CONCACAF Gold Cup From RedBull Arena Recap

The Gold Cup Program

Tonight, your favorite KHH bloggers traveled to RedBull Arena for one final time to witness a doubleheader of CONCACAF Gold Cup first round. The first game was Grenada vs. Guademala and the second game was Honduras vs. Jamaica. Coming into this event, I had extremely low expectations for what we would see. I thought that these were 4 random Caribbean nations without much soccer talent and I thought the quality of play would be far worse than the MLS. Raphi, on the other hand, believed that we would see a very well played two matches and the players would be higher quality than the Red Bulls. In the first game, I was right, and in the second game, Raphi was right. The first game was a complete blowout. Guatemala killed Grenada 4-0 and the game was never even close to being in question. Guatemala led 2-0 at the half and then added two quick goals to start the second half to solidify their victory. They didn’t seem like they were an especially good team, but Grenada was just really bad. They probably could have competed with your typical high school team (I’m only kind of kidding). The second game was much, much more competitive with Jamaica coming out on top of Honduras 1-0. Even though Honduras had many more fans, Jamaica was able to score one lucky goal and their defense held Honduras to none. This was a much more exciting and thrilling game and I am glad that I paid money to see this one.

The Sunset Over RedBull Arena

Now on to the jokes and interesting things from the games:

• First of all, for those of you wonder (like me until now) where all of these countries are on a map, here you go. This should help clarify:

Guatemala is in pink under Mexico. Honduras is in green to the right of Guatemala. Jamaica is in green under Cuba. Grenada is in purple above Venezuela.

• We decided to go to this KHH event kind of last minute (we were planning on going to the Yankees game instead; I’m glad we didn’t because they lost 1-0 to the Shoes), so we did not buy tickets on Stubhub. We thought that we would be able to scalp them, but the prices that people wanted for bad seats were far too high. We got to the game early enough (barely), so we were able to buy tickets from the box office. These ticket prices broke a KHH record, as we paid $36 each for them, but because we saw two games you can say that each game was only $18. I would have rather we just seen the second one. Our seats were in the upper deck. For the first half of the first game, we sat in our real seats. They were fine, but the stadium was about half full so in the second half we decided to move down. The second game was sold out, but we lasted a very long time in our lower level seats, almost until the end of the first game when we got kicked out and forced to view the game from our real seats. Here is a picture of our RedBull Arena tickets:

Our Tickets For Tonight

• Because we got such good (actually bad) reviews after we posted our Ecuador and Greece national anthems, here are the national anthems of the two more popular teams from the night, Guatemala and Honduras. Enjoy!

• We were actually the only white people at these games. The event that this most compares to is our journey to see Greece-Ecuador at Citi Field. There were few white people there, but there were a few die-hard Mets fans that wanted to check out the action. Tonight, we were the only white people in a sea of Hispanics and Latin Americans. Most people didn’t even speak English. In fact, not only did RedBull Arena make announcements in both Spanish and English, but there were many more cheers after the Spanish announcements, meaning many more people spoke Spanish than English. That’s kind of a joke when you are in an English speaking country. Because non-American fans are much more passionate than American fans and there were tons of Honduras fans that saw their teams lose, I thought that there was a good chance that we would be shot out of anger after this game. The probability of us being shot was about the same as walking the walk from Newark Penn Station to the Rock. Luckily, we came out alive.
• Guatemala has a player named Carlos Ruiz. Carlos Ruiz is also the name of the Phillies catcher. I’m pretty sure they are the same person. Ruiz scored a goal in the game. A comparison of the two is below:

The Carlos Ruiz's. They actually do sort of look the same.

• After Guatemala scored any of their 4 goals, their fans went absolutely nuts. Below you will find a video of this happening. I kind of wish Honduras scored in the second game, because the celebration probably would have been twice as big as this.

• There were some extremely bad clears in the first game. People were clearing the balls deep into the stands. However, one clear stands out from all the rest. A Grenada player cleared the ball into the upper deck behind his goal. That’s right the upper deck. He could have just tapped it out of bounds, but instead he kicked it with all of his might. Grenada is a joke.
• If I didn’t mention it already, the difference between the first game and the second game was huge. Guatemala was bad enough, but they were still good enough to defeat Grenada 4-0. They probably would have been killed by either Jamaica or Honduras. I’m glad we got to see a matchup of the best two teams, though.
• In the first game, just to add to the terribleness, there were tons of shots off of the posts, probably about 5. The score could have easily been 5-2 Guatemala, not that it matters at all.
• After Guatemala added its 4th goal of the game, it was officially garbage time of Guatemala-Grenada. It might have been worse (arguably) than garbage time of Nets-Spurs, Mets-Pirates, or Newark Bears-New Jersey Jackals. You decide which is the worst. Here is a video of Guatemala-Grenada Garbage at its best:

