Sunday July 12th

Well its finally here. The first day of the tournament. We don't have a game but as it turns out the open futsal game between Brazil and Argentina is the very first game of the competition. So last night we told everyone about going to the game, what time to be at breakfast and what time we would be leaving. So in the morning we meet up with Josh, Mike, Aaron, Sergio and myself. No one else shows up for breakfast.

So we eat and go to the hotel lobby and try to get a ride to the game. The first bus left at 6:45 and the second bus is leaving at 8:30am. The first game starts at 8:30 so we got 2 cabs because we didnt want to miss the game.

We got to Zisman Hall and went into the stands to watch the first game, Argentina vs Brazil. That game starts off slow and methodical. Both teams play the ball around well but its not to physical of a game. Brazil scores first off a deflection from an Argentina defender. Then with about 2 minutes left in the half Argentina ties it up 1-1.

The second half was a totally different game. Both teams were physical and it was a more fast past game. Around half time the junior Brazilian teams showed up to cheer with drums and music and it was very distracting for Argentina. But both teams worked hard and in the last 15 seconds of the match Brazil puts it away for the win. For the next 10 minutes they were singing and dancing and just being ridicules.

The next game was Finland vs Estonia. Both these teams started to warm up and we realized that each team only had 1 ball per team. No one comes prepared ....except for us who brought 8 balls. So this game is totally different from the one we just watched. Estonia looked clueless but they ended up scoring 3 goals against Finland. Where as Finland is bigger and they look stronger but they too made a lot of mistakes. So this game finished 7-3...Finland had control for most of the game but they let up and pushed to far up and that let Estonia score a few times. (I forgot to mention that Estonia's Goal keeper got a red card and will be out of the game against us...)

I think we should be set for tomorrow but we have to work hard and not let up at all.

After the game we jump on the bus with the teams and head back to the hotel.

We rested a bit after lunch and then at 3:00pm we went for a team run. Then had a meeting at 4:15 to talk about the game and our team.

At 6:00pm we left to go to Kfar Maccabiah for a pre tournament dinner. This dinner was unreal. The food was ok...everything else was sick. Imagine a rock festival with 5 side stages and 1 main stage, cross that with a normal circus without the animals, throw in the performers from Circus De Solie from one of the Las Vegas shows and enough food to feed over 9000 people....yeah it was intense.

We left early because our bus in the morning was leaving at 6:45 am for our 8:30 game. We wanted to get some rest so at about 9:00pm we got together and went to the bus to go to the hotel. As we were leaving we heard the techno remix for Havanagela.

I really wish we could have stayed longed because I got the feeling something really cool was about to happen. We will just have to wait until the 19th Maccabiah games to experience it all again.

Lets get up for tomorrow...our first game of the tournament vs Estonia. BRING IT ON!!!!!