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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Australian star Tim Cahill (right) scored a spectacular goal vs. the Netherlands
Postcards From Brazil, Part 4: Ivi's World Cup Adventure
June 21, 2014 | Women's Soccer
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...LINKS
PHOTO GALLERY: Ivi Casagrande at the World Cup
Ivi at the World Cup: First Update (Mon., June 16)
Ivi at the World Cup: Second Update (Tue., June 17)
Ivi at the World Cup: Third Update (Wed., June 18)
Tim Cahill's goal vs. Netherlands (ESPNFC.com)
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Game day! Another exciting day for us. Today we played against Netherlands. We woke up early in the morning, had breakfast and waited for our buses to arrive in the Hotel. We left the Sheraton Hotel around 8 am to go to the airport. We had a charter flight scheduled for 9 am with destination to Porto Alegre. We arrived in Porto Alegre around noon and we had a police escort to guide us to the stadium because we had only one hour to get there before game time. It was quite an exciting and awesome experience to be escorted by the police. We didn't have to deal with all the traffic and the city literally stopped in order for our buses to drive safely to the stadium. Everyone on the streets would get their phones and started taking pictures of the buses and they started waving for us. As soon as we got to the stadium we started rushing to our seats because we had 10 minutes to find our seats before the start of the game. Beira Rio, the stadium, was huge! It took us the exact 10 minutes to get to our seats, we had to run all around the stadium to get to our gate. The atmosphere was AMAZING. The stadium was completely packed, way more fans of the Aussies fans than the Dutch. We started singing and cheering for Australia really loud. Final score was 3-2 Netherlands. However, we were so proud of the Socceroos for their amazing performance against one of the best teams in the competition. Tim Cahill scored one of the most beautiful goals I have ever seen. We were so hopeful we could beat Netherlands, especially when we scored our second goal and the game was 2-2. It was sad to see our journey was coming to an end but the pride everyone was feeling about the boys were priceless. We left the stadium after the game and went straight to the airport to get our flight back to Vitoria.
June 19
Today the family had a Leisure Day. I arranged a laundry day for the families and also scheduled some soccer at 3 pm with some boys that wanted to get together to play. The Cahill's, Milligan's and Jedinak's came with me to a soccer field so we played for one hour together. It was so fun to play with the families and they are all so funny and nice. They had a blast! We came back to the hotel to get their laundry back and we all started to get ready for dinner in a Brazilian barbecue restaurant. I quickly met Tim Cahill and took a picture with him. Words cannot describe how happy I was. When we arrived in the restaurant and started eating, all the families were so excited for the Brazilian barbecue experience. Our Australian Security, Scott, ordered every single kind of meat on the buffet! He sure was taking all in from the Brazilian experience. We had a great time hanging out with the families. We still have one more game to go against Spain on Monday and we cannot wait to see them playing again!
Check back to BGSUFalcons.com in the near future for more updates from Ivi!
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