• In the second half of the second game, RedBull Arena announced that this game was officially a sellout of over 25,000 people. That is much more than the Red Bulls get for an average home game. Come on Red Bulls fans; you’re much better than that. Come cheer for your team and watch Thierry Henry do unnecessary headers. I do want to give a shout out to the crowd though for being very good.
• Jamaica’s goal in the first half of their game was extremely lucky. It bounced off the top post, then off the back of the goalie and into the net. This turned out to be the only goal of the game. For the rest of the first half, however, Jamaica’s shooting was way off. They were not even close most of the time. I thought that Honduras would definitely at least tie this game because of how poor some of Jamaica’s shots were.
• The people sitting directly in front us, particularly in the first half of Jamaica-Honduras, were extremely annoying. They were crazy Honduras fans (as was everybody else in the arena), and they were standing up and cheering the whole time. I didn’t really want to stand up because I am very lazy, so it was especially annoying for me. I don’t think they spoke a word of English. Also, staying on the subject of fans in our section, in the middle of the second half, there was a guy sitting a few rows below us that just started smoking a cigarette randomly. We smelled it for 5 or 10 minutes. No security came to tell him to stop. It was kind of a joke.
• Close to the end of the game, Honduras was called for a penalty in the penalty box and Jamaica got a penalty kick. Honduras fans were angry at the call to say the least. I think this video is all you need to know to see how the fans expressed their anger. Also, see the result of the penalty kick in a different video below:

• Honduras missed plenty of opportunities in their game. See a video of a missed opportunity below:

• In the second game, there was a pretty clear home field advantage for Honduras. I have never been to a soccer game, not even Greece-Ecuador, when I saw the fans actually effect the game. One way they effected the game was influencing the referees. There were many yellow cards called in this game, and almost all of them were on Jamaica (even though Jamaica did get a penalty kick). I believe that when the fans threw bottles onto the field, the referees thought to themselves that they might have gotten this call wrong and given other advantages to Honduras for the rest of the game. Because of the crowd, after the saved penalty kick, the momentum swung strongly in the direction of Honduras. Even though they never ended up scoring, they had plenty of opportunities and I am confident that if the game was 10 or 15 minutes longer we would have had a 1-1 draw. At the end of the game, Honduras fans were pretty sad to see their team lose. Here is a video of the final seconds of Jamaica-Honduras:

• Here are a few more pictures from the games:

Grenada and Guatemala During the National Anthems

The Grenada Goalie

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

The Grenadans in Bright Yellow

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

The Grenada Goalie

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

The Grenada Goalie

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Game Action From Grenada-Guatemala

Shaking Hands After Grenada-Guatemala

Shaking Hands After Grenada-Guatemala

Prior to Jamaica-Honduras

Game Action of Jamaica-Honduras

Game Action of Jamaica-Honduras

The Full Crowd at Jamaica-Honduras

The Full Crowd at Jamaica-Honduras

Game Action From Jamaica-Honduras

Game Action From Jamaica-Honduras

Game Action From Jamaica-Honduras

The Honduras Goalie

Handshakes Following Jamaica-Honduras

Bottles Thrown Onto Field After Game

RedBull Arena Following the Games

Here at KHH, our time is winding down before I leave for camp on Saturday. Our most certain event is Mets-Angels next Friday (parents permitting), but we may be able to squeeze another event in sometime in the next couple of days. We will keep you posted. So long from Harrison, New Jersey!

Ewwww

Mets-Phillies Recap

Let's Go Mets!

This might have been my favorite Mets game of the year so far. One reason this is is because it felt like a real baseball game and not just Mets terribleness. First of all, the weather was good for the first time in a very long time. It was neither pouring rain, freezing cold, or snowing. Even Section 401 was somewhat full. Because of the weather, people actually showed up to this game. In fact, there were very few seats (unless you wanted to sit in the upper deck in left field, but more on that later). I would say that about 25% of the fans attending the game were Phillies fans. And why shouldn’t they come up to New York for a weekend series? It is a 2 hour trip by train and they get to see their team for cheaper than they would in Philadelphia. And their team has a better chance of winning because they are playing the Mets. The tickets for this game were very expensive on Stubhub because of all the fans, but luckily I chose this game as my free tickets for a rain out earlier in the year and these were our best seats at a baseball game in a while.

