Say Hi To Freddie Adu

No No, not that boy above. That's my very good friend from waaaay back when, Broccoli. He sometimes disguises himself and posts a comment as "Brock." But I have always known him as Broccoli. We'll call him B for short today. B and I go back to college - when we went to different colleges 10 hours away from each other, but shared a college service club called Circle K (Kiwanis when you're old, Key Club in High School). We hit it off from the first day at the first convention - hell I think the first 5 minutes we were stealing grapes from each other and plotting good times. As I recall he kept me from getting arrested that night....something about policemen and too many people in our hotel room having a very good time with loud music and underage drinking. Or something. Memory is a little fuzzy...



Some of my fondest memories of B are when he would drive all the way down to my beloved university just to watch me play soccer. OK maybe I had a cute roommate, too. But he would come cheer me on, loudly. In fact, he gave me one of my many many nicknames: Gomer. My initials were "MER" and he'd yell GO! MER! See, not so hideous. Anyway, I should've known then that B was a huuuuuge soccer fan. Here I thought he just liked me (as a friend) (and my roommate as more). Nope. Turns out he's a soccer fanatic. I mean FANatic.

Now he travels around the world, literally, following World Cup Soccer. When the USA teams come to town and his cronies and fellow world-travelers get together, he calls me to join them. And if I can, I do. This past weekend, I could and I did. And the photo above? THAT is how a FANatic goes to a world cup game.

So I dressed in Red White and Blue, painted a flag on my face (and was quite popular with the other fans as I shared my face-painting-talents with them but alas B did his own face), wore the sacred Ugly eagle shirt thanks Todd) and yelled my head off. We scored seats right down front on about the 30 yard line. To Watch the Men's National team beat the platanos out of Cuba. 6-1.



We hoisted a Giant American flag after every goal, threw it over our heads and fanned it out til it covered our entire section. (I think you might catch this on ESPN repeats. It's awesome). We cheered and threw streamers and yelled at the Cubans, "Defect! Defect! DefectDefectDefect!" (and 2 did before the game). And when we had 5 goals, the girls next to me and I yelled, "We Want Six! We Want Six!" (Say it out loud people before you read on or you won't get it....) and the guard in front of us ran up to us with a big smile on his face - and we said, "SIX SIX with our six fingers up. "ooooooh" He said, "I thought you said SEX and was going to help you out." Funny.

And I got on TV a couple times with my painted-face friends for yelling our heads off and cheering (OK and being a total media whore and begging to be put on camera)

After the game, the Men's team was very appreciative of the crazy rowdy people in "Sam's Army" or the "American Outlaws" [my fan club] or the "Screamin' Eagles" or ,,,um I think B is in another fan club. So they came over to say hi.




But only Freddie, the heartthrob of all girls soccer players, came to shake hands with all the fans. And Hold Babies and such.

Yep, that's none other than Freddie Adu and Baby Max - the world's Youngest Media Whore at 4 months. He made it on ESPN3 with Freddie! I just met Max and his parents at the pre-game party with B. his dad, Andy Gustavson has written a book about traveling the world with the Men's world cup team - I think it was about their trip to Korea. Very Cool People. Who else would pull a Michael Jackson with his baby, dangling him out over the stands as Bait for Freddie?

Yeah that's me in my ugly shirt (it's polyester and the front has an ugly mad eagle on it) with my messy hair trying to take a photo with my cell phone. I did get a good one of Max and Freddie with my cell. Then some awesome people next to us after the game said, "Hey we got your photo with the baby and Freddie. Can we email you?" And me, ever the lawyer with a business card at the ready, whipped out a card and gave it to them. And sure enough, they emailed the photos.

Soccer Fans Rock. USA! USA! USA! USA! Yeah, soccer is fun. Especially with good friends, old and new. But especially OLD.