Day 21: World Cup Finals!!!!! - July 5

I woke the family up early to get over the border without too much delay.  By the time we approached, there was already an hour-long delay at the regular auto crossing, but only a ten-minute wait at the one we chose that was a little out of the way.  We drove directly to our hosts for the night in West Vancouver – the Zondags.  They are friends from our South Pasadena days who left southern California over six years ago, so we were happy to get a chance to see them in their new lives.  Tristan and Skylar are roughly the same ages as Julia and Rachel and the four of them reconnected easily.  And, even though they weren’t going to the game, Lori and the kids were thankfully happy to be part of the hubbub in downtown Vancouver, where we were anxious to be. 

We took the bus from close to their house down to the Fan Zone near the stadium.  Though we had found a few Americana items yesterday, the stores we stopped in were mostly sold out.  We did get a few flags, a pair of star socks, a couple hair scrunchies, and several red/white/blue beads, but we were unable to find clothing or face paint.  Soon the bus started to fill with spirited fans, and we felt the need for more decoration.  The group of four standing near us on the bus were happy to share their supply of face paint which Julia used on me, Rachel, and Jim. (She has a little experience face painting with a group of art students at home, but never on a moving bus!)  When it came time to do Julia though it seemed better to let the strangers on the bus do hers rather than one of us.  It certainly added to the festivity!

When we got downtown we went in search of a jersey for Rachel, first to the Fan Zone and then to a sports store several blocks away.  It seems the entire city was (and has been for a while) sold out of women’s jerseys, which was disappointing.   We also needed lunch and eventually ended up back in the Fan Zone for some food truck goodness.  Burgers and poutine, the Canadian specialty of French fries and cheese curds topped with a light brown gravy-like sauce.  Much better than it sounds, at least to me.

We wanted to get into the stadium early so as to not miss a thing, so we were some of the earliest fans arriving at 2:00 for a 4:00 kickoff.  Not surprisingly the Van Horne’s were already there! Their seats were very close to ours.  It is thanks to Drew that we got our tickets as soon as we did – he let me know right after single tickets for the final became available and we bought immediately.  Given how much closer his seats, purchased just 30 minutes before ours, I’m very grateful he let me know!  We hung out near their seats for a while and Michali and Yuval came up to visit as well (they had package seats so were sitting in a lower section).  [Kelsey, Michali, and Rachel all played on our SuperNova select team this spring in Mountain View.]

Once the US team took the field to warm up, we all went to our seats to watch.  I am always looking for new warm-up ideas and super interested in how the pros do it, but in truth what they do really isn’t all that different from what we do, though I might steal their pretty formation in which they do it.  It was super cool to watch Hope warming up in the goal right in front of us.  (Our seats were pretty high up behind the corner flag.)  Even Julia, who normally humors us our soccer watching, was excited to see these women up close.  Rachel has spent a lot of car time teaching Julia about the players (names, positions, histories, etc.) and Julia is pretty well-versed now.

Next the ceremonial player entrance, national anthem singing, and suddenly, it was game time.  When the whistle blew I was feeling a little anxious about the game.  I was hopeful and confident we would win, but with a little dread of what I thought was sure to be a very stressful 90 minutes (and hopefully only 90) during which we would be on the edge of our seats wondering - even though we would be dominating play on the field - if we were ever going to score.  The US women throughout this tournament have had a little trouble scoring and have only scored twice in the first half of any game leading up to this one. 

It was thrilling and shocking when Carli Lloyd scored the first goal in under 3 minutes.  Funny that everything in the stadium was said first in English, then French.  So, the score board said “GOAL!” and then it said “BUT!” which seemed like a strange way to let us know that yes, there had been a goal…BUT it didn’t actually count.  I figured out pretty quickly that "but" must mean "goal" in French, as she scored again 2 minutes later. BUT, it was a very odd feeling of uncertainty the first few seconds after the goal was scored!  It was really unbelievable to watch it all unfold like that.  When Carli Lloyd scored the fourth goal (in under 20 minutes, and a hat trick for her) from the center circle, it just seemed like we were living in some alternate soccer universe where every time you shoot you score.  And we all know that isn’t usually true.   The crowd was of course excited as the game progressed, but there was less screaming and cheering than one would have expected in a normal game - maybe because we were all stunned and pinching ourselves to see if this was real, but also because it didn't feel like the team needed any encouragement to score goals!  But then Japan scored their first goal, and the energy picked back up.  Because Japan’s colors are red and white, the entire stadium was already a sea of red, white, and blue.  It wasn’t until Japan scored that you could see that some of those with red and white didn’t actually have any blue.  The Americans stepped it up then and we didn’t let up until it was all said and done.  5-2. As we like to say, “start fast, finish strong.”    

When the game ended, we stayed for a long time soaking in the celebration on the field.  It was so thrilling to be part of this experience; I know my girls will remember their whole lives that they saw the 15'ers play and win the WORLD CUP FINALS!!!!  We were some of the last fans to leave the stadium, hoping the players might magically reappear.  Eventually, it was time to meet Lori, Skylar, and Tristan, who had entertained themselves shopping (and even watching a little of the game) downtown the entire 5 hours we were in the stadium.  We started walking down towards the waterfront to find a place for dinner that wasn’t overrun by American fans.

Typically our walk would have been just beautiful down by the water with the mountains in the background, but today the sky was full of smoke from literally close to 200 wildfires burning in the surrounding area.  It was difficult to breath and burned your eyes at times.  Hard to tell if the soreness in our throats was from all the cheering and excitement or from breathing in smoke.   On our walk, we stumbled upon the spot (near the Olympic Torch) where they have been filming all of the World Cup Tonight TV shows and listened for a bit as they recapped today’s game.

We walked for quite a while beyond that into Coal Harbor and had a lovely meal at Cardero’s Restaurant – it felt good to sit down!  After dinner, we walked up to a bus stop and waited a long time for a bus to come; by the time we got home it was after 10 pm.

Everyone was exhausted but we managed to do a little guitar sing-a-long.  Lori is a great singer (she currently has a starring role in Hairspray playing in Stanley Park through the end of summer!) and so I was not surprised to hear Skylar sing so beautifully.  I think we can officially call this one of the best weekends ever!