Soccer's Lost Boys

Want to feel depressed?  Want your depression to be topical in reference to Africa and the World Cup?



You're welcome.

-ZGS

Man on the Street - Volume 1

I got a couple of emails this morning that I'd like to share with you.  Travis and Craig are traveling together in South Africa.  This is part of their story.

A Message from Craig:

So yesterday was the biggest ordeal getting tickets, but it all worked out, thank god. They only have a couple outlets where you can pick up your tickets and the one at the airport had this extraordinarily long line (which I probably should have used anyway), so we went to the pickup spot in Pretoria. We ended up having to wait in line for 2 hours because their atm-like terminals were all down (imagine that in africa). 

Getting my tickets was easy because I just handed them my credit card and my id, and got the tickets, but the USA v England tix were the more difficult ones, as we had Rob's credit card, but not his ID. Travis pretended to be Rob, and said that he didn't have his ID because the directions said all you needed was the credit card (which they did), so we argued with the guy, and then he went and got his manager, but that didn't work, so I had the realization that I had my ID and my name was for one of the tickets, so I gave them my ID, the manager went back and checked and since everything checked out with me, they printed out the tickets for us. I was going to freak out if we couldn't get those tickets!

Anyway, it's crazy here. Travis heard his first vuvuzela at 5:30, but I wasn't woken up until 7:30. And we're not even downtown. When we get off the internet here, we're going to go to downtown Pretoria and watch the opening ceremonies and the games there. I'm so freaking excited. Everyone here is so super nice to us. They, as a country, are just as excited as we are. Tomorrow we're going to drive out to Rustenburg early and spend the whole day at the stadium. The tickets for the USA v England game are pretty damn good. We're about half way up, right at midfield in the USSF section. Look for us. I've got Charlie Davies 9's that I will be holding up at the 9th minute. As for today, maybe one of the bars will have WiFi, though I haven't found any wifi in this country yet, so I can chat in real time on my iphone. Either way, go Bafana Bafana!

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Part Two.

Bouncing back from my super-self-indulgence in the previous post, I'm moving on to profile another one of our men in the field, Travis! Think of him like our own personal World Cup gossip columnist.

That's our man, off to the right, pictured with some guy you thought was Damarcus Beasley, but only because you're a racist.

Come with me as we discover what makes Travis tick in our second installment of...

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Part One.

So, remember way back in the day, four posts ago, when I said I had friends that were going to South Africa? Well, some introductions are in order.

Readership, meet Craig.


Craig (who I have handily labeled in the photo as "CRAIG") will be traveling to the 2010 World Cup along with our mutual and his childhood friend Travis (who I have handily labeled in the photo as "TRAVIS"). The baller photo you see above was taken in Buneos Aires. Jealous?