Denmark: It isn't a suburb of Sweden

"You're just a suburb of Sweden!"

That was the chant yelled out by about 20 or so U.S. fans who made the trek to the city of Aarhus to see the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team take on Denmark in an international friendly. Funny enough to prompt a chuckle? Perhaps. Original? Probably not. Being clever and original when it comes to songs and chants isn't a strongpoint for Americans, but yet again, Football isn't exactly our sport either.

I am fortunate enough to have met some great people while I've been in Berlin. A few of them had been planning on attending the match for weeks. I, on the other hand, had not been planning on going at all. A poor (literally) soul with about .16 euro cents to his name who couldn't afford to go.

Of course, said great friends decided it would be a travesty on the level with if I didn't go, and as a birthday present, bought me a ticket as well as taking care of my housing and transportation. For that, I'm definitely grateful, as it would turn out to be one of the craziest nights I've had here in Europe.

We left for Denmark the day of the game, with 7 guys crammed in a van. Beside me were a few buddies from the ICD, (Colin and Ben). A few buddies from Hairy Mary's, (Travis and Morton), and a two guys who I vaguely knew. (Tim and Rob) Also accompanying us on the trip were 63 mutual friends who went by the collective name "Berliner Pilsner".

The ride over was great. We joked around. Drank some beers.(not the driver)and bullshitted about what Danish girls must be like. Of the group, Morton was the only Dane (despite the deceiving British accent) surrounded by 6 other obnoxious Americans.

We arrived at Aarhus at about 6:30, drank some more beers and stumbled our way to the game, where we celebrated our arrival at the stadium by....drinking more beer. We stood in an entirely empty Away section, with about 14 other U.S. fans making the trip, along with 2 possibly deranged Danish fans who were rooting for the U.S. for no other reason other than that Benny Feilhaber played for the Aarhus club. These guys seemed to already be 8 beers deep by the time we met them, so for all I know, they probably thought magic elephants were parading around the field.

The U.S. started the game strong, scoring a nifty goal on a mistake by the Danish keeper in the 27th minute. Jeff Cunningham, who had just been called to the U.S. squad to possibly replace Charlie Davies, got the goal. Ironically enough, the game aired live on ESPN and when Cunningham scored, cameras immediately fixed on us, which you can see below. (I'm with the black flat cap at the :30 mark)




The U.S. went into the half at 1-0, and we were all happy...and drunk.


Of course, by the second half, things fell apart, as they often do for the U.S. side. 3 quick goals by Denmark pretty much nullified whatever good play had come out of the first half, and at one point, you started to wonder whether the U.S. team forgot they were playing a game at all. A complete lackluster effort through most of the second half. Although Edgar Castillo did make it into the game.

In the end, was a 3-1 defeat. Down, but not out. We all left and decided to hit up what we all thought must certainly had to be a crazy downtown Aarhus nightlife. I mean small town, the Danish, sheer insanity right?

An hour later, we stood outside one of the two open bars in the entire city, ironically called Sherlock Holmes because I'm sure it would have even taken Holmes hours to find a clue as to why the nightlife in this town was nearly non-existent.

We walked in and after a few hours and several beers were enjoying ourselves and partaking in horrible renditions of karaoke songs like "Piano Man". The single guys in our group did their best to hit on just about everything that moved, and the relationship guys just watched, laughed, and got more drunk.

At some point, I noticed that most of my friends had left the bar, so I went to walk outside to see where they were. Outside, I found Ben and Colin talking to someone who I didn't even bother to look at.

Me: "Hey, guy's what you up to?"

Ben: "Hey man, just talking to Frankie Hedjuk here"

Me: "Stop the bullsh....hey, you're Frankie Heyduk"

The man they were talking to was Frankie Heyduk, current left back for both the Columbus Crew and U.S. national team.

Holy shit.

It turns out that the U.S. national team decided they wanted to enjoy the Aarhus nightlife, just like us. And, much like us, they discovered it came down to 2 open bars.

As I started talking to Heyduk, I look over and see other players start making their way to the bar. Jozy Altidore, Ricardo Clark, Jeff Cunningham, Carlos Bocanegra. About a half hour later, I am standing in the bar, having a beer while the ENTIRE U.S. team is in the bar, singing Karoake (to sum up their singing: great on the field terrible on the mic), getting drunk, and having every single Danish girl in Aarhus hitting on them.

My condolences to my single friends. Whatever game they had at their disposal that night was torched the minute the team walked through those doors.

I got the chance to chat with quite a few of them. Heyduk is probably about the most laid back guy on the team. Nice guy. I've heard he's an avid surfer and he's definitely got that surfer style to him. Also managed to have a few conversations with both Jeff Cunningham and Carlos Bocanegra. Both were polite and very gracious. Cunningham in particular. I think he was still beaming over scoring a goal on his call-up. So we ended up chatting for about 10 minutes about things like the game, his season in MLS, and what kind of free shit he gets hooked up with.

Eventually, we stumbled home around 6:30, only to wake up at 9:30 to get back home. A good nap on the bus and a McDonald's Mexican Burger value meal made up for the nausea I felt for much of the morning.

So..in closing, I went from not expecting to attend the game at all, to watching the game and drinking with the U.S. team afterwards. Not a bad gig. My luck in partying with celebrities apparently knows no bounds:

-Have an NFL Quarterback crash on your couch (Check)
-Drink with the entire U.S. National Soccer team (Check).

Who knows. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to run into Obama and we can have a beer summit together.