It's going to be a difficult week for fans of soccer and lawn tennis.
Yesterday I picked up my friend Don in Boca and drove to Delray, where we had reservations to watch the England vs. Croatia match at the Blue Anchor Pub. (I had called Monday, repeatedly, and failed to get through, but somehow Hania had had success.) I found a parking spot on Atlantic Avenue and discovered that you now have to pay for parking in the city. I put my credit card in the machine and got time till 4:13.
The pub was packed. It took a while for the hostess to greet us; when she did, she told me my name was nowhere on the list. I told her my wife had reserved a table for two and, begrudgingly, she led us to a table/booth in the darkened back of the pub, in front of a regular size TV. The people in the bright front room had a large screen.
I ordered a shandy and a Ploughman’s lunch, asking if the baguette was fresh. “Sir, I’m too busy,” the harried waitress said, before adding perfunctorily “Yes, it’s fresh.”
Music blared from speakers, despite the fact that the TV was showing the pre-match program. Don put in earplugs. It surprised me that the English were louder than the Brazilians had been.
Our lunch arrived; Don’s fish and chips looked a lot better than my Ploughman’s lunch. The baguette was more of a hoagie roll.
Someone turned off the music shortly before both teams walked onto the field. Halfway through “God Save the Queen,” the picture froze and the sound went off. The singing of the anthem was taken up by patrons at the bar.
As if inspired by this, the English scored early on a free kick.
I asked a waiter what the Wifi password was. He told me the restroom was in the corner. I repeated that I wanted the PASSWORD and he gruffly told me he was too busy.
In the second half I went to use the men’s room – I now knew where it was – and squeezed my way past crowds at the bar. While inside, I heard a loud groan, and when I emerged I learned that Croatia had scored their first goal.
The match went into overtime. After the first 15 minutes, I went out to add more parking time and found that I had a parking ticket. Apparently, there is a three-hour limit, despite the fact that the machines sell tickets for more than three hours.
When I returned to the pub, I learned that Croatia had gone ahead.
Two nights ago, after seeing that the score was tied in the bottom of the 10th, I turned on the Marlins game in hopes of seeing a walkoff whatever. And a few minutes later I did; it was a single to win a meaningless game on a Monday night in the middle of a losing season. But you would not have guessed this from the celebration on the field; players ran from the dugout to mob the clutch hitter as if he had homered to win the World Series. As I watched I wondered if the walkoff celebration is the inevitable end-result of giving every child who puts on a uniform his or her own trophy.
Speaking of Poles and soccer, yesterday on Facebook I came across a drawing by the cartoonist Pawel Kuczynski. In it, a referee was giving a red card to a player who was standing next to the fallen body of his opponent, while two medics carried out to the injured man a makeup table from an actor’s dressing room.
The World Cup begins today, the sporting event that, more than the Olympics, is designed to appeal to travel writers. Each is a gathering of nations, but the Olympics are more diluted, with various teams and individuals representing one country, while the World Cup focuses a citizen’s attention, and fervor, on just one team playing on just one field. As usual – but especially this year, when the U.S. isn’t participating – I’ll be pulling for the countries where I had my best trips: Poland, Portugal, Mexico, and Brazil.
The only "unpatriotic" thing the Eagles did was beat a team called the Patriots.