The first day of the end of the Cup for some teams. Even though they may be playing well, a second loss means teams are not going on. Australia, thought playing well is now out even though they have one more game to play.
Amazingly, Spain, the championship of everything for the last four years is now out. I can hear Ante shouting from here because his Croatia has put Cameroon out and their showdown match next week with Mexico will decide which of them goes through with Brazil from their group. Mexico has not lost a game, but if they lose to Croatia, they will also be out. Win or tie, Mexico goes on.
You might be interested in watching the team uniform sponsors. Honduras has their own brand with Joma. Most of the African teams are with Puma and almost all of them are green. The real money battle has been between adidas and Nike.
In 1994 when the World Cup was in the U.S., most teams wore adidas and nobody had Nike. Nike has since bought their way into most teams. Even England, which wore UMBRO for many years, is now wears the swoosh on the national team uniform.
An interesting aside from Brazil but the word “came roes” means shrimp and here at the beaches there are many sales of came roes but the computer won’t let me spell that as one word. The quirk is the same word here means Cameroon. Guess they feel more like shrimp after Croatia has beaten them so badly.
A couple more insights from that game. Two of Croatian players are Brazilians and the Cameroon keeper looks just like James Harden of the Houston Rockets and the coach for the victorious team from Chile looks like he could be Andre Agassi’s brother.
Tonight we found culinary heaven. Reggie says in the big cities in the U.S. the current popular place to eat is a Brazilian steakhouse. I found out why. The classic North Carolina all you can eat buffet has been taken to a new culinary height. The buffet had every kind of salad item plus lobster and a variety of shrimp. The hearts of palm were large wedges that were soft and juicy. The spar go and asparagus were just right.
The quail eggs went well with the variety of olives and cheeses. Every type of greens known to man. All of this was available for all you can eat along with much more, but once you get to the table numerous waiters come by bringing the meats to carve at the table.
We had filet, lamb, sausage, steak with cheese, Argentine steak, and more lobster and shrimp was offered. Very full and ended the meal with an expresso with sugar free sugar, just like a Portugese “Bika”. This came after we had lunch today in a grocery store, ala Well Spring. Probably the cheapest meal here.
Everything is a little more expensive than home, even away from the Cup areas. We wonder how the locals afford it, but I guess most do not eat out. The grocery eating was full of working people on lunch break.
Cup news here was not local strikes, but 85 Chilean fans were caught breaking into the stadium today and are being deported. The winning goal for Holland today was scored by Memphis Depay who is youngest Dutchman to score at a Cup at age 20.
I get no US news here so somebody there tell me the latest on the U.S. players. By the way, our winning goal was scored by John Brooks at age 21 who joined the team in a warm up game in July 2013 with a 4-3 U.S. win over Bosnia.