A full day's work

I had a long day today.

I rolled out of bed at 6:15 and headed over to my friend's house to prepare for the day's labor.

I sat down on his couch, turned on the TV, and clocked into my "office" for the day. Today, I turned in a March Madness-esque day of worshiping soccer. I watched five games, on three completely different levels of competition.

The day started early at my friend's house with Greece-South Korea. At first, I was alone on the couch but twenty minutes into the game, his nine year-old son woke up and joined me.

I didn't really have a rooting interest in the game, but we decided to pull for Korea because my friend thought the country's name was very close to that of the President of Ecuador (Korea vs. Correa). That, and it would have made for a tough start to the day pulling for a team that played as poorly as Greece.

With the first game out of the way, our next course was Argentina vs. Nigeria. From what I have heard, in the Ecuador's absence from the World Cup, everybody has decided to cheer for every other Latin American country.

So there is an obvious attraction to Argentina. Plus, there is Lionel Messi - the Argentine star and one of the best players in the world. But the biggest intrigue about Argentina, and the reason most were interested in watching is the coach - Diego Maradona.

Maradona is considered one of the greatest soccer players ever. He received the undying affection of every Spanish-speaking soccer fan in South America by carrying Argentina to the 1986 World Cup championship. Since his playing days though, he has done everything possible to ruin that reputation (Cocaine addiction, alcoholism, obesity, financial troubles). He really likes media attention.

He's not my kind of player.

I asked my my little buddy if he wanted Argentina or Nigeria. He said he wanted to wait until the teams came out of the tunnel and could choose which color he liked the most. He preferred the white/light blue uniforms of Argentina more than the greens of Nigeria. And since Argentina was the first country I ever visited in South America, I have no trouble rooting for them on occasion. And even though Argentina showed some cracks, it won 1-0. (Plus, I always like to see the African teams do well, especially on African soil. Except Algeria against the US, of course.)

Then I had a lunch break before the day's biggest game - US-England. I got together with a few other volunteers and some Ecuadorian friends at a local restaurant that has a relatively large screen.



When else will I have the opportunity to drape myself in an American flag and not be horribly awkward?

We were all happy enough with the game's outcome, though my heart could have gone without so many defensive lapses. Thank you, Tim Howard.

Then I headed over to the stadium for Condor's game. I had missed one Condor game, and it felt like an entirely different team. In the game that I missed, Condor lost 4-1 on the road, meaning that it had lost the first four games of the tournament. It was the only team in the league without a single result. I guess the fans finally caught on that this team was not very good.

In the last game I attended, I would say nearly a thousand people showed up. This afternoon barely saw a hundred people at the stadium. And Condor came out with the same enthusiasm.

The game briefly became interesting when Condor tied it up in the second half but almost immediately allowed the tiebreaker. The team has cut a few players because they just don't have the budget anymore and had to cut their newly hired coach as well.

Then, I went home for a bit and caught the final part of my quintuple header: Emelec-Barcelona. These are the two teams from Guayaquil, and it is called a "classico" because the rivalry is so intense. Emelec won, 2-1.

And that capped my day.

Now, I have to get some sleep before I repeat the same schedule tomorrow.