Seleção

So I'm in Carys's gymnastics class yesterday and all of a sudden I hear tons of police sirens. I look out the window and see police cars, motorcycles and a police helicopter. They were all following a bus.

Anyone here who saw this knew immediately what it was.

It was a bus carrying the Seleção.

Seleção ("selection" in portuguese) means the Brasilian national soccer team. Brasilian national soccer team means more police protection than our president would get if he were visiting our city.

You haven't seen anything until you've seen Brasilians watching the Seleção. It's one of, if not the most incredible thing I've ever seen in sports.

The very first soccer game I ever saw in person was when I first visited Brasil in 2001. It was the Seleção. I had no idea what the soccer rules where, who the players were, what the Seleção meant or anything, but it was incredible. Fireworks for 10 minutes before the game, 4 singers on the field singing the national anthem and the entire stadium singing with them, fans yelling and cheering for most of the game and a victory by Brasil. I was hooked.

The team is here to play a game in our stadium tomorrow night against Peru. They are playing qualifying games to see who will make it to next year's World Cup in S. Africa. When they play home games they play in different cities. Some of the curbs of our major streets have been painted yellow and green for the game. We see more Brasil flags on cars this week. Soccer is a passion here and it unites the country.

Brasil has won more World Cups than anyone else. This is a picture of our team from the 2006 World Cup. We didn't win. It was disappointing. We hope to win another one next year.

By the way........Benay, Bronwyn, Garrett, Ansley and I will be at the game tomorrow night.

We are hoping for a victory and some extra energy as the game starts around 10:00 at night.

Pictures, and maybe some video, will follow.