I was part of this group of individuals who were sent to go take a loss and then head back home. So we traveled. Because we weren’t the 1st team, our travel arrangements weren’t particularly accommodating. We started traveling from Colorado the day before the game and had a six-hour layover in Houston before landing in El Salvador. Once we arrived in El Salvador we had to drive an additional two hours to get to our hotel. When we finally arrived to our hotel it was 1 AM so we went to our rooms and tried to rest before the morrow’s game.

The next morning we went through our regular preparations: team breakfast, team walk, whiteboard session, and the pre-game meal. It wasn’t until the pre-game meal that we were all talking about how we had been thrown under the bus. In addition, we rallied around how this was an incredible opportunity to prove everyone back home wrong and show them what we were capable of. We rallied around each other and you could feel a sense of belief amongst all of my teammates. We couldn’t wait for the game.

The game was at night but we had to leave very early because the stadium was a two-hour drive away. None of that mattered so we excitedly loaded up the busses and prepared for battle. Once we finally arrived at Estadio Jorge Calero Suarez Stadium I was shocked at what I saw. It was a small and rural stadium with a maximum capacity of 8,000. There were unpaved road, stray animals, and even a donkey casually standing outside of the stadium. The atmosphere was not what we were used to; it was very humbling. Once we got off of the bus, fans swarmed us to shake our hands and ask for autographs. Im’ pretty sure they had no idea who the Colorado Rapids even were, but it didn’t matter to them. Once we got through the fans we walked down to our locker room so we could prepare for the game. We were ready, except for one issue, our equipment manager forgot the entire team’s soccer cleats back at the hotel and we were one hour from kickoff.