Day 18 (June 25th)

The E’s (England and Ecuador) battle in Stuttgart today, so the group travels from Munich to Heidelberg (no hotels were available in Stuttgart). To avoid all the English fans demanding to “Stand-up for the En-g-land-ers”, Dean chose the Italy jersey instead of the England one. Ivan’s for South America.
I like the England team, but the English fans are hard to take (excluding my English pals back home of course). Ecuador never really showed anything and the British just a bit more than that.

The late game was Netherlands and Portugal which should be the better game of the day (maybe one of the better R16 games). Storms blew in shortly after the first game and caused problems for us. Gwen and I had headed back from Stuttgart to Heidelberg but our train was re-directed and then had a 45 minute delay in the new change over – so we missed the first half of the game. Ivan and Dean stayed in Stuttgart for the fan fest there, but it was shut down before the game due to the weather as well. They bounced from different bars to pick up the game (Satellite reception was going out). Not a good game to miss – 20 cards given out – amazing. I didn’t see the fouls in the first half that lead to the violent of the second half, so I didn’t know who had started all the mess. The referee obviously was a major player as he lost total control and never regained it. The second half seemed more like a hockey match or something. But the play between the fouls was pretty intense as well. Portugal made it through, but will be hurting for the next match due to missing good players. We almost missed the extra time because we were watching the game in our hotel room when the fire alarms went off. I hurried down stairs and caught the end in the hotel bar.