On one of the most glorious spring days Portland's seen so far, my better half and I enjoyed a sunsplashed cruise to the quaint village of St. Johns. (Or San Juan, if you want to stay up with the area's current demographics.) The city parks bureau is throwing modest shindigs at a couple of community centers, and St. Johns is the designated Spanish-language venue. We arrived to find a welcome supply of donuts, courtesy our comrades Dan and Margaret, and a strangely subdued darkened auditorium.
It felt a little daft to sit in a cavernous, lightless barn while the Sun God beat down outside. Ah well. A crowd of about 40 were on hand, almost all supporting Mexico, with a few flags and sporty green paraphenalia in evidence. We arrived just in time to see Mexico slot home its first goooooooool—to much Univision-patented hysteria—and had barely settled in when the Ayatollah's boys equalized on a cornerkick melee. Despite the goal and flashes of spirit, Iran were pretty bad through the second stanza. In fact, both these sides best tidy up their play before Portugal get ahold of them. Mexico do some nice work going forward—despite all the nasty things I have and will say about them in the future—and deservedly ran riot near the end. I tried to get up a chant of CUATRO! CUATRO! CUATRO! after they knocked in their third (and best) tally, but found no takers.
In all, the community center thing is nice and civic and all, but I likely won't be back.
In other news, the Timbers nil'ed their way to a point last night v. Vancouver. Woulda been nice to scoop all the points at home. Woulda been nice to open up the noose-tight Cascadia Cup table. But the 'Caps are always tough, and from the limited accounts I've read so far, this sounds like just the kind of match last year's Timbers would have devised a way to lose 1-0. So well done, then.
Now, the important question: Portland readers (all three of yaz)—where are you watching Our Boys tomorrow?
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2 comments:
I thought the Mex:Iran match was surprisingly evenly matched and pretty entertaining; until about the 60' mark or so, when El Tri's superior talent and conditioning became apparent and the Iranian players started getting gassed. Love the guy (Bravo) scoring his second goal and twisting his ankle, then hopping on one foot to celebrate with his teammates. I just love the World Cup, period.
As for tomorrow's US match...I don't know if I can watch with people. May just sit on the couch with one eye closed and teeth gritted. If I do go out I'll probably catch it at the Bitter End.
Derek and I will be watching on the couch at home, since he has to go to work right after (up the street). Also, we are both rather fond of the Czech Republic as well as the US, so it's probably best if we keep our divided loyalties within these four walls.
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