Pre-World Cup Adventures

There is pretty much only one thing on my mind right now and that is the fact the 2014 World Cup in Brazil could not start any sooner. 

I fell in love with soccer (and Julie.. but this is unrelated to my soccer love) about 10 years ago and decided that it would be a life goal of mine to attend a World Cup match.  NPR wrote an article this week that perfectly describes why I like soccer so much.  No matter where you go in the world, you can probably find someone kicking a soccer ball around.  It is a good read for anyone who is curious about the appeal of soccer.

Now for the story of my life working up to this trip.  If you want – you can skip all the way down to the last paragraph to see what my plans are without reading the story, but what fun is there in that?

Last year I decided that Brazil 2014 would be a really great opportunity to make this life goal a reality.  When one has the time and money to do something then there is no other reason to wait!  And thankfully, I have the coolest wife ever who told me from day one to not worry about the money and just go!  Now a week before I am set to depart she is probably regretting those words, but I cannot thank her enough for being so supportive of my big, expensive adventure.  Thank you so much Julie!  I love you!

Planning the trip to Brazil has been an adventure from the start, so I decided to split my blogs about my World Cup experience into a ‘pre’ and ‘post’ adventure.

I began my ‘pre’ World Cup journey last summer when I began recruiting someone to travel with me (as Julie wasn’t interested).  With a bit of luck, I found my friend Rakesh willing to jump on board with me.  The first step was for us to get tickets to a game and secure our airfare.  I lucked out in one of the early fall 2013 random draws and secured tickets for H1 vs. H3 match (teams were to be announced later in random draw) in Rio de Janeiro on June 22.  A few weeks later we booked flights.  Great!  We are all set, right?!  Not so fast…

Along came the final draw in December 2013, where the 32 qualified teams were sorted into the 8 groups by drawing balls out of a bowl.  My goal from the beginning was to see USA or Germany play in a match, so I watched the draw while gripping my seat with white knuckles to see who would end up as H1 and H3.  The teams were sorted starting with group A and progressing up to group H.  Throughout the process, the draw was going perfectly, because both Germany and USA remained in the bingo bowl up through group G.  At this point, they would be assigned to either group G or H – my chances were looking good to see at least one of them play in group H (and perhaps even both of them)!  However, just at the last moment, both teams were selected to play in group G, and they would in fact play each other as G1 vs. G3.  It felt like I was one number, or in this case letter, away from the jackpot on my lottery ticket.  And instead of seeing either Germany or USA, I would be seeing the match Russia vs. Belgium.  I was left speechless after the draw.

Any soccer fan will tell you that Russia vs. Belgium is still a pretty good match to see.  And I could not complain because I was one of the lucky ones who already had their tickets back in 2013.  But this was not really what I was hoping for when I decided I would go to the World Cup one day.  And it’s wasn’t like I could just go out a buy tickets to another match since every sales phase is random, and just to get any tickets at all requires a lot of luck.  Plus - even if I could get the tickets, the only USA game during my 8 days in Brazil was on June 22, the same day as the match I already had tickets for!

Now that the teams were assigned to the games, Rakesh and I decided we would try for a second set of match tickets in Sao Paulo, as it is relatively close and affordable to get to.  I figured going to two games would make up for the fact that I wouldn’t see my home country play.

We went ahead and secured a round trip flight to Sao Paulo to be prepared, but our plan to secure tickets to the match (England vs Uruguay) failed miserably.  This left us a bit depressed because now our World Cup trip to Brazil was turning into a very expensive site-seeing trip around Brazil without a chance to see the matches we wanted.

All was not lost though.  We still had the next phase of ticket sales: the first-come-first- serve sales phase.  Somehow Rakesh was able to skip the electronic queue and get access to buy tickets.  This is the queue that Julie and I waited in for 2, 3, 4 hours and never even made it through to the sales platform.  I still can’t understand how he did it (it’s that Keshdude magic)!  He was able to buy tickets to any of the 24 first round matches EXCEPT for the one we wanted in Sao Paulo!!!  How could we just barely miss what we wanted again!?!  It was like we missed our powerball number again.  We were both feeling defeated, but we couldn’t dwell on it too much – Rakesh’s screen full of green symbols (signifying availability) was turning black very rapidly.

This is when we decided to take control of our own destiny, current plans be damned!  Screw the fact that the only USA match we could see is taking place the same day as our Russia vs. Belgium match!  Forget about those impossible to find hotel reservations we already secured!  Who cares that we already bought flights accommodating the matches we expected to see?   Instead – let’s go ahead and buy two tickets to watch USA vs Portugal in the middle of the Amazon jungle in Manaus!  This was a very, very stressful decision, but one that has made my trip to Brazil a dream come true thus far.

4 months into planning our trip, we basically erased our detailed Brazil itinerary (though at least my main international flight from Germany to Brazil is staying the same) and started planning our World Cup trip all over again.  We changed our Sao Paulo flight to go to Manaus and were able to cancel our current hotels and find new ones – though of course there were additional fees on top.  But it is all worth it to show up and support the RED WHITE and BLUE!

Great!  Now we are all set for Brazil 2014!  Almost…..

Now it was time to secure my entry visa here at the Brazilian embassy in Munich (no easy task), get caught up on the necessary Amazon regional vaccinations (yellow fever, Hepatitis A), get briefed on the risks of Malaria and suck up the cost of an emergency prophylaxis, all the while hear nothing but the bad things that might happen to me in Brazil (muggings, protests, murders, crime, disease, malaria, don’t swim here, don’t fly there).  Surely there has to be some positive and fun stories of Brazil?

Have I mention yet that my wife is the greatest in the world for supporting me in planning this crazy trip and trusting that I will come back in one piece?  Julie you are the greatest!!!!

With a little bit more luck (me refreshing the FIFA ticket site hourly for days and days) I was able to secure us last minute tickets to a second match in Rio the day I fly back to Munich (my flight is in the evening, so hopefully this works out).  We now have tickets to the Ecuador vs. France match on June 25 in the world’s most famous soccer stadium: Maracanã.

If you skipped the entire bulk of this post, but want to know what I said in 2 sentences: I have tickets to see USA vs Portugal on June 22 in Manuas and Ecuador vs France on June 25 in Rio de Janeiro.  Unfortunately, I had to give up the tickets for Belgium vs. Russia as it is also on June 22 back in Rio de Janeiro.  Now, if you could all wish me luck and safety!