Germany 4 - Costa Rica 2

History was made, indeed!

Let us count the ways:

• It was the first time Costa Rica played in an opening match of a World Soccer Cup.
• It was the opening match with the most scored goals.
• The German player, Miroslav Klose was the first one to score more than one goal in an opening match. (He was also celebrating his 28th Birthday! He made 5 goals during the previous World Cup.)

[Before I continue this post, here's a quick overview that I got from the newspaper "The Times of India".

As you (might not) know:

- a soccer game consists of two 45-minute halves with no timeouts; if there is a tie, up to two extra 15-minute periods are played before penalty kick shoot-out.

- eleven players from each team are on the field. There are 4 types of players: 1 goalkeeper protects the goal, defenders (fullbacks) play in the front of the goalkeeper and stop attacks, midfielders move the ball up the field and forwards attack the goal.

]

Back to the post:

This is the third time I am away from Costa Rica (CR), when it has participated in a World Cup. I never feel homesick, but knowing how important soccer is in my country, that the sport is more than 'just a game', that everyone is in a festive mood, being away from home right now makes me feel nostalgic. Actually, I wouldn't mind being in Germany right now, either :) -- All that party going on! Anyway, watching CR play against Germany in this opening match was much better than watching CR play against Turkey in a Turkish shop in Erlangen, Germany - like I had to during the World Cup in 2002!

Since we just moved to a different house, our cable is not installed yet. However, -BIL- Sopan and Priya invited us to watch the game in their new LG Flatron 1200! We missed the Opening Ceremony and the Costa Rican National Hymn (there was no electricity at first - bleh!). But then it was back again and we had beer, pizza, Coke and chocolate soccer balls! It was a very exciting game. I heard TV comments of how this game had a surprising outcome...maybe they thought that the game was going to end something like Germany 9 - CR O (?)

The game was so exciting that I hardly ate, but it was a good thing Priya insisted on packing a couple of pizza slices (that's what I ate while writing this post!)

To end this chapter (and await for the following games!), let me relive the score of the (much anticipated) game Germany vrs. CR:

Start of Game: Ger O - CR O

5': Ger 1 - CR O

12': Ger 1 - CR 1 (My absolute favorite part of the whole game!)

17': Ger 2- CR 1

60': Ger 3 - CR 1

73': Ger 3 - CR 2 (Another 'nice' part of the game...)

86': Ger 4 - CR 2 (Bleh!...)

P.S. As I finished writing this post, the South American country of Ecuador beat Poland 2 to nothing on the 2nd game of the day! Viva Ecuador!