Now on to the actual game. The Phillies won 5-2 with Cole Hamels picking up the win to improve to 7-2, Mike O’Connor very deservedly getting the loss, and Ryan Madson securing the save. This game was a Mets bullpen catastrophe on every level after the starter, Mike Pelfrey pitched a beautiful game for the Mets. The disaster begun fairly unassumingly. After a pretty unwatchable and boring game, the Phillies had 2 outs in the 8th inning and nobody on base. Pelfrey was still on the mound and the Mets held a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately for Mike, he gave up a single to Jimmy Rollins and was pulled from the game. He received a huge standing ovation as he exited and this will probably cause him to pitch terribly in his next game because he will be overconfident. Anyway, enter Mike O’Connor. After allowing Rollins to steal second, Chase Utley hit a single to left. Keep in mind that the only reason O’Connor was brought into the game was to get a lefty, Utley, out, and he gave him a game-tying hit. He will probably be sent back down to the minors after this performance. Enter Jason Isringhausen. Utley attempts to steal second and Ronny Paulino’s throw sails into center field. Utley is now at third and there are still two outs. Issy (or should I say Sissy) then walks Placido Polanco and leaves the game without recording an out. Enter Tim Byrdak. He comes in as the lefty specialist to get Ryan Howard out and keep the game tied at 2. However, Howard doubles down the right field line and 2 runs score. In the 9th inning, Dale Thayer (who made his Mets debut) gave up 1 more run and the Mets were officially out of the game. They did absolutely nothing in the bottom of the 9th against Ryan Madson. One of the reasons that this was my favorite game so far this season is that this is such a typical Mets-Phillies game. This is exactly what I expected. I thought the Mets would take a lead, but of course disappoint the fans in the end like usual. They did the exact same thing yesterday as well. I don’t know how die-hard Mets fans are able to survive this. Even though I try to root for them, I can’t get myself to do it. They are just too terrible.

Dale Thayer. He is now apparently a reliever for the Mets.

Now on to the jokes from the game:

• As we arrived at Shea, we realized that Pepsi Max was unfortunately back, and they were back with a vengeance. There was tons of Pepsi Max stuff outside the stadium including an annoying DJ yelling at everyone. There were also huge bottles of Pepsi Max looming over everyone and girls with free samples of Pepsi Max. It was disgusting and horrifying. I refused the temptation to participate in the devilish activities before the game, but after the game I took a free can of Pepsi Max as I was leaving the stadium. I had about 4 sips of it before throwing it out in a subway garbage can. It was as bad as I thought it would be if not worse. However, it probably gave me the caffeine to be writing this article right now. As we were walking up the staircase to the subway, the stairs were littered with unopened and one-sip-taken-out-of Pepsi Max cans. It was terrifying. I should have knocked one of them over by accident and then the Pepsi Max would drip down the stairs grossing everyone out. It would have been quite funny. Also, after wearing my Mets throw-away shirt tonight to the game, I realized that I am a walking advertisement for Pepsi Max because it has an advertisement on the back. Maybe I should just cross it out with a black marker. Any better suggestions? See Pepsi Max Pictures below:

Pepsi Max Stand

Pepsi Max Bottle

• As we entered Citi Field, the Mets gave us free “Tote Bags”. It is really just a bag with a belt around it and it looks pretty feminine. It also has an advertisement for Harrah’s Casino. We took our bags into the stadium with us and used them in various ways. I will talk more about these Tote Bags later on. See pictures below:

Mets Tote Bags

Mets Tote Bags With Peanuts

Mets Tote Bag

Mets Tote Bag With Peanuts

Mets Tote Bags with Peanuts

Mets Logo On Mets Tote Bag

Mets Tote Bag Belt

Peanuts Inside Mets Tote Bag

• As we arrived we noticed the annoying foam finger guy. People actually bought stuff for him today. They could have spent that money on a lower level Nets ticket! Idiots…

Annoying Foam Finger Guy (people actually buy these things)

• As part of rewarding their season ticket holders, the Mets chose some season ticket holders to go on the field before the game. It was mostly just old people. Each person went to a position and when the Mets went onto the field they shook hands with the Met who played their position. It was kind of a joke. See pictures below:

Random Season Ticket Holders on Field

Random Season Ticket Holder on Field

• After arriving to our very good seats, we noticed the upper deck in left field. In every game we have went to so far this season, nobody has sat in those seats. They are always empty. The Mets just never sell those tickets. This was for the most part the same tonight except for one section. I assume that there must have been a birthday party or something like that in this one section because there were almost no people in the other sections. It is pretty hilarious. Also, during the 7th inning stretch, there was one guy sitting under the out-of-town scoreboard in the left field upper deck and he was standing up and dancing and wanting to get a shirt. Good luck, because you will need a miracle. See pictures of the left field upper deck below:

