Saturday, June 28th dawned with clear skies and the promise of heat. It'd been a pretty hot June for London I'm told. All the supporters arrived at 9AM and we got started.
"Remember everybody, turn off your cells, don't cheat!" Erik yelled to the assembled throng. "The match starts at 11AM and we're recording it. We'll watch, eat and drink sometime between noon and one when we're done. As always, thank you for making this club what it is!"
And the painting, cutting, repairs, scrubbing and refurbishing began. There were loads of people on the painting crew and I'm about as handy as a sheepdog so I went out to help with the brush cutting.
"Hello, Enrico," said a familiar voice from behind me. I turned and there was a tall, young woman flanked by two young men. She was wearing cut-off jeans and an oversized grey tshirt. Then I recognized her without the heels, high fashion and make-up.
"Thanks for coming, Gwen," I said. "Are you three on brush clearing?"
"We are now," she said. "Meet my brother Nick and his mate Martin."
We all shook hands. This had to be the brother who thought I was a ******. Nice.
"Shall we?" I followed them out the gate.
"So Gwen mentioned your a lifelong Wimbledon fan. And your Dad, too."
"Uh huh," he replied. "Me Pops followed back when they was the Crazy Gang. Long before the move."
"So what do you think of the club now?" I asked.
"Wull, it's great," he replied as we approached overgrowth and were all given snippers and clippers. "Me Dads got a share. Donates occasionally and all that."
"And you Martin?" I asked.
"I support Chelsea," he replied. "But at least you've got a cool thing going, yeah?"
"There seems to be a lot of good will for the club from what I can tell," I said. They'd pointed to a section of overgrown bushes for us to begin sheering back.
"Wull, yuh," replied Nick. "You played in Serie A, right?" I nodded. "What was that like?"
"On the one hand, we were a pampered bunch," I replied. "But there's always the threat of the Ultras coming to a training and threatening everyone if you're on a bad streak. It's a lot slower there. Even compared to the lower leagues here. You guys ever watch any ice hockey?"
"I saw Milton Keynes against Peterborough once," Martin said. "I couldn't figure out what the **** was going on, but the fights was pretty cool."
"Well, the English play more like hockey," I replied. "I grew up going to NHL games in Washington, DC and the back and forth action that you see here just doesn't happen in Italy. Life just isn't as hectic like here in London as far as I can tell. I mean I've only been here a month."
"You went up against Totti and Ibra all them, right?" Nick asked.
"Yeah," I replied. "Totti is a force of nature and Ibrahimovic is a beast. He is far more stronger than you can imagine and the things he can do with the ball are amazing."
"Who's the greatest you faced?" Martin asked.
"Hmmm," I said. "Well, Totti and Ibra for sure. Gattuso is an annoying **** but man oh man was he difficult and painful to play against. There's Pirlo, too. He's from another ****ing planet. He sees things that I could only see watching video the next day. Del Piero. I don't know. The Milan teams hadn't gutted their squads, yet. Serie A was still the greatest league back then."
The boys, I realized they were younger than Gwen, were a bit in awe of actually meeting a professional footballer in the flesh. So the questioning went along those sort of lines until I saw Erik waving to me as he walked over.
"Pleasure meeting you two, but my Chairman wants something," I said and left the three of them to finish up the little bit that was left.
"Some good news, Enrico," he said as we met. "Michael Smith is happy with the terms we've offered and will get back to us. Probably tomorrow. Also, that lad playing in Germany, he's willing to come here on trial. He'll be here on the first with them. Also, can you come and help me with the final setup for lunch?"
Holland-Mexico was a cracker of a match. Mexico scored first and the Dutch responded immediately. It looked like it was going to be a basketball game. But of course both sides settled down. Nigel de Jong was at his most violent best. Arjen Robben got the Orange's goal and was flying. Van Persie must have been hurt as he was on the bench but never came on.
De Jong got a well-deserved second yellow in the 101st minute. That just guaranteed a cagey, boring end and penalties.
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scores.
Jorge Enriquez scores.
Robben scores.
Diego Reyes scores.
Johnny Heitenga
misses! Seriously? Who let's Heitenga take penalties.
Hector Herrera scores.
Douglas misses. Among all the players available why him?
Ulisys Davila scores.
Pandemonium breaks out throughout Mexico and in the green half of the stadium.
View attachment 425067Costa Rica got lucky with an early penalty, but were never really in this one. Brazil simply overwhelmed them.
