World Champions Italy 1-1 New Zealand

FANTASTIC! What a great day it was today watching New Zealand hold Italy to a 1-1 draw.

Well Marcel and I were going to our 2nd "away" game together in two days. This one was Italy - New Zealand, and it was in a place called Nelspruit (pronounced like Nell Sprite). The drive was a little over 200 miles each way, but it was extremely worth it. Nelspruit is in the east, not far from Mozambique and Swaziland.

Since it was a far drive, and I was unsure of what the road conditions would be, we started from Johannesburg at about 10am, six hours before kickoff. We were pleasantly surprised that the roads the entire way were in great condition. This is mostly because the two main roads we took were toll roads and obviously taken care of.

We did see some interesting things along the way. There are several nuclear powerplants between Johannesburg and Nelspruit, and also, the most popular way to remove overgrown brush by the road is NOT a mower, it is by a controlled burn. We saw a lot of fires going each direction where they were just burning away the growth.

After a couple hours, we made it to Nelspruit and the Park and Ride. This city KNEW what they were doing - unlike all the others ones so far. We were able to easily park and then catch the bus to the stadium.

This is the one stadium I was most looking forward to seeing. The supports for the stadium are actually done in the shape of a giraffe. I really was something to behold. I think it is probably the most interesting feature I have ever seen on a stadium before.

While the outside of the stadium are Giraffes, the inside is zebra. This is actually a picture from after the game, but I wanted to have one where you could see the design of the seats.

The game started extremely well for New Zealand. They scored only their 2ng goal in their World Cup history after only seven minutes. It doesn't look like Italy coach Marcello Lippi is very pleased at all... Italy did manage to pull a goal back from the spot, but they couldn't get another one past New Zealand, so it finished 1-1.

With a just a few mintues left before the final whistle, most of the New Zealand fans started taking off their shirts and waving them above their heads.As you can see from the 2nd picture, it wasn't just the guys who were doing it, either!

For New Zealand, the game was as good as a win, and their team did a "victory" lap saluting all of their fans. It isn't every day one of the minnows of world soccer plays such a game against the current World Cup Champions. The NZ fans even stayed inside the stadium cheering and celebrating for almost an hour after the final whistle.

Even New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (on the right) came over to where all the fans had assembled to pay homage to their support. NA coach Ricki Herbert is the one in the suit also saluting the fans.

Tommorrow will be a rest day for me in the beginning, but the night game tomorrow I'll be going to and that is Spain - Honduras. With the way things have been going, you never know what'll happen!