Day 10: José Semedo day & World Cup cup disaster
For those that don't know; I'm a Sheffield Wednesday season ticket holder along with my brother and have been for 25 years now, wow putting it like that makes me feel old. In recent years we had a Portuguese player, José Semedo play for us, the fans took him to their hearts and likewise he did the fans. Several years ago the fans even had a José Semedo day for a game against Nottingham Forest, it further cemented the relationship between him and us. José who is nearing retirement age for a footballer soon I guess left the club at the end of the 2016-2017 season but still regularly tweets about Sheffield Wednesday; he is now and always will be loved by the fans. When he left in 2017 I made a promise to myself that every World Cup or Euro's I attended from then on I would dedicate one day to be José Semedo day; that day is today for the game Poland vs Colombia.
José's number at Sheffield Wednesday was 24 so today I wore my shirt bearing his number, the name on the back "Magic" comes from a song we sang about him that I later decided to teach groups of Colombian's and Will the Aussie.
It was out with the girls during the day and we decided to go to Lake Kaban as it was baking hot and the breeze off the water might cool us a bit. We rented a pedalo and off we went, Polina was determined to steer us right under the huge fountain on the lake which she did very well as she managed to get us all soaked; but temperatures well above 30C and we soon dried out.
Next it was a spot of lunch and then a two hour boat ride from the river port at 3pm, right at the time England were starting their game against Panama so I didn't see it at the time but caught up with the BBC iPlayer highlights later. There were some Russians on the boat happy to keep me updated as England banged in the goals for a 6-1 win. Great for me as I'd had bets on a high scoring game and Kane to get a Brace and a Hattrick, so quid's in thank you very much. One of the Russians, a guy as tall as my Irish friend Aidan, so tall you use them as a reference points out to meet people in a crowd at, was a massive Spartak fan and was travelling Russia watching games in his home nations World Cup. Another couple of guys were Kazan locals and one was a massive Liverpool fan who wanted to know if I'd been to Anfield, so I explained as best I could that I had, and all about Kev & Neil the Liverpool fans we'd met in Brazil.
The boat ride was nice, but with no commentary its basically 1 hour down the river and then turn round and come back.
We got back to the apartment about 5:30pm, I had the fastest shower and then set off to Home Pub to meet Will and some others from the group. We watched the first half of Japan vs Senegal, both teams impressed but I'm really loving how Senegal play, I think on form England should beat either of them if they prove to be our opponents in the Round of 16 which after todays result we know England will be at, but neither should ether of them be taken lightly. Mané opened to scoring for Senegal early on and then about 10 minutes before half time Japan equalised through Inui. At this stage we left the bar to make our way into the ground for what we expected would be a thriller of a game. The Japan vs Senegal game finished up 2-2 with a goal in each half by each team, I will one day watch this game back to see the second half I missed.
In the same way for Iran vs Spain I thought I'd been transported to Iran, well for this game it was the same if not more so that I thought I'd been transported to Colombia. I'm not sure why, perhaps the negative misreporting press in the UK and Europe, but the European teams I have seen at each of the games so far have been vastly outnumbered by the opposing teams fans.
For all the passion of the Iranians, the Colombians took it a step further the singing of their national anthem, although not quite to the scale that I had experienced in Brazil by the Brazilians for the game against Mexico, it wasn't far off. The atmosphere was electrifying!!!
I'd introduced myself to two Russians (a father and son) who were sat next to me as well as the many Colombians sat around me. What is it about international teams that wear yellow? Their ladies are stunning; Brazil, Colombia, Sweden; anyone counter argue this? Chris my American friend took his seat quite late, his voice had completely gone from the first two games he had seen and the poor guy had to negotiate my growing collection of souvenir beer cups that I was amassing due to the hot day and the number of beers I was getting through.
For the first 10 minutes Poland took the upper hand and in Robert Lewandowski they have a treat to any team, but other than that 10 minutes it was all Colombia. James Rodriguez returned to the starting line up, he had lit up Brazil and his vision, skill and ability to score is up there with the best in the world, and in Radamel Falcao they have a quality striker who has been so unfortunate not to have played in a World Cup before now. The performances by both these players was exceptional for me, but the man who stole the show for Colombia was Juan Cuadrado, another player who Chelsea didn't think was good enough, well he sure was today; the Polish just couldn't handle him.
Colombia took the lead just before half time, with a header home from a Rodriguez cross, that was at the opposite end to me and if the second half had the same Colombian domination I was going to see all the action really up close.
About half way through the second half Falcao got his first World Cup goal and he celebrated like it was something out of this world for him, right in front of us, the Colombians were now two ahead and their fans were going completely nuts. This was effectively a knock out tie, each of these expected two big players in the group basically had to win to stand a chance of qualification especially after the draw between Senegal & Japan had them on 4 point each.
For me the best goal was yet to come and it was deservedly scored by Juan Cuadrado from a sublime ball behind the Polish defence from James Rodriguez; even then he had a lot to do, he was running at full pace when he picked the ball up, continued with no loss of speed towards the Polish goal and just opened his body up perfectly to fire home low into the goal past the helpless Polish keeper.
It finished 3-0, I partied with the mental Colombians in stadium for about 5 minutes after the gam before grabbing my 5 beer cups and heading to Home Pub to meet some of the group, including Will the Aussie. With all the celebrations the beers started flowing and with everyone in party mood it quickly became a night I'll never forget or ever fully remember. The Colombians wanted to know about my club and why Magic 24, so I explained everything as best I could in my drunken state. Later just before 2am with the bar soon to close I took it upon myself to teach the remaining partying Colombians and Will, my very good friend, the José Semedo song which I think we all did a pretty good job of considering the language differences and just how drunk we all were.
The night unfortunately ended in a World Cup cup disaster, and not just for the Polish. Will really twisted my arm about not finishing at 2am which would of been sensible but instead going to Bauman Street for yet more drinks and partying; when I say twisted, he had to ask at least twice and off we went. While on Bauman Street where to be honest we had started to flag within 10 minutes of getting there I suddenly remembered, my five souvenir cups, I'd left them in Home Bar; my 8th World Cup game and I have a souvenir cup from each of the other 7... Damn it, World Cup cup disaster!!!
Footnote: I went back to Home Bar the following morning at about 11:30am but they had already thrown out the trash so I lost all my cups. If anyone reading this has one of those Budweiser Cups from the Poland vs Colombia game going spare they could let me have please get in touch, I can swap you an Iran vs Spain or South Korea vs Germany which I have a massive stack of for it.
