BEHIND THE PLAY #21

And with that I was led down a path. By my youngest who I will refer to as T for the purposes of this newsletter. Apparently my buttons are clearly marked and easily pushed.

“We could fly there today for $425! That’s cheap…”

The Scotland v Switzerland game had just ended last Wednesday and he knew I’d kicked around the idea of going to the Copa American opening game in Atlanta between Canada and Argentina but had had no takers from those I’d discussed it with. For me, it was a dead issue. The game was tomorrow.

But now it was coming back to life. “There’s a flight we could catch tonight,” said T looking at his phone. I surreptitiously hit Hotwire and Stubhub on my laptop. Then I texted my wife.

Ten minutes later…

So yeah, she’s pretty cool.

By 3pm the flights and hotel were booked. I held off on tickets as there were loads for sale and I wanted to see what happened closer to kick off.

I’ve done a bunch of these soccer trips over the years. Two World Cups, a Euro and a Gold Cup in the last ten years. Those had all taken months, some over a year, to plan and execute. This one was much simpler though. It was one game and ticketing was handled through Ticketmaster and re-sellers rather than by UEFA or FIFA and their torturous, slow drip mix of lotteries and first come, first served processes. Add in the relative proximity, lack of language barrier and it was pretty easy.

Our plane took off at 10:30pm that night. I’d never booked a flight the same day it left before but that “$425 for flights” line got its hooks into me. In the end, it was only $425 if you were okay with a 15 hour layover on the way back, which I’m sure T knew but it started the conversation. Flights were still remarkably cheap for such a last minute thing though. We were overnight into Dulles in Washington DC, short wait and then on to Atlanta where I’d booked a cheap airport hotel near-ish a Metro station that would take us directly to within walking distance of the stadium. Got to the hotel at 11:30am, paid, gladly, another $50 to get into the room right away as neither of us got any sleep on the red-eye and waiting for the 4pm check-in time wasn’t an option. Quickly bought tickets in the room. There were tons but the best deals were getting snapped right away. Five times I thought I had tickets in my Stubhub cart but they didn’t let me buy them for some reason. Finally got some and we quickly got to sleep. Three hours later we’re up, disoriented, but good to go.

For games like this, T has always liked to be there early and soak up the atmosphere. So off we went, arriving on site more than 2.5 hours before kick-off. The stadium is on a great site with lots of green space. Amazingly though, the only food and drink options in the acres of space around the stadium seemed to be locals BBQ’ing hot dogs (all wrapped in bacon for some reason) on the sidewalk and some others selling Modelo beers (for $7…c’mon guys). I had no cash so we went to a gas station and picked up some Heinekens.

If you’ve never been to see Messi before and I know that’s still a touchy issue for those in Vancouver who were expecting him to play there recently with Miami only to have him, Suarez, Alba and Busquets all no-show, it is a truly unique experience in the world of sport.

It would be no exaggeration to say that there were probably over three billion Messi jerseys in and around the stadium at this game. Almost all had the good grace to wear Argentina ones but an alarming number had the audacity to sport Inter-Miami ones. I have carefully selected photos and videos that do not show any of those.

Gonna make this less text heavy for the reminder and let the visuals do most of the talking. Thought there was a way to embed these videos right into the newsletter but looks like the links will take you off to YouTube to watch them.

I’d seen him four times previously, all when we was with Barcelona. It is very clear that even the Barca fans who had seen him play for years, go there expecting to be dazzled by him and every time he is on the ball there is a strong current of expectation that something mind-blowing is about to happen. People, en masse, slowly rise out of their seats, probably unaware they’re doing so, when he gets the ball. I’ve seen Ronaldo four times, Neymar twice and loads of other top players and nothing compares with how people respond to Messi when he gets on the ball. You don’t always get the spectacular but we were there in 2019 when Barcelona played Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final and he did this…

But back to Atlanta (I just like trotting that video out whenever I get a chance).

Staffing at the stadium both inside and out was excellent. We were inside in minutes and took our time looking around. We had 200 level seats which put us in a small band between the much larger 100 and 300 levels with premium suites interspersed directly below and above us as well.

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium is definitely one of the best I’ve been to, in terms of modern stadiums, and their 360 degree video screen is very cool but I lost over 10,000,000 brain cells being forced to listen to these three (below) trying to hype up the crowd before and after the game. No one needs, wants or deserves this stuff. It’s painful to see and hear.

Canada got to the half nil-nil in what had been a really entertaining performance. Yes, Argentina had the better chances but if Stephen Eustaquio directs that header from just outside the six a bit better, minutes before half time…things could have ended differently. As it was, he didn’t and they didn’t. It was Argentina who put us to the sword as most expected and scored two in the second half. The last one being truly exceptional and providing those who came to see Messi with a hint of his powers as he slid the critical pass through to Lautaro Martinez late in the game to seal the result and go home with a 2-0 win.

For us, it was back to our hotel, a long sleep and then a longer journey back to Vancouver. To finish off, here’s the 30 second video version of our 32 hours in Atlanta.

^{All photos and videos copyright Gregor Young}