Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
Brazil's national soccer team arrived in Chicago on Friday for their Clash of Champions match-up with the United States National Team at Soldier Field on Sunday.
Brazil did not wait long to entertain fans. On Saturday they held their one and only training session prior to the match with the United States and they did it in front of a crowd of a few hundred die-hard fans at Toyota Park. Chicagoist has always enjoyed watching Brazil play and thoroughly enjoyed watching their training session, where it was immediately apparent that these guys have more fun on a soccer field than any other soccer team we have ever seen.
The players were joking with each other all practice long and constantly trying to one-up each other with cheeky footwork and deft passes that made the trip to Toyota Park worthwhile for the fans. While the players spent twenty five minutes warming up, Dunga a former player and current head coach was not found watching his players or talking to the other coaches but instead juggling a soccer ball with three other players just enjoying the beautiful game.
The fans enjoyed watching two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldinho work on free kicks during a mock scrimmage setting up several goals. The United States will need to be careful not to give up many free kick opportunities during Sunday's game.
According to U.S. Soccer over 35,000 tickets for the match have been sold and they expect a large walk-up crowd as the weather looks to be perfect for Sunday's game. If you don't have plans for tomorrow afternoon (We heard something about a football league kicking off tomorrow) then be sure to make it down to see what should be a very entertaining and hopefully not completely one-side game between the United States and Brazil.
We uploaded our photos from the event to Flickr and highlights from some video we shot on YouTube.
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Jesus, the setup for the first Brasil goal was awesome--although if it hadn't been for Onyewu's flat-footed non-reaction, there would never have been a goal.
I spent the entire first half inveighing against Clint Dempsey's lackluster play until his second-half goal, which was beautifully-placed.
Has Dempsey been any good for Fulham? I am still not convinced by his ability.
It was great to see Brazil really play--Kaka, Robinho, and Ronaldinho especially. I thought they may just phone it in, but they were seriously playing.
Finally, Pablo Ramirez of Univision announced his ass off! The guy is brilliant.
Dempsey has been playing at Fulham. In his last match he scored a goal and helped assist on the other two to give Fulham a 3-3 draw. Check out the assist for this great goal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6c1hSAVaeM
Yeah that own goal hurt. Would have been nice for the U.S. to go into the half up 1-0.
I found it to be a very entertaining game!