In the mist of all of the Olympic hoopla, there are still some other sporting events going on. There is preseason football, baseball and golf. But all sports tend to take a backseat to the Olympic events. Which is fine sine the Olympics only happen every couple of years and all of the other major sports have extremely long seasons and their time to shine will come soon. But there is also World Cup Qualifying matches happening all over the world this week. Last night the US Men traveled down to Guatemala for a hard fought match. The US has never won a match in Guatemala and I know a couple of reasons why! The stadium didn’t have adequate lighting. You could barely see from one side of the field to the other. The turf was in horrible condition and last night it was wet from an afternoon rain shower. Also, the fans were very hostile. Obviously the fans are known to cause trouble and there were huge chain linked fences on the front row of the seats keeping the fans from throwing things on to the field or getting on the field themselves. Not to mention the police in riot gear all around the field protecting the players. This rowdy behavior did make it on the field though, in the form of the players for Guatemala. That was the dirtiest game I have ever seen! The Guatemalan players were always holding, hitting, tripping and just playing dirty. There were late hits, illegal elbows, high kicks to the chest and face and even a kick to our goalies head while he had the ball. There were two red cards given out, 6 yellow cards and about 40 fouls called. One of the red cards was given after Eddie Lewis went for a header and a Guatemalan player went for the ball with his elbows up and ended up giving Eddie a huge gash on his forehead. The US Men showed great composure while playing these hooligans! I don’t know how they maintained it, because I am sure I would have been kicked out early in that game after retaliating to one of those cheap shots. They won the game 1-0 on a goal by Carlos Bocanerga. I am just glad that they got the three points in the standings and made it out of their alive. Next they play Cuba in Havana on September 9th. That is going to be another hostel environment!
Here is a picture of Eddie Lewis before he took a cheap shot to the head and had to leave with a huge cut on his brow.
In the mist of all of the Olympic hoopla, there are still some other sporting events going on. There is preseason football, baseball and golf. But all sports tend to take a backseat to the Olympic events. Which is fine sine the Olympics only happen every couple of years and all of the other major sports have extremely long seasons and their time to shine will come soon. But there is also World Cup Qualifying matches happening all over the world this week. Last night the US Men traveled down to Guatemala for a hard fought match. The US has never won a match in Guatemala and I know a couple of reasons why! The stadium didn’t have adequate lighting. You could barely see from one side of the field to the other. The turf was in horrible condition and last night it was wet from an afternoon rain shower. Also, the fans were very hostile. Obviously the fans are known to cause trouble and there were huge chain linked fences on the front row of the seats keeping the fans from throwing things on to the field or getting on the field themselves. Not to mention the police in riot gear all around the field protecting the players. This rowdy behavior did make it on the field though, in the form of the players for Guatemala. That was the dirtiest game I have ever seen! The Guatemalan players were always holding, hitting, tripping and just playing dirty. There were late hits, illegal elbows, high kicks to the chest and face and even a kick to our goalies head while he had the ball. There were two red cards given out, 6 yellow cards and about 40 fouls called. One of the red cards was given after Eddie Lewis went for a header and a Guatemalan player went for the ball with his elbows up and ended up giving Eddie a huge gash on his forehead. The US Men showed great composure while playing these hooligans! I don’t know how they maintained it, because I am sure I would have been kicked out early in that game after retaliating to one of those cheap shots. They won the game 1-0 on a goal by Carlos Bocanerga. I am just glad that they got the three points in the standings and made it out of their alive. Next they play Cuba in Havana on September 9th. That is going to be another hostel environment! 
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