The whistle blew for kickoff, we looked good for 70 seconds, and then they scored. Not exactly how you want to start a game. About 7 minutes later, our keeper got a red card/ejected from the game/will miss the next game and they were awarded a penalty kick. The fact that we were going to be down a man the rest of the game and that they were probably going to be leading 2-0 easily sunk in as the play stopped for a few minutes while our backup keeper made his way onto the field. 2-0. Only 3 minutes after that they scored a third goal. Nothing like being down away from home to the defending European Champions by 3 goals after 14 minutes. Game over after 14 minutes! They scored a 4th goal later on in the half, adding insult to injury.
Being 4-0 down at halftime, I decided to take a quick nap. We had been embarrassed, it was probably only going to get worse being a man down, and our goal difference advantage over the Dutch and German teams in our group had been obliterated after only 14 minutes in Italy. I woke up after my nap and fast forwarded through the rest of the game. I was pleasantly surprised when at the end of the game I thought I saw the score say 4-3...so, I backed the recording up.
Gareth Bale is a stud. When I first saw him a few years ago I laughed because he looked a Hobbit - Frodo Baggins, actually. Now, he's the man who scored a hat trick...in Italy...a man down...against the best in the world. I told Stacey at the beginning of this season that he is my new favorite player. After seeing him in New York this summer the running joke is that I have a man crush on him. He single-handedly put the team on his back and scored almost 3 identical goals - 2 of them in injury time. His first goal was gorgeous...running past and around 3 players 50-60 yards with the ball before slotting it home across the face of the goal with his left foot. He scored his second in a similar way (although not as long of a run). Then, directly off of the kickoff from his second goal we stole the ball and Lennon assisted his hat trick.
Going from losing 4-0 to losing 4-3 playing a man down the entire game feels like we stole a point. Obviously we didn't get any points, but the swing in goal difference may prove to be worth a point as we lead that first tiebreaker against the Dutch and German sides in our group. My only concern today was that there was going to be a big winner in the other game in our group. A big winner in that game and a big loss in our game today could have dropped us to third place. Well, after Bale rescued us, at the end of the day things couldn't have finished any better for us. We only lost by 1 goal and the other game ended in a 1-1 draw. Yes! We're still in second place and control our own fate halfway through this group stage.