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A few weeks ago I spent a few hours in Philly as a detour on my trip to Gouda and Amy’s engagement party back in Atlanta.  I got to see most of the famous stuff (but no Rocky steps) take some pictures and eat some cheesesteak so I’ll consider that a successful journey.

This time around, I was going to Philly on purpose in order to go watch the USA/Panama Gold Cup quarterfinal game.

There was much less touristy sight-seeing for this trip, but a lot more action.  I left New York from Penn Station with a group of people I had met during various outings to soccer pubs around the city to watch matches.  Apparently I had made a mistake in my previous trip by taking the Amtrak train for $45, because these guys showed me the way to go (if you’re willing to spend an extra hour or so on the commute) is to take a New Jersey transit train to Trenton, and then a SEPTA train in to Philly for less than half the total cost.

The train filled up with more people as we went through New Jersey as many of the New York soccer crowd actually lives out there.  By the time we got on the SEPTA train in Trenton there were probably about 15-20 of us heading to the game.  A quick subway ride later (it really is amazing how well connected these northeastern cities are) and we were at Lincoln Financial Field for the game.

The tailgate atmosphere was pretty good; similar to the one in Nashville but with fewer US fans (lots of Hondurans for the early game) and a larger extremely passionate group thanks to the Sons of Ben supporters club.  Another bonus was that unlike the Nashville game, my tickets were in the supporters club section so I could be prepared for a more entertaining experience.  Here was my view of the game and a shot of the pretty well filled out 31,000 person crowd.

I won’t bother with much of a game report outside of the fact that we won 2-1 in added extra time and that some of the players who had looked good in previous matches have seen their chances at inclusion on the first team fall back down after a few lackluster performances.  I still really like Holden, Conrad and Beckerman though.