Well my prediction was 3-0 to England vs Ghana. How wrong could I be? And I also thought it would be hot in Boston but it was cool and wet. What was predictable was that it was another totally exhausting game to watch pretty much the norm with England! But more on that later.
We woke up at Dex and Kara’s to typical Old England weather. Grey skies and rain. Dex rustled up a great breakfast and then insisted on driving us to the stadium. Such a brilliant friend.
The stadium is the home of the NFL’s New England Patriots. But much like the RyanAir or EasyJet model of ‘London Stansted’ or ‘London Luton’, the Gillette Stadium is nowhere near Boston. It is actually in Foxborough which is at least 45-60 mins by car away. Dex, a big Ghana fan for the day, dropped us just short of Patriot Park. Patriot Park looks like a typical retail park surrounded by car parks leading up to an area with bars and restaurants. Apparently US sports fans tail-gate for match days. Tail-gating is when you park up the oversized car and have beers and oversized food out of the back with your friends. Today though, with a combination of the weather and the sheer number of England and Ghana fans present, that just wasn’t going to happen.
So the pressure was on the bars near the ground which were totally overrun with fans and the English and the Ghanans were in fine voice. We had four sets of friends we were trying to catch up with. We couldn’t get into two of the bars to see two sets of those friends, but managed to meet up with two lots in one bar and have a good time pre match.
The walk to the stadium took in a short cut through a cinema complete with non working escalators, much to the surprise of the cinema staff. We sailed through security and everything was so much easier than expected. We waved goodbye to Sean, Suzy, Callum, Fabian, Mark and Sam as we all found our way to where were sitting. We met up with Steve our Forest friend and had a proper laugh.
The stadium was similarly impressive to Dallas although a good bit older. Our seats were low and right behind the goal. Perfect for the action to come.
Both national anthems were impeccably respected, well done England fans, and a great game looked like it was ahead of us.
It was great to see the usual booing of the hydration breaks and those ‘celebrities’ who FIFA have now decided to name with captions. That must be because so many fans inside the grounds just had no clue as to who these people are. Consequently Mumford & Sons got a round of boos, in sharp contrast to David Beckham who got a huge reception with a round of ‘There’s only one David Beckham’, another nice touch from the England fans.
Let’s face it Ghana set up to not concede and made it really hard for England to break them down. Frustrating for the boys and frustrating to watch all round.
But despite all of that Saka, Guei, Kane and O’Reilly all had great chances towards the end. O’Reilly’s leap reminded me of the great Billy The Fish as he was about a foot higher than anyone else, which is saying something given those Ghanaian defenders were all massive!
Sadly, though a win was not to be but it could have been a complete disaster as it appears we were lucky not to concede a penalty with that Konsa challenge towards the end.
Two steps forward one step back? Maybe. But let’s face it, from what we have seen out here, Argentina, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Columbia, Netherlands, and a few more all look good. If we can get to be in the top eight, we will be doing well.
Next stop is New Jersey on Saturday. We need to win against Panama and try and get back to the levels of that second half performance against Croatia. Let’s see how Panama set up against us. They are out of the World Cup so have absolutely nothing to lose. Game on. We hope!
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