WC2006: Where's My Parade?

ON A TRAIN TO MAINZ (11:45am local time) -- I have to circle back to the Hbf to meet my host from Berlin, who has taken the train in for this match. I tell some of the key U.S. supporters to wait for me to come back before heading back to the train and then on to the stadium. They say there weren't going to leave until around 2pm, and that I shouldn't worry.

I didn't worry, and when I got back, right around 2pm, I didn't see much of anybody. They had, in fact, already left, and apparently via a much different route than we took to get there, because we didn't see or hear a note of it.

We stayed at the bar for one round and then set out for the stadium ourselves. I'm trying not to be annoyed about missing the festivities, but I tend to get knocked off-balance when I feel like I've adequately prepared for something and it goes wrong anyway.

Once at the stadium, we find a beer garden with a German cover band that goes heavy toward late 70s and early 80s hard rock, which is exactly as funny as it sounds.

At this point, I make tactical error number two on the day, and split from my host in a quickly abandoned effort to find the U.S. supporters. After realizing it's going to be too much of a hike, I head back to the gate only to have my drum deemed too big - despite no problems as two previous matches - and confiscated until I leave the stadium. Had I been with my host, we'd have stood a much better chance of talking our way out of it.

So, to recap - no drum for the parade, on account of missing the parade, and now no drum for the match. Shit happens, but there's still the actual game - a U.S. victory coupled with an Italian victory and everything's okay, right?

By now, you already know how that question gets answered.