Texas Spirit Soccer Club

I can't imagine how hot Dallas was today, but we pretty much wore jackets all day long, and especially tonight at the opening ceremonies. Just letting you know...not rubbing it in or anything like that!

I hope you all received Louie's text message from the field indicating Spirit won 6-0. The first two minutes were a little rough- those Swedish girls were big! The girls settled down and they put one in the back of the net early. The Swedes has a good counter-attack and threatened a few times from the outside early, but then started trying to attack up the middle. They met a solid wall of Spirit defenders plus Sarah had some good saves, so they never seriously threatened again. it was 3-0 at half. Hanna finished with 3 goals, Kalee had 1 goal, Meagan had 1 goal, and they had an own goal.

There was another priceless moment prior to the game. We arrived a few minutes early, so our girls sat down and snacked before warming up. They were sitting behind some girls from Essex, England. I watched an amazing thing. One of our girls asked one of their girls a question. Then another girl asked a question, and a second English girl joined in on the answer. In a matter of minutes, both sides were talking and laughing (look for picture). As per previous team bonding, there was eventual singing and dancing (don't let them give up their soccer playing as dancing and singing is not a good option from my perspective). We saw the team later at the train stop and they greeted each other as long lost friends.

Another cool thing- the smaller girls from Denmark who lost to Spirit 0-11 in the mini-tournament dropped by to cheer Spirit on.  They didn't have to do that.  The ran out of  the field after the match to hug our girls.
 
We walked to the opening ceremonies which started at 8:00 pm.  Our seats were centered very well, but we were a little high in the upper deck.  No worries, because the production was absolutely first rate.  I'll be sending pictures.  In one of the more bizarre events from last year, the 93's will recall that a guy who met a girl at the Gothia Cup some years back proposed to her during the 2007 opening ceremony.  Well, what better time to get married then the 2008 opening ceremony!  I kid you not- they got married in front of 55,000 screaming people from 59 different countries (look for picture).  I am pretty sure none of the Spirit girls were proposed to tonight, so you are safe sending them back next year.

Afterwards was an absolute zoo. Literally hundreds of teams meeting and trading items with each other. Most of the Spirit girls traded their straw cowboy hats for very nice caps from a boy's team from Greece. Mom's, you would have been so proud of your husbands. Any time a Brazilian boy started circling around our girls, he found him self standing shoulder to shoulder with a Spirit dad. This was done, mind you, without any suggestion whatsoever from one of the moms on the trip. I heard one Brazilian boy say he wanted a kiss. Louie nudged him and suggested he move along. The boy backed away and said something about "beautiful American girls." I think Louie's response was, "Uh huh...now get out of here."

Our schedule is pretty much the same tomorrow. Game is at 1:00 pm at the same complex and field. We will text you from the field with results.

We had another great day today. As you hopefully saw earlier, Spirit beat Moön BK 2-0. Molly had the first goal with a strike from around 25 yards out early in the first half. Kristen got the 2nd goal on a cross from Katelyn Twilly, also in the first half.

I need to correct an error from yesterday's update. It wasn't the young team from Denmark that came to see the girls play, but their friends from Sweden, Stattena IF. Recall we picked them up from the ferry landing and took them to the mini-tournament. Stattena IF is a U15 team playing in Group 9. They've have also won both of their first two games and they told us they really hope to win their 3rd game, because if they don't win the bracket and instead come in 2nd place, they will play us Thursday in the first playoff game. They said they don't want to play us again!

We left early for our game so we could go cheer the Stattena girls. What a sight. After Stattena scored, our girls cheered really loud. The Stattena girls were all grins. After Stattena scored again, our girls did a dogpile on the field! The Stattena parents came running with cameras. They said their daughters have not stopped talking about their American friends since last weekend. After the game, our girls formed a tunnel for the Stattena girls. Everyone was dying laughing. When Stattena scored again, our girls went running up the sideline with airplane arms! Spirit gave them "Cat In the Hat" USA hats.

The Stattena website is: www.stattenaif.se . Click on "ungdomsug" F93 Sk to see their home page. They said they will be posting pictures of our team.

The Stettena girls returned the favor and watched our game...with hats on! They were cheering, "Texas, Texas, Texas" (sorry you will have to provide your own Swedish accent). . After the game, the Stattena girls formed a line, holding hands. We were puzzled as to what they were doing. They ran to our girls and quickly circled them and starting running in a circle, cheering. Our girls loved it. They also came with a hat of their own....for Quen. They gave him their "stupid hat" which they make their players wear when they do something stupid. Hmmmm....wonder why they gave it to Quen?

Upon our return to the hotel, girls started saying saying those dreaded words that cause dad's worldwide to develop nervous tics. Yes, they said, "we want to go shopping at the mall." Off we went. Fortunately, I don't think any serious credit card damage was done.

After the mall, some of the girls STILL had not had enough shopping, so we continued outside in the walking only streets downtown. We discovered two guys doing these phenominal juggling demonstrations. When they finished, our girls of course asked for pictures!

Girls SHOULD be in rooms now!

I'm sure you saw that Spirit lost 0-2 earlier today. Perhaps the girls were distracted by the heavy rain that preceded their game, but for whatever reason, they gave up 2 quick goals early in the game. After that, the complextion of the game completely changed and our girls just bombarded their goal with shots. Unfortunately, none of them found net. The girls hit the crossbar, hit areas over the goal and just left and just right of the posts. When shots were on frame, the Swedish goalkeeper either made great saves, or those "Gee, look what just hit me in the hands" kind of saves. At one point, we let out a very loud groan after Spirit was called for offside. The parents from the field turned around to see what all the noise was about. We commented that we wished we spoke Swedish so we could explain that our groan had nothing to do with referee's call and we were not being disrespectul...we were just frustrated in general! There were long faces and even tears after the game, but these girls recover quickly. By the time we got on the train, they were laughing (loudly) again.

Actually, I see what happened today as a good thing. After beating every team they have played on this trip, they were getting a little bit cocky. I think I heard something about going undefeated in the tournament. If they were going to have a wheels off game, today was the day to have it. They still won their group, and perhaps they will be a bit more focused tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Statenna IF also lost today, so the girls will face their good friends from Sweden tomorrow,  It will not surprise me in the least if there are tears on both sides tomorrow, regardless of who wins and who loses.

We took a canal and harbor cruise after we got back from the game. Just when we thought we couldn't get any lower after the loss, we were forced to get even lower....literally. The boat had to go under a bridge that was so low that we were instructed to get out of our seats and sit or kneel in the bottom of the boat. Now these were not instructions drafted by some liability lawyer who wanted to avoid being sued. These were practical instructions to keep your head on your shoulders (look for picture). They called the bridge the "Haircutter" because that was what would happen if you didn't duck low enough Amazingly enough, this was the alternative bridge with higher clearance. The regular bridge (the "Cheese Slicer) they normally go under is even lower, but the tide was too high for it to be used..

Gothenburg was a major shipbuilding port from the 1600s until the 1970s, when it became cheaper to build elsewhere in the world. Today, the docks are only used for ship repairs. It is not often you see an oil tanker completely out of the water in dry dock!

The entire group went to a great Italian bistro for good food. Afterwards, the girls discovered an ice cream and candy store nearby and of course came to parents (aka ATM machines) for cash. I bet Swedish dentists never have time to play golf. The Swedes love their candy, and yes you can find Swedish Fish candy everywhere. Ask your daughters about Kex and Daim candy bars. Note to file, if they go into withdrawal for this candy, IKEA sells them.

We play at 1:00 pm tomorrow, and if we win, play again around 7:00 pm.

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