The Schedule

OK, off to South Africa on Tuesday.

Will try to blog if we can, but I leave you with our schedule.

June 11
Cape Town - Green Point Stadium
Uruguay v France

June 13
Durban - Durban Stadium
Germany v Australia

June 18
Johannesburg - Ellis Park Stadium
Slovenia v USA

June 19
Rustenburg - Royal Bafokeng Stadium
Ghana v Australia

June 23
Nelspruit - Mbombela Stadium
Australia v Serbia

We'll probably go to some additional games in Joburg, but five World Cup games in three weeks is pretty good.

Talk again soon.

USA 3 - Australia 1

It was a cool game to watch and exciting as we are now only two days until wheels up. I stayed up until 12:45 am to watch the end and won the family bet - Daddy got to sleep late on this fine Sunday morning.

Meaningless friendly, but still had meaning I guess. USA's offense looked good and was putting lots of pressure on the Aussie defense. Other than Tim Cahill's first half, the Aussie offense was dead. Does not bode well for the June 13th game against Germany, but hey, it's just a friendly.

There's a chance that my two home countries to take on each other in a meaningful game, but for that to happen, one team would have to finish 1st in their group, the other second. Honestly think the best hope is USA should be a solid 2nd in Group C, but Oz will have to perform miracles to even advance. USA defeating England would be on par with the 1950 victory but more meaningful in today's sports mad world. The British fans might all spontaneously explode.

Anyway, was cool to watch and getting more and more excited about my June 8th takoff.

More to come...

A House Divided

Ok, I once again changed the name of the blog - very clever Herrmann but we don't have to go blue.

Tonight Australia time, the USA plays the Socceroos in the final pre-World Cup friendly. I'm staying up to watch the kickoff at 10:30 pm Melbourne time (7:30 am God's Time in the US).

And, I'll be rooting for America. (double meaning in Australian).

I moved to Australia nearly five years ago. Our two young boys are dual citizens (does that make them "Ameristralian" or "Australican?" I'm an Australian Permanent Resident and will send in my citizenship application this July.

I've even worked for both the Australian and American governments during my career.

The genesis for this entire trip was a ticket application I sent in for four American expats to follow Australia in the World Cup - and we won.

Little did we know that later there would be more World Cup tickets than for a Mississippi Tent Revival.

And, Mike and I will be at all three Australia games and only one USA game - but I can't cheer against the Red, White, and Blue.

So, let's see how Donovan, Howard, Beasley, Altidore, Bocanegra, Bradley, Dempsey, and Onyewu do against Bresciano, Cahill, Emerton, Kennedy, Kewell, Neill, and Schwarzer.

How ever it turns out, it's a meaningless game that just designed to prepare each for a decent World Cup run.

But, it'll be fun to watch.