Yesterday I went to watch Brazil dominate Mexico in a football match at Gillette stadium. I had known about the match for a couple of weeks and was thinking of going. But it was on a Wednesday night and I had no idea when I would be out from work. Furthermore, I didn’t want to go by myself.
So here comes Wednesday morning. I’m at work but very antsy. I start to read the online news and see that 57,000 tickets have already been sold for the game. FIFTY SEVEN THOUSAND?! How come I’m not one of those I asked myself. I mean we are talking Brazil! World Cup champions how many times over? We are talking seeing player of the year Ronaldinho and Kaka play IN PERSON! How could I let such an opportunity pass me by?
So in a matter of minutes, in a state of football craze, I called up a friend who luckily was available to go, bought tickets and paged my Attending to let her know that I wouldn’t be able to stay for rounds at our usual time because I HAD to go watch Brazil play Mexico! I know! What guts?! I hope this does not reflect in my evaluations. I think I’m fine though. She was nice about it. After all, I’m at the VA hospital this month and there aren’t many patients on the census. Luckily, I didn’t get any new consults either. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if I was asking to skip out at noon. I left at four in the afternoon instead of at five. So, I’m pretty sure I will be alright. We rounded on our few patients, there was nothing much happening anyway, and I was out of there, all bouncy bouncy!
Now I was excited! I’m going to the gaaaaaaaaaaame! It took us maybe an hour to penetrate the five-mile radius around the stadium but we got there in time for the line-up. I had contemplated being counter-intuitive and supporting the Mexicans. I considered this more as the closer we got to the stadium, and upon arrival it was clear that the Brazilian fans were out in their numbers. However, when I ended up being seated in a sea of green in Sombrero Central, and when I saw the players who punished the Ghanaian team in the World Cup last year, my soul went Brazilian. Hey, what can I say?!
The game was great! The place was packed. Apparently there were 67,584 people in attendance. Oh my goodness!!! It was awesome.
The Brazilians were slow to start, but they soon woke up when Mexico scored the first goal, an easy one if I may say so, in around the 20th minute. I was scared Mexico was going to win because they had beaten Brazil in their last two matches, however they and we were in for a surprise. Those prior teams did not include Ronaldinho the great. The Mexican goal was followed in seconds by Brazil’s goal and then the game was ON FIRE!!!!!
I cannot even express in words. No words can express the emotions. Two more Brazilian goals later the game was over. Just like that. Somehow it wasn’t as long as football matches take on television.
Now came the exodus. How do you get over SIXTY SEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE home safely after a football match? Apparently very slowly. We spent close to two hours in our parking lot waiting for the line to move. I mean just waiting for the first car to make it out of our parking lot! Talk about horns blowing announcing impatience. Then an angel came by and told us about a back road through the bushes. We took it and we were home in 30 minutes. Craziness!
Friends, I’m pumped for the rest of the week!
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