First few days in Salvador

Before we left Fortaleza we attended the highly entertaining and somewhat controversial Holland v Mexico Group of 16 game at the Estadio Castelao. We were lucky enough to be sitting high up to the right of the goal where Holland scored their 2 late goals, including the disputed ‘dive’ by Robben, and got a fantastic view of the action. We had been cheering for Holland all along, and when they turned it around, there was much whooping & cheering from us in the stands. However, there were a lot, and I mean a lot, of very disconsolate Mexican fans who yet again saw their team go out at this point in the tournament once again, they were absolutely convinced that Robben dived and it should not have been a penalty. He ho, that’s World Cup football for you, no one ever said it was fair...?

The next day at the ungodly hour of 5:00am, we were up, packed and grabbing a cab for the airport to start the next leg of the odyssey. I was a little sad to say goodbye to the apartment & Fortaleza, which had been our home for 17 days, but all good things must end. Our flight was once again delightfully non-dramatic, and we flew the 1000 kms south to Salvador, arriving around 9:00am. I had arranged a pick up from the airport to take us to our next apartment which can be found in the city’s southern-most promontory, in an area called the Barra. After the extreme luxury of the Fortaleza apartment and its associated complex, we are in more modest luxury of a spacious & comfortable duplex penthouse, replete with a roof terrace and bar, and of course a hammock. Upon arriving, we met the owner and had a run through of the apartment and once we had freshened up a little, headed out to explore the locale, and find a bar showing the next game.

We are lucky enough to be about 5 minutes walk from the Salvador Fan-fest, which is set up at the very tip of the Barra peninsular right in the shadow of the famous Fort. The whole area is a newly created pedestrianised zone with bars and shops on one side, and views out over the beach and the ocean on the other side, very unique and different. The only downside is that they only seem to be showing the matches being played in Salavdor, in an effort to allow locals who could not afford tickets to be part of the experience, and showing games involving Brazil, which I can imagine would very popular. No problem, there seem to be plenty of bars and restaurants in the area with big screen TV’s, and we found one right on the seafront with a great view of the France v Nigeria game, with a few caprihina’s and several bottles of beer. After the game we returned to the apartment to relax for a couple of hours before watching the Germany v Algeria game, which was a real humdinger of a game, in which Algeria acquitted themselves finely but ultimately losing to the power of the German ‘Manshaft’.... I had started to come down with something and went to bed after the match, but Fiona and Yates popped out to the local supermarket to get something to eat.

The following day was the day of our first match in Salvador, the very juicy encounter between USA and Belgium. This was a particularly important match for us as we have been following the USA all the way through the group stages, and this was to be their chance to progress to the Quarter-finals, if they could get past a pretty unremarkable Belgium. We decided to leave early to make sure we knew where we were going to catch the bus from and also find a bar to watch the early 1:00pm game between Argentina and the Swiss. As in Fortaleza, the city of Salvador have also set up a bunch of special buses from all parts of the city to get fans to the stadium, but as with most things in Brazil, nothing is ever exactly the same from place to place, and this time we would have to buy a re-usable card and charge it with money to cover our travel to the stadium. Luckily the buses run from very close to where we are staying and we managed to find all the details we needed and find a bar well within the time we had, Fiona even had some time for some window shopping in the mall.

We knew that if the Argentina and Swiss game ran into extra time we would still have to leave the bar and make our way to the stadium regardless, and that is exactly what happened. We only found out the ‘Argies’ had nicked it with goal late late late into extra time on the bus as we sped towards the Arena Fonte Nova. The bus did seem to take the most convoluted route to the stadium, and even when it did finally drop us off, there was still 15 minutes more walking to do to reach the gates. Once again, things are a little different in Salvador, with military police conducting ticket checks well before approaching the stadium gates, and the whole queuing system appeared far more overly complex than in Fortaleza, but after a little pushing and shoving we got into what is a very beautiful stadium.  This time our seats were in the direct sun so we stood in the

concourse drinking beer until 15 minutes before the game started, which was luckily at 5pm with the sun setting shortly after. It was one hell of a game with all the tension and drama we have come to expect from the World Cup 2014. Whilst the Belgians started hard & fast, the USA sucked up all that pressure for 20 minutes or so and then started to gather some possession and assert themselves a little more. The first half was a mainly one-sided affair, but Tim Howard the US goalkeeper, repeatedly pulled out some fine saves against the Belgian onslaught to keep the USA right in it. The second half was little different with the game swinging from end-to-end and Howard continued to enhance his reputation with a string world class saves to keep the US hopes alive. In the 89^th minute, the US could have snatched victory at the death, but Wondoloski somehow managed to volley the ball over the crossbar when it would have been easier to have put it in the back of the net. Arggghhhhh.....!

Once the Belgians brought on their hulking great beast of an attacker, Romerlu Lukaku,  at the start of extra time, I knew it was going to be curtains for the USA. Having watched Lukaku all season for Everton, it was obvious that the US centre-backs were going to have a problem with him, and it was like boys-against-men from the very start. Even the fittest and freshest centre-backs in the Premier League have problems keeping Lukaku at bay, so how were the tiring US centre-back going to fair after already having played 90 minutes..? It didn’t take long.....  He burst down the right, sweeping all before him, and his intercepted cross found its way eventually to De Bruyne who finally got the better of Tim Howard. Just ten minutes later, it was the other way round, this time De Bruyne passing to Lukaku, who bowled done the middle to blast into the back of the net.... Bugger...! Game over I thought, but 2 minutes later the US substitute Green

latched on to a floated pass and volleyed spectacularly in to the back of the Belgians net. With one gaol back the US team discovered renewed faith & belief and the final 12 minutes was a thrill ride of end-to end attacking from both sides, but in the end USA came up short and the rest is history. It had been heroic, and even in defeat the USA had shown the footballing world that they could build a solid team, capable of taking on and stretching the best, without needing a string of superstar names. England could take a lesson or two from that.

We slowly made our way out of the stadium and back to the buses, stopping along the way for the odd caprihina to lift our spirits, (Yates was taking the defeat hard), and then to a local Mexican restaurant, where further caprihina’s were needed, along with a little food.  We made it back to the apartment somewhat tired, hot and drunk, and called it a night. The next day was a complete rest day with no football being played, and nothing on our agenda except chilling out and maybe a little shopping. My traditional World Cup cold had started to make its presence known, not helped I am sure by the late nights, tiring days, and copious amounts of beer and caprihina’s, and what had started out as a dull ache has now turned into a nice chesty cough. Today is another rest day, but we will be mounting a expedition into the heart of Historic Salvador to get a bit of art and culture in. There may or may not be a caprihina involve, purely for medicinal reason you understand.

SWEATING UPDATE: for those of you interested, Salvador is 1,000 kms south of Fortaleza and is somewhat cooler and less humid. When I say somewhat I mean it may be only a degree or two cooler in terms of temperature, but the humidity is about 30% less.  This in theory should help with the sweating, but mainly because our apartment block is nearly at the top of a small hill, which once reached is followed by 3 flights of stairs, (no lift), to get to our place, there has been a continuation of the sweating we have ‘enjoyed’ elsewhere. The good news is that generally throughout the day, with no hard physical exertion, we are a lot better off .... I thought you should know...!