Day One in Sao Paulo

Having Friends in Soccer – it is a fantastic dynamic of being a life-long soccer guy.  I have my long-term friends in soccer – Don (this will be the first World Cup in the last four that we did not watch together day and night) – Kellen (who is working for the greater good in Africa but we bonded coaching high school together) – Rob and his group at Street Soccer USA who use soccer as an amazingly constructive vehicle to help change the world for the better – I cannot leave out all of the San Jose fans from the people who sit in the same section as Joanne and me to the Ultras who define soccer passion – the Earthquakes Family has been amazingly great to Chris and Lindsey … all the people who stop and talk to me about soccer … either at the gym or at Safeway or (well those are really the only two places I ever go) …. People at work who were friends but it was built stronger through soccer – Maggie you know you are in that group – if you weren’t you would probably fly down here and kill me. 

But I am sitting here at the Sao Paulo Airport in a café where there are 15 tables that accommodate 4 people each --- and there are groups of Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Hondurans, and Australians  - they are all having more fun than any groups of people I have ever seen at an airport at 8pm on a Saturday night.  And … I don’t want to get too deep here, but … they are all laughing and singing and getting along with each other.  At first the Australians were a little reserved (4 of them) – but that didn’t last too long. 

It is only soccer – but it is really wonderful to see a common denominator that is facilitating some fun – I’ve seen maybe a dozen phone pictures taken with the groups mixed together but the last one that made me write this was a picture of about 20 people all representing four different countries – best part is that the photographer was this blog writer (they gave me 8 different phones to take pictures).

To all my present and future friends in soccer – Happy Father’s Day.