Should I have seen it as an omen that when I got to the Stade Jean Bouin for last night’s game, it turned out I had the wrong stadium completely?

This is a picture of your intrepid jackass…er, traveler…standing out on the field he thought Angers was playing Lens.

And this is the TV he ended up having to watch the game on instead. 

My stupidity astounds me at times. 

In this case though, I partially blame the language barrier for the mix-up.  I don’t know if there’s another Stade Jean Bouin somewhere in France or Angers plays Lens there at some other time, but I swear that is where the game was listed.  Whatever the case, they definitely didn’t play in the Jean Bouin I went to. 

C’est la vie.

No one at the bar paid much attention to the game–I guess the fact it’s D-II makes it like watching a minor league baseball game for us–but the lone American, a guy who would never watch a soccer game at home, was glued to the TV, squirming at every near miss.

(a note in case you didn’t read yesterday’s post:   I took Angers to win.  The way soccer betting works is that there are three options–home team win, away team win, and draw.  Because games can end in a tie, that makes choosing a team less than a 50-50 proposition, but the payout is higher if you get it right).

(Oh, by the way…another note–if you look to the left, I’ve added another page to the site.  A friend of mine, Duncan, tracked my route thus far on Google Maps, so you can check out the satellite shots of the various places I’ve been.  Pretty cool of him to do it).

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Not far into the game, Angers scored on a cheapish goal and by half it was still 1-0, my guys. 

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a soccer game in its entirety except when my buddy Ed and our old boss Walt bet on the Chinese women’s team in the ‘99 World Cup.  Now, the fact I’m admitting I actually bet on women’s World Cup, could be seen as me being just a little over-zealous in my betting.  But that was an anomaly.  Mostly we bet NFL games with our bookie–perfectly named The Pistol, by the way–but this once we went with soccer for pure common sense reasoning. 

I don’t know if you remember that World Cup, but every one in America was gaga over Mia Hamm and the rest, so the odds for the final were hugely skewed because everyone there was betting on America to win.  A bookmaker hopes to get equal action on both sides and thus is guarenteed to make a profit (the vig), so they have to raise the odds in the other direction to accomplish this.  Hence, even though in reality China was the “favorite” and had beaten them in their last meeting, the betting line had them at huge underdogs, which meant a big payout.  Purely as a common sense business decision we couldn’t pass this up, right?

(Right about now my mom is dialing up Gamblers Anonymous to set up the intervention for when I get back)

Anyway, as you recall, the US women won when Brandie whats-her-name who yanked off her shirt after she hit that penalty kick, and we lost.  But I’d still take that bet 100 times out of a 100.

Back to Angers v Lens…

At about the 88th minute (out of a  90 minute game), Angers scored again.  Up 2-0 with two minutes, plus a couple minutes of injury time that get tacked on at the end, it seemed an insurmountable lead.  I mean, scoring is few and far between in soccer, so two goals in the next couple minutes?  Never going to happen.  It would be like Mariano Rivera blowing a lead in the bottom of the 9th with the Yankees up 3-0 in the ALD-

Goooooooooooaaaallllll…!!!!

Some dude from Lens heads one in at the 89 minute mark. 

Alright, fine, a cheapie to make things close…I was still looking at winning the bet and being able to hit all those places in style that were in my father’s Paris little black book.

The last minute ticked off, then we were into injury time.  For those of you unfamilair with soccer, during regulation, if someone gets hurt, the clock keeps ticking and they add that time to the end.  Watching, you don’t know exactly how much is left but you have a rough idea.

Well, a couple minutes into injury time, my guys are running the clock out and I’m thinking about the elaborate French meal I’m going to have the following evening, and the show I’m going to take in at the Crazy Horse, not to mention the badass bottle of Bordeu-

Goooaaaaaalllllll….!!!!

You have got to be #%&*ing kidding me.

Two goals in three minutes???  After being dominated all game?

Angers was still tied, but that did me little good.  As I mentioned, I had them to win, so a tie was as good as a loss.

Still, there had to be a little injury time left.  Maybe they could squeak out a goa-

BRRRRRRRRRRR…!

Game over. 

When I cursed, I imagine the French guy next to me was thinking, ‘huh, who’d a’thought these Americans were so into their soccer?  All this time I thought they liked the cool kind of football’.

Well, it looks like tonight will be spent checking out all those places in the little black book, but only as an observer, and not a participant.  All thanks to that choking, and aptly named, Angers team.

Apt because that’s sure what they did to me…