Referees are Human – Good Mantra

Yes from everyone’s perspective, the referee made an incorrect call on our team’s third goal. There were blue shirts being pulled by the defenders, at least one of our players was being strongly hugged and not necessarily out of love. It would have been easy and accepted by Slovenia and the whole world to let the goal stand. However, in the referee’s opinion, he saw a foul committed and he decided to call it before the ball was kicked into the net. So I give him the benefit of the doubt and even if he made a mistake, he remains human.

My day started out very lucky when I walked out of my room and by the hotel lobby—there was taxi with two USA fans with the faces painted ready to go to the game, and they said, “Good morning Tom. Yes you can tag along.” Our driver decided to use a shortcut which actually took longer as we went all around Ellis Park. The benefit – we got a short tour of the area. Walking to the stadium with hundreds of Americans, I enjoyed the food stands, the sidewalk vendors, the competition - people selling tickets and I had one to unload. I made an effort, not much, and eventually gave the ticket to Christian who followed me hoping I give him the ticket. He made it to the security checkpoint and said, “Thank you but I will go into the stadium later,” which meant he went to sell the ticket. Five minutes before the game started, Kirk, a compatriot who has been in South African working on development projects for the last three years, joined me and when I asked he said, “You don’t want to know how much I paid but I paid local cost. I had bought tickets for this game but I gave them to a visiting U.S. family. And now I have a better seat!” Everyone won today… I got my tickets from a coworkers parents, Christian got some money, the visiting family got to see the game, and Kirk ended up with a good seat and we all enjoyed the game – this is what World Cup soccer is about!

Now I hope the good mantra goes to our team when they face Algeria who is looking very good. We quickly got back to the hotel, got some work done and prepare to watch the last match of the day, England vs. Algeria. In the common TV room, we had several Americans, one in particular whose strong, unfounded opinions made Adrian go watch the game in his room and my friend Kris stay quiet for the whole game. Me, I just go with the flow and try to share. By halftime, I had purchased a ticket for the USA vs. Algeria game so I’m happy. After the game. Kris and I visited the casino to unwind a little and listened to a guitar player/singer perform Carlos Santana and classics from the 60s. We discussed the England-Algeria game without the expertise of our friend back in the hotel and took a taxi back to the hotel. A pretty good day for me… well there is never a bad day for me.