World Cup Diary – Day 7

After waking up from the best night’s sleep of the tournament so far, I was feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day.
Bill and Dave who Im staying with for the rest of the trip were trying to persuade me the previous evening to get up at 6am and catch a 6 hour coach to Curitiba to watch the Iran vs Nigeria game.
The amount of travelling I’ve done in the past week I couldn’t quite face any more at the moment for a lesser glamorous fixture so decided to leave them to it, now after seeing the result I’m fairly happy with my choice though they’re still yet to return, I’m hearing they had a great time.
So myself and Liam stayed in Sao Paulo and decided to head out around 11am and find a bar for some lunch and to watch the games.
As soon as we stepped out our hotel we met a couple of other England fans who had just flown in the previous night and went with them to pick up their match tickets, 2 lads from Carlisle who we ended up drinking with for the rest of the day.

Sao Paulo was like New York compared to Manaus, there’s fair few areas marked as no go zones and the advice is to stay around the Paulista/Jardins area.
With this in mind its proving difficult to find bars to congregate like we did in the Teatro Square in Manaus.
We settled for a cafe and watched the thoroughly enjoyable Germany Vs Portugal game, I was pleased with the result as I want Germany to top the group as I have a last 16 ticket to potentially see them in Porto Alegre.
After the game we regrouped back at the hotel as I had forgot to take my malaria pill in the morning then headed back out, we were in two minds weather to go to the fan fest but decided to stay local and eventually did find a decent sports bar to watch the remaining two games in.
Simon who I spent a lot of time with in Manaus had arrived as we a pieced together a good squad to watch the games.
We ended up not moving from that bar for the rest of the night, running up a decent bar bill, but it was a enjoyable evening match with a very entertaining USA v Ghana game.
At around 11pm Kai had also arrived from Manaus and we reminisced of the previous game whilst building up the excitement for the Uruguay game in 3 days times.

A month to go – Brazil 2014

 

“We’re on the march with Hodgson’s army, we’ll all going to Brazil” we triumphantly sang walking down the Wembley steps on that joyous night back in October last year where a 2-0 win over Poland booked England’s place in this summer’s World Cup.

At the time it was only a pipe dream that I’d be following the team to South America but with some scrimping and saving along with an almost non existent social life for the last 6 months, its become a reality.

On the 9th of June I fly out to Lisbon then on to Brasilla changing in Sao Paulo and finally on to Manaus in plenty of time for England’s opening game against the Italy.

The last 2 weeks have been spent mostly getting over the side effects of Yellow Fever, Polio, Hepatitis and Typhoid , recommended vaccinations when visiting Amazonian .

Ticket’s have surprisingly been the easiest aspect to organize. I’ve got tickets to all 3 England game’s along with vouchers for the Last 16 and Quarter Final if we can progress.

I’ve also so far picked up tickets for the Last 16 game in Port Alegre and the Quarter Final in Brasillia, potentially Germany V Argentina.

Planning to keep this Blog very busy while I’m out there with tales, photos and even a video diary If I can persist with it for the whole trip.

Roy Hodgson is due to announce his provisional squad on May 12th, below is the final 22 I’d take.

Hart, Forster, Ruddy

Baines, Jones, Terry , Cahill, Flanagan, Jagielka, Johnson,

Gerrard, Barkley, Lampard, Milner, Lallana,Henderson, Oxlade Chamberlin, Sterling

Sturridge, Welbeck , Carroll, Rooney