Jeering Johnson

Yesterday started typically. Had a voice mail from a friend of mine letting me know that in India, more people travel by train in a single day than by air all year long. I had to look up some more figures from the CIA World Factbook: It turns out that India has 63,230 km of railway. In comparison, the USA has 226,605 km. As far as airtravel goes, India has only 341 airports. 341! That's for 1 billion people. The USA? 14,858 airports for less than third of India's population. If everyone in India and the United States decided to fly at the same time you would have to cram 3,212,176 and 20,086 people in each country's airports respectively. I hope India either decides rail is just fine, or builds more airports.


While contemplating the conundrum above, my other friend announces she's pregnant. Her and her husband have been trying a while and we are all really happy for them. She thinks it's a girl. Statistically, according to ABC News last week, she's probably right.

I was looking for a proper segue to get the real subject of this rant, DC United, I couldn't think of anything clever. So, I thought I'd just come out with it: DC United's home opener was yesterday. We lost.

We didn't just lose. We played horribly. I cried in anger because United never mounted a significant or convincing offense. I watched in awe as our defense gave up four easy goals. I realized for a eternal moment, the man, my national team hero, Eddie Johnson was with the enemy.

Eddie played well for the Wizards. Really well. He had two assists and one goal in their 4-2 route of the home side. He seemed to be everywhere all at once and our defenders were either missing him all together or concentrating so hard on him, someone else got an easy chance at our goal. I was in almost the exact same seat when Eddie scored a hat trick for the US Men's National Team in their 6-0 clobbering of Panama in October of 2004. I had never been so floored by a USMNT player as I had that night. Chants of EDDIEEEEE, EDDIEEEEE, EDIEEEEE rang through RFK. The bleachers at RFK quite literally move up and down and they were moving that night. My friends and I cheered for Eddie as loud as we could until we were all hoarse. With sore throats, we went home wrapped in a blanket of victory.

Yet, Saturday night, as I watched Eddie Johnson move into what is now our house, not his house, and dismantle my team, I did something I never thought I would do. I cheered against Eddie Johnson at a live match in which I was in attendance. But I still couldn't do it out loud.

Links:
CIA World Fact Book
ABC News
My Pictures of USA Panama (Oct. 13 2004)
Eddie Johnson