Yesterday was our first game of the
2009 Fina World Championships in Rome. Of course, we started off the
tournament by playing against Italy— the host team. This seems to
happen to us a lot: in Beijing our first game was against China, in
Melbourne we were up first against Australia, and so on.
The day began with the Italian police
knocking on my hotel door at 5 AM telling me I had to go down to the
police station immediately. I refused to go without a valid
explanation and we agreed that I would go by myself later that
morning. When I finally arrived at the station, none of the officers
knew who I was or why I was there. They said the police must have
made a mistake. We stayed and tried to argue but realized it would be
better to just go home and get some rest, although the whole
situation was very suspicious.
As we left to the pool we noticed our
bus driver taking a different route. It usually only takes 20 minutes
even with the Roman traffic, but for some reason this ride ended up
being 45 minutes long!!
When we arrived at the pool we were
guided to the warm-up station, which was a 15 min walk, and began to
warm up for our 9 o’clock game. After the entire U.S. Team was
already in the water, we noticed that not even one Italian player was
there yet. Soon after we were informed that the game would be
delayed by 20 minutes, and then, as if they had known all along, the
Italians started arriving.
Playing at another team’s home, you
always have to be prepared for anything. Some surprises are small but
some are big, but the only thing you can do is stay focused
without getting frustrated. After the Italian National Anthem played, you could feel a tense and exciting vibe in the air. Everyone
was against us chanting ITALIA ITALIA! But this chanting soon ended.
After winning the sprint we immediately
went up 1 - 0 with a shot from Layne Beubien, and from that point on
we were in control. The referees made some terrible calls, majored
our player for nothing, and gave the Italians two questionable
penalties (one blocked by Moses), but in the end we played a superior
game. The Italians even had Vaseline on their bodies, and when we
told the refs they waited two quarters to check them and eventually
told them to wipe it off. (Remember, this should be a game
exclusion).
Now we are in a great position. We play
Macedonia on Wednesday and then Romania on Friday. If we win both
games we will advance first in our bracket. Macedonia has five ex-
Serbian players who are very good, and a Croatian goal keeper— all
very top-notch athletes. We are going to have to swim them and make
them play our game. Which in my opinion most people can’t play.
Stay tuned for more updates on our
games and feel free to email me with any questions or comments.