Shea Stadium Upper Deck Left Field

Shea Stadium Upper Deck Left Field

• After the 1st inning we decided to break out the peanuts. They were as disgusting as we remember them being (we haven’t been to Shea in a few weeks) but luckily there were less than there are at Yankee Stadium. There weren’t many perfume nuts, however I did get one that was pitch black after being burned in an oven for probably 5 days. It was super perfumy. After we opened the peanuts, I thought of a great idea. We will put all of our peanut shells in Raphi’s Tote Bag and then Raphi will have to decide what to do with all of them. We carefully positioned the bag under Petro/GadZoom’s dunking bucket (AKA cup holder) so that when we dunked or shot, the peanuts would go into the bag. I suggested dumping them all in one urinal in the Citi Field bathroom but Raphi was too scared. He still has yet to make a decision and still has possession of all of the peanuts. See peanut pictures below:

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag Close Up

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag Close Up With Peanut Bag

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag with Peanut Bag

Peanut Shell in Tote Bag

• In the 4th inning, Mike Pelfrey had a balk with runners on 1st and 2nd. Unfortunately neither runner scored which would have made this a lot funnier. Still, a balk is a balk, and it made this game a little more of a joke.
• In the 6th inning, a fan won 6 months of Tide laundry detergent courtesy of BJ’s. Congratulations. This was a terrible Mets giveaway and I am thankful that I did not win it. Have fun washing clothes for 6 months. Is that a reward or a punishment? Probably punishment.
• Raphi claims that he got bit by a Shea mosquito during the game. Mosquitos usually love my blood but I have not yet noticed any bites. I’m glad Citi Field mosquitos like Raphi more than me.
• After the 7th inning, I noted that the Mets defense had been surprisingly good tonight. That is, until the 7th inning. In the 8th inning it was disgustingly bad including Ronny Paulino’s awful throwing error.
• After 2 outs were recorded in the 8th inning, it took the Mets 4 pitchers to get out of the inning. The foursome are Mike Pelfrey, Mike O’Connor, Jason Isringhausen, and Tim Byrdak. All those terrible pitchers just to get one out.
• During the later innings of the game, Raphi and I moved up successfully 3 or 4 times. I was pretty impressed with it and was not expecting it. I guess the reason we were able to do this was because the Mets fans were so disgusted with their team after the top of the 8th inning. They just wanted to leave Shea immediately. That was good news for us, and I got some nice close-up shots at the end of the game. You will see the pictures from the game towards the end of this article.
• After the game was over and the Phillies won, we were one of the first ones to get to the Phillies dugout. We saw all the players leave and we did not get any balls. However, the pitching coach and the people from the bullpen had yet to leave. We waited for them and I believe the Phillies pitching coach threw a ball in our direction. I had no shot at it, but Raphi had a small chance. He reached out as far as he could and knocked the ball closer to him and made an impressive grab, stealing it away from some Phillies fans. I was impressed to say the least. I didn’t know he had it in him. After getting the ball, he then put it into his peanut bag to make it even more disgusting. It now smells like peanuts. Ew. See picture below:

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag with Baseball!

Here are some pictures from the actual game:

Jimmy Rollins

Placido Polanco Stretching

Placido Polanco

 

Justin Turner

 

Jose Reyes

Carlos Ruiz

Philly Fielders

 

Justin Turner

Raphi's Favorite Ben Francisco

 

Ryan Madson

Our next KHH event will be on Monday, Memorial Day, as the Mets host the Pirates at Shea. We received these tickets for free for sitting through Mets-Nationals a few weeks ago and we picked up our tickets for this game today. It is sure to be a great one, and we will probably go to at least one more Mets-Pirates game in the series. That is all for now, but look out for a video of the announcement of the Mets starting lineup coming soon. Also, Mets-Nets comparisons will finish up tomorrow!

Breaking News: Turn on ESPN2!

If you are awake right now as I am, turn on ESPN2 right now. It is showing the Phillies-Reds game that started at 7 PM tonight. It is now 1:02 AM and we are entering the 19th inning. What a game. The reason that it is so important to watch right now is that former Met Wilson Valdez is about the pitch for the Phillies in the 19th inning. This is a moment we can’t miss here at KHH. From all of us here at the blog, we wish Wilson the best of luck!

Wilson Valdez