NEW YORK - The World Cup has hit the Red Bull Air Race this week with pilots from seven countries in soccer tournament represented with pilots in the race.
The pilots, their crews and the Red Bull Air Race staff have been huddling around giant TV screens to watch many of the matches from South Africa and many of the age-old national rivalries have flared into the open. There's a lot of Schadenfreude all around when each others' team loses.
Here is a summary of what some of the pilots from England, the United States, Australia, Spain, Germany, France and Japan are saying:
Paul Bonhomme (England)
“Here we are in New York and the World Cup is in full flow. we’ve had great fun watching Switzerland beat Spain and we enjoyed going into Alejandro’s hangar on that one. Jesus, his engineeer, is not very happy. But Richie, who’s swiss, is over the moon. So that’s quite good fun.
We’ve taken great delight in watching Mexico beat France. We’ve also taken great delight watching Germany be beaten. So the banter is pretty good.
And it’s also nice asking the Austrians how they’re getting on -- oops, sorry! They’re not in the World Cup. The only thing we’re worried about is that England don’t seem to have found their form yet. I watched the second half of their draw against Algeria. So let’s hope they pick it up soon.”
Michael Goulian (USA)
“So everyone wants to know what I think about soccer...I mean football, ah, no I think it’s soccer. Well, you know, it looks to me like the Americans are doing pretty well here -- and we don’t even care about soccer in the United States. And we’re still hanging in there with the rest of the world.
What I think will be really fun would be to play England again and beat them. Oh, we almost did. Oh, no they beat themselves on that one. So they’re probably going to look for Paul and Nigel to help them out on the next round. We’re rooting for the Americas because it’s fun to watch them upset all of those crazy European countries out there who live and die by the football field.”
Matt Hall (Australia)
“It’s pretty interesting to have the World Cup going on at the moment while I’ve got such an international group of my ‘friends’ together. I find myself in a very unique situation to be watching the World Cup with all these other countries around me. Typically you sit at home in your own country and cheer for your own team. There’s quite a bit of rivalry going on. There’s the big screen we’ve been watching on it on. For me, now the New York race is over, I’m probably going to have a cold beverage and watch the World Cup and root my mates.”Matthias Dolderer (Germany)
“I think our Germans are doing pretty good after the 4-0 win against Australia, which I predicted. Before the game I picked a 4-0 result. Then we lost 1-0 to Serbia. But who cares? I think we should be able to beat Ghana and maybe make it to the the quarter finals. Germany is always really good in the World Cup. Let’s see how they do. Good luck, guys.”
Alejandro Maclean (Spain)
“How is Spain going to do in the World Cup? I hope they win, but only if they really deserve it. So far they’re not really good. However, look at the Germans, look at England. England technically lost against the U.S. and had a 0-0 result in the last match so they’re not doing well. I hope they keep doing it like that and Spain improve.”
Nicolas Ivanoff (France)
“What do I have to say about the World Cup? I think we have the best French team. I think the French team won the tournament in the past. I think we have one of the best teams. This team is really the best.”
Yoshi Muroya (Japan)
The World Cup -- England against Argentina, I think? All I know is all the guys from England stopped working, when the game is going on. We’re waiting until the game stops.”
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