News

World Cup News

Date Posted: 6/1/2010

CVYSA hopes to keep you informed of stories of interest from the World Cup.  If you have a clip you would like to share please forward the link to webmaster@cvysa.org.

CVYSA 96 Blue boys and parents:

Hello from Pretoria, South Africa. USA vs. Algeria, where I am IN the stadium, listening to the vuvuzelas, watching the USA fans go nuts, and enjoying this do-or-die game. The atmosphere is ELECTRIC, like nothing in American sports. So much passion. Way cooler than the Super Bowl or the World Series. For most of the countries here, those 23 players are THE MOST IMPORTANT athletes in their country. They don't have NFL, NBA, baseball or
college sports, so the national soccer team players are the best and most famous athletes in their country.

My name is Michelle Kaufman, and I am the soccer writer for the Miami Herald. I grew up on the same block as Coach Bare in Miami, and he has kept me up to date on your team's successes. Congrats on making Premier.

This is my fifth World Cup, and Coach Bare thought it would be neat for me to share some of my experiences here in South Africa. Covering the World Cup is, to me, the best assignment a sports writer could have. You get to travel to different countries (I covered Cups in USA, France, Japan/Korea, Germany, and now South Africa). When you cover soccer, you learn about different cultures, and how those cultures are displayed in the team's style..ie. Germans are organized, Latin Americans have flair, Americans have team spirit, etc..

At this World Cup, I am covering 14-15 matches in 8 or 9 cities. Among the special moments already: USA vs. England, interviewing Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez and David Villa up close, standing side-by-side with David Beckham, staying at the same hotel with the US players' families, and getting to know them over breakfast and lunch, attending the South Africa vs. Mexico opener and feeling the passion and pride of the African people,
doing interviews with every US player -- Landon Donovan (very smart!) and Tim Howard (nicest, most humble pro athlete I've ever met) and Oguchi Onyewu (speaks perfect French) and Coach Bradley and Jay DeMerit (funny)...visiting Nelson Mandela's house...eating ostrich steak...being mesmerized by the way
Brazil and Argentina pass...inspired by the second-half performance of the US team against Slovenia (that goal should have counted)...spending a day with the World Cup referees, watching them train and then interviewing them about how hard it is to do their job, how they are tormented when they make mistakes...feeding a giraffe and petting a lion cub...and now, sweating as the US tries to beat Algeria to move on to the next round.

Tomorrow, I am invited to a breakfast with President Clinton, Just 10 reporters. That will be an amazing experience, I'm sure.

As a sportswriter, I am not allowed to cheer, am supposed to be objective, but I will confess to you here that I just leaped out of my seat when that
Clint Mathis shot just went in, only to find out it was called offside. I am writing two stories per day here, working very hard, have not been to sleep
before 2 a.m. for 14 days...I am here for FIVE WEEKS, without a day off, (actually will have written stories for 42 days without a day off) which is
also hard because I miss my family, but they are coming over at the end and we are going on safari after.

If you want to keep up with my World Cup travels, follow me on Twitter (kaufsports) or at

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/total_futbol/ and
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/soccer/

Enjoy the rest of the World Cup. Maybe some day I'll be writing about YOU!

Here is our first story:

m.apnews.com/ap/db_15980/contentdetail.htm