El Salvador
The Seattle Sounders won the US Open Cup on September 2, 2009 and therefore qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League. I went to the US Open Cup Final in DC to watch the Sounders win and knew then that I wanted to go to the first Champions League away game too. It wasn’t until about June of 2010 that the first game was announced to be in El Salvador vs Isidro Metapan from Metapan. Because Metapan’s stadium did not meet CONCACAF’s requirments for Champions League the game was moved to the national stadium in San Salvador.
The game was scheduled for August 3, 2010. This fit into the Sounder’s schedule so that I could connect the weekend before in San Francisco to watch the Sounders play the San Jose Earthquakes, watch the weekday game in El Salvador, and then get back to Seattle just in time for the next weekend’s game versus the Houston Dynamo. I went on this trip with the Emerald City Supporters, about 150 went to San Jose and 14 went all the way to El Salvador, so it was my ultimate Sounders vacation. Luckily we prevailed in all three games too.
One of the guys who went to El Salvador is half Salvadorian so we had a local guide to help us get around. We saw Cathedrals, Cities, Mountains, Forests, Lakes, Beaches, and got a really good feel of the country thanks to his help.
Check out the pictures below. I recommend using PicLens for a slideshow.
