Archive for June, 2009

Burkina Faso, USA, and Spain

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

As our Spain trip comes to a close I thought I would blog about the soccer experience encountered on our trip. 

First of all my sister made it safely to Barcelona from Burkina Faso, where she is serving in the peace corp. We luckily found her wondering around the airport looking for us (Dad, Aaron, and I).  Since the World Cup is in South Africa only 6 countries from the African continent will qualify.  So, it will be a big deal if Burkina makes it, one because my sister is there and two because Burkina has never qualified for a World Cup.  Unfortunately Burkina lost to the Ivory Coast on 6/20/09 by a score of 3-2.  Burkina’s chance at making a World Cup appearance look slim. Full story here:  http://www.tsn.ca/soccer/story/?id=282465

During our stay in Barcelona the USA national team played the Spanish national team in the Confederation Cup, which was going on in South Africa as a test run to next year’s World Cup.  The US shocked the world by beating Spain 2-0.  The US handed Spain their first lost after winning 15 matches in a row and ended their 35 game winning streak. (http://soccerdelirium.com/2009/06/24/spain-loses-to-the-usa-ends-world-recording-winning-streak/).  I was extremely surprised by the US win after their poor showing against Brazil a few day earlier.  As we walked around Barcelona the day after the Spain lose it seemed as though the diehard Spanish soccer fans did not have that extra spring in their step and their heads were hanging a bit low. 
 
Lastly, no visit to Europe would be complete without a stop to a soccer stadium.  Even if you are not a soccer fan or a sports fan you have to appreciate the passion for organized sport.  On this trip we were fortunate enough to visit three venues.  We took the tour at Barcelona’s Camp Nou and Real Madrid’s Bernabeau and walked by the home of Madrid’s second best team Club Athletico de Madrid.  From the outside these venues were not impressive by American sports facility standards and these venues were 50 years old or more.  But once you stepped inside you felt the roar of the crowd even though there was no game going on.  At Camp Nou they were setting up for the U2 360degree tour and at the Bernabeau they were rebuilding the field.  The big news out of Real Madrid during our visit was the purchase of two new players for a whopping $160 million Euros (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=658814&cc=5901). By spending this money Real Madrid pick up Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal who played for Manchester United in England and Brazilian KAKA who played for AC Milan in Italy.  This is not the first time they have gone to the bank trying to buy a championship, if you remember they picked up David Beckham a few years back and had a super star studded team and could do nothing.    

 

Camp Nou, Barcelona

Camp Nou, Barcelona

The Bernabeau, Madrid

The Bernabeau, Madrid

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The Beginning of My Quest.

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

Well as my first post and not knowing who will all read this blog, I’d like to introduce myself as Aaron Kidwell, the little brother of Andy Kidwell.   I have just graduated from High School and am going to attend Indiana University.  Andy has asked to try and do this blog for educational purposes.  I’ll be honest when I say that my brother is doing most of the planning for this trip and that I just want to see some soccer. I’ll probably fill this with youtube clips and wikipedia links. I’ll get to why I want to go to the FIFA World Cup later, but in the mean time:

Today, June 6th, Some teams from around the world have ”punched their tickets”  for the World Cup in South Africa.  The countries of Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands have made it to Soccer heaven at this point.  There has been two key qualifying matches that are of interest to me.  First, The USA had a match which they won 2-1 against Honduras.  They had somewhat of a strong showing considering their 3-1 debacle in Costa Rica.  Second, Burkina Faso, the country in which my sister is serving her Peace Corps term, won 1-0 to Malawi.  They pretty much have to win every game to make it to their first World Cup.  Looking on the bright side, they have won their first two games and are first in their group. If you want to check out qualifying, heres a site:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification

I’d like to finish this off by saying that I can’t wait to get to South Africa. My brother and I semi talked about going to the last one in Germany. Well, the timing wasn’t really right, and I was barely into high school. Now, my playing soccer career is over, and I just want to watch soccer.  I admit that I have wanted to go to a World Cup since the 1998 World Cup in France when I saw Edgar Davids from the Netherlands score a goal from the 18 in stoppage time to beat Yugoslavia. That is the only goal I remember and i’ve been a Dutch fan ever since.  Anyways, I can’t wait. In South Africa, they speak English, it’s a beautiful country, and they are hosting the World Cup. What could be a better combo?

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