you can see why it does the business it does.  There were more than a few Scores Baltimore (slightly NSFW link) ladies out front when we arrived, and one had a piece of celery jammed in her rather ample cleavage.  God loves a Chelsea slapper, I guess.

To descibe us walking into that place was something right out of a surrealist painting.  Charlie’s in a red Rooney AIG strip, I’m wearing a Russian Arshavin strip, and Bill’s sporting the Gerrard grey strip (probably the least attractive of the three of us in that regard – I never liked the grey tops.)  Pickles was a SEA of blue when we arrived.  All of us were called some lovely names by the assembled masses, and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a drunken American college-age student call you the “C” word (trying to maintain our family image here, the word rhymes with “runt”) because he’s in a brand new Chelsea strip and thinks his beer muscles outweigh my years of loathing the Blues.  We all had quite a laugh over that one.  We did run into some British lads who had made the trip over and were visiting several cities in addition to catching the Blues in Baltimore.  They were decent, and we bought them a beer.  They reciprocated and even Charlie and Bill decided to behave for a change.

We walked around a bit and found a place to eat, had a bit of food, a couple more pints, and then the familiar checking of the watches began.  I need to write a longer post about what a day at football in England is like, but usually, at the pub, it starts with one person checking their watch to assure that the group has plenty of time to make it to the pitch and then the rest of the crew ends up doing it as well.  Bill was first, he’s always first, but soon we got the check and off we went.  Now, usually on the walk to a pitch, you can expect to hear some songs and insults and what have you.  This crowd was a bit different, but it was okay.  I did hear a couple poorly put together “We are the famous CFC” attempts, and of course, the Chelsea supporters did their best in the end zone area to keep things lively during the match.

We are the famous CFC, apparently.

Walking to the pitch, you could tell the crowd was going to be huge.  There were a literal ton of people walking down the boulevard, and likely, we walked right past the UF folks and God knows, I think we were just above where Bluesfan and her Dad were, so yes, I’m a total effing failure/wanker/prat/pick your derogatory name.  Our seats were in the club level section, just around midfield, and that level of the stadium is quite nice inside.  Plenty of loos, lots of places to get food, and despite how overpriced it was, plenty of beer stands.  Delightful.

We watched the warmups, and certainly, Milan looked a bit more vigorous than the Blues.  Ronaldinho instantly fascinated Charlie, for which I was grateful, as we were able to gawk at Petr Cech and his endless warmup.  I mean, seriously, he did at least 45 straight minutes of warming, and it wasn’t just the various usual goalkeeping drills.  He was running, working up a sweat, you name it.  Impressive for a man wearing a bike helmet, really.

I have to admit, I got a bit of a chill when the teams came out.  That’s always one of my favorite moments at a match, and hearing the announcement of the lineups was good stuff too.  Ronaldinho and Andrea Pirlo got the biggest hands for Milan, while I’m pretty sure that most of the Chelsea lads got huge hands and the biggest was reserved for the captain, John Terry.  Clearly, Frank Lampard had his supporters in attendance as well.

Jon Ogden should feel slighted.

The match kicked off, and Chelsea stormed and raged for the first few minutes.  They clearly wanted to get out early, and Didier Drogba cemented the fine start with a rocket blast from 30 yards just 7 minutes in.

Things seemed to settle then, at least for a bit, and while Ronaldinho had a bicycle attempt be thwarted, the rest of the first half seemed a bit lacklustre until Clarence Seedorf popped in a rebound to even the score.  The Milan supporters next to us were thrilled that they had tied it up, because the feeling was that while the match itself was decent, Chelsea was bossing things for the most part and thus, to even it up just before the half was quite a stroke of good fortune.

The half came, and lo and behold, John Harbaugh and Cam Cameron of the Ravens coaching staff turned up, just above where we were sitting.  I got a chance to chat with Coach Harbaugh for a bit, he was quite gracious and was really enjoying the match.  The stadium was full and buzzing all night, and I think he was interested to see the differences between an American football crowd and a soccer crowd.  Certainly there were a lot of kids and families at the match, and he had brought his daughter with him.

Harbaugh talks the footy

After the half, the substitutions began in earnest.  It was a bit difficult to keep up with it all, and with the friendly rules in effect, it meant wholesale changes.  Both sides changed out 8 players, and the PA announcer either couldn’t keep up or wasn’t getting the changes announced to him properly.  Either way, that part of the match, the PA person, was quite distracting and distinctly American in that regard.  Charlie did comment about not hearing any traffic announcements or security drills taking place, as those are fairly frequent at matches back home.

Yuri Zhirkov and Andriy Shevchenko (sporting a ridiculous grown out blonde mop) came on and immediately made a bit of a difference, at least in pace, if not in endeavor.  Zhirkov was rewarded for his work by scoring the match-winner with just 20 minutes to go.  Milan never truly threatened an equalizer, although every time Ronaldinho lined up over a set piece, the crowd buzzed excitedly.  His presence was really felt, even if he is truly not the player he once was.  The final whistle signalled the end of the match, and despite the fact that I was fairly well plastered at that point, I was disappointed.  It was truly fun to see the world-class level of the players again, especially given the level of play at the Gold Cup quarterfinals the week before.  I’m not having a go at CONCACAF, it’s just different when you see those kinds of players up close, the work they do together, the way that they feed off each other and work side to side.  It’s beautiful, it truly is.

Say, let's get a pint, shall we?

We made our way back to Pickles despite my protestations, had another pint, avoided the impending rain storm and called it a night.  There was a lot of talk upstairs about the quality of the match for a friendly.  It’s hard to quantify the effort, truly, but all things considered, it was a fantastic experience for three poor ex-pats who don’t get home very often.  I know that sounds like a snobby remark, and I do apologize if it comes off that way, but honestly, seeing that made me wish that MLS would take a good long look at the 71000 people that turned up for it and realize they will never draw those kinds of numbers until the quality of the play improves.  How they go about that is up to them, but this is America and the money is certainly there.  It’s got to be done properly, but they have to see that between the numbers for the Gold Cup, the World Football Challenge and the other friendlies happening, there have been some MONSTER crowds over the last two weeks.  ESPN had it at 788,000 fans over the last two weeks.  Something like 56, 000 per match if my math was correct.  MLS needs to capitalize on the coming uptake in popularity that always follows the World Cup.

Thanks for reading.