Postcards From Brazil, Part 2: Ivi's World Cup Adventure

Ivi Casagrande is working at the
World Cup in her native Brazil

One of the newest Bowling Green State University women's soccer alumnae, Ivi Casagrande, is enjoying the experience of a lifetime this summer. Casagrande, who recently finished her senior year at BG, is back in her native country, helping with the world's largest sporting event. Casagrande, a native of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is working with the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In the paragraphs below, she talks about her experiences with the Australian National Team and their travel party...

PHOTO GALLERY: Ivi Casagrande at the World Cup
CLICK HERE for the first update (Monday, June 16)

June 11
Before leaving to the airport, I made sure I read one more time the list of the players on the National Team so I could relate the families to their respective players. It was hard to memorize all their names and to correlate them with their families. However, I knew that it would be easier on the next days when we started to hang out together every day. By the end of the day, we had 75 people checked in at the hotel, so our group was almost completed.

<dfn><a href= — The families of the Australian National Team prepare
to board the plane to take them to the team's first match

June 12
We had two more families arriving in the morning and today was finally the day we were waiting for. The opening game with Brazil against Croatia. On my way to the airport to pick up the last two families, I realized one interesting fact. In my first two days going to the airport, on the road in front of the beach that takes us to the airport, there are a lot of tall buildings where people live. Every building had at least one Brazilian flag but not too many considering that the World Cup was starting soon. Two days later, June 12th, I could see Brazilian flags in every floor of every building which made me so happy because now I could see that despite all the protests and complaints about the world cup being here, people were starting to get together and realizing that our National Team has nothing to do with all the problems faced by our politics and government. They knew that they had to start supporting our team and bringing all the excitement to the country. We arranged a place at the hotel to do a briefing of the tour with the families on the next days and to also celebrate the opening ceremony watching the Brazil game on a big screen. All the families were really excited. As I was watching the opening ceremony I could not help but feel so proud of my country to be hosting such an exciting event as the World Cup. I was proud of our people and watching the ceremony and the game gave me chills from start to end. I was so happy with our first win!

June 13
Game day! The Australian team would have their first game against Chile. Our day started early. We woke up at 5 am, had breakfast and took the families in 3 different buses to the airport. We separated the families in three groups, yellow, green and blue, to make it easier for the transportation airport-stadium. We had a charter flight from Vitoria to Cuiaba. The plane left at 9:30 and the flight was 3 hours long. All the families were wearing the yellow jersey and they were all really excited for the game. When we arrived in Cuiaba, we were shocked by hot it was in the city. The feeling was of 100F! From the airport we got 2 buses and we drove to a restaurant close to the stadium where we would have our prematch celebration with drinks, food and a lot of music. The atmosphere was amazing! Some people were watching the Cameroon X Mexico game. The families absolutely loved the brazilian food and drinks. I was helping them with translation in ordering foods and drinks since a lot of the waitresses didn't know how to speak english. Around 4 pm, we put the groups together on different buses to go to the Stadium. I got really excited when I was told I would be responsible for the parents of the Australian National team's Tim Cahill. I would take them in a different van that would drop us off closer to the stadium since they are older. They are such nice people and I was thrilled to be with them. We arrived to the stadium and I can't explain all the feelings I had. It is just amazing how a sport can bring everyone together, different cultures and different people. When we arrived at the stadium, we met all the different families and we walked together to the seats. A lot of the fans from Chile asked us to take pictures with them. Amazing how much respect everyone had with each other even though being with different teams and countries. As the teams arrived in the stadium, it was time for the national anthem. It gave me chills! Even though I am from Brazil, I was cheering for the Australian National Team kind of the same way like I do with the Brazilian National Team. It is just awesome to see how happy the families were to see their relatives. A lot of the players' daughters and sons were there and they were so happy to see them on the field. The game was amazing. Chile started leading 2 X 0 but Australia came back, knowing how to frustrate the Chile team. We were frustrated about the goal that didn't count because the referee said it was offside. We were really happy with the performance of the players and came back to the airport happy with the experience overall. We got to the airport straight after the game. Our Charter flight left Cuiaba around 10 pm and we arrived in Vitoria around 2 am. It was a long day but totally worth it.

Check back to BGSUFalcons.com in the near future for more updates from Ivi!

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