Kev

Finally a new post! So last Saturday (I know, it was over a week ago, sorry), I was privileged to accompany the George family to a British soccer game at Stanford University in Palo Alto. British soccer in California, you say? The British club Chelsea is currently touring the globe playing friendly matches as part of a preseason promo. So, in their endeavors in the United States, they decided to play the Mexican Club America de México. Now to make matters even more internationally mixed, Chelsea is owned by a Russian billionaire, and lots of the players are Russian. A British team with Russian players playing a team from Mexico in the United States.The game, I must admit, was quite amusing. So the actually game itself was good, yes, but the really amusing part was the fans for the Mexican team. They were out of control! First of all they had banners and streamers that covered the majority of their part of the stadium, and then they had people banging drums, playing trumpets and trombones, throwing toilet paper off their level, dumping hundreds of pounds of confetti on everyone below them, jumping up and down, shooting off fireworks, and going crazy the entire game. And I am totally serious when I say that they were going crazy the entire game. The police were trying to control them, but they eventually just gave up. The British fans, on the other hand, were much more mellow, and their cheering consisted of shouting and singing. Certainly more in control than the other side.In the first three minutes of the game, the Mexicans scored off of a deflection. They had a shot right at the goalie, but a defender tried to block it, and it wound up just sliding in the left side of the goal, much to the dismay of the goalie and the rest of the team. The next 72 minutes were scoreless, and it was a constant battle between the two teams. In the first half, both teams put out their best players. However, come the next half, they put in all the reserves, so it was basically a different team playing. Now Chelsea is really good, and Club America is mediocre, so the Georges said that Chelsea played “like rubbish” in the first half. But in the second, they redeemed themselves and played brilliantly. With 15 minutes to go, Chelsea got their first goal. And just 5 minutes later, one of the star defenders put in the game-winning header off of a corner kick. The rest of the game was pretty mellow, and the match ended on a friendly note.Moral of the story: British soccer is so much fun to watch, especially when you watch it with a family who knows soccer. If you ever get the chance to watch some good European soccer, don’t pass it up.