On Wednesday I flew into Boston to spend a couple of days with my friend Coleman. The first order of business was to stash my luggage somewhere so that we could spend the afternoon watching a huge European soccer match that would serve as the official end to the club season. As it turned out the two teams that made it to the end of this particular tournament were two of the biggest clubs in the England.
With the luggage sufficiently stashed, we headed out to a pub in Cambridge called "The Phoenix Landing". From what I was able to tell after researching Boston soccer pubs on the internets, this was the place to be for a big match. Apparently, everyone else had come to the same conclusion. We showed up 20 minutes before the opening kick, and the place was packed. Our guess is that there were about 300 people packed into a bar that could fit about 100-125. And I'm pretty sure only about 10% of us were Americans.
We considered leaving, but wanted to try to gut it out. We pushed our way to a reasonable spot in the bar where we could see a couple of tv's. We stood for the next 3 hours in what might very well be a personal high for me in terms of watching a sporting event on tv. It was an absolutely amazing experience. So much energy. So many people. So many people, in fact, that they pub had to lock the doors as to keep any more people from entering in. So many people that 30 minutes into the match the pub began serving beer in plastic cups, because they had run out of proper glasses. So many people, that I think I had the sweat of 150 people on me by the end of the afternoon.
As it turned out, the game was close and went to penalties. And this is what happened when the victor was finally decided.