Nicolai acknowledges the crowd as he is introduced at today’s Power Shot competition. Each team competing in the Amputee World Cup was invited to enter two players to determine who has the fastest shot in the world. Athletes take 3 penalty kicks which are timed with a radar gun. Highest speed wins. Nicolai placed third with a speed of 57mph. First and second went to El Salvador and Argentina with kicks of 58mph. Interestingly, Nico had the highest average speed of 56.3mph compared to 55mph for the others.

After Nico collected his award, posed for pictures and did a couple of interviews, team USA practiced before heading out for a casual lunch. The US will face Poland in the first match of the elimination rounds tomorrow. We have two chances of beating them; slim and none. Nevertheless, the team is gearing up to put their best effort forward and would be thrilled if we can earn a single goal in the match.

Maya, looking every bit the Mexican senorita, stakes out high ground to record video of the USA versus Turkey match. A professional video crew from Turkey showed up and tried to displace her citing the quality of their equipment. I asked them if they would be recording at 4K UHDTV and that seemed to shut them up. Their tripod can be seen on the next tier down.

Although we won the video showdown, the same cannot be said for the match. The Turkish team controlled the game from the first whistle and it is a credit to our defense that we limited them to a 2-0 victory. Fortunately our goal differential for group play was sufficient to avoid elimination and for the first time in history, the US team has advanced to the elimination phase.

Nico earned a yellow card early in the first half. Everyone other than Nico agrees that he deserved one for the cumulative effect of his punishing style of play. This meant that he had to play with great caution for the remainder of the game to avoid a second card which would have sent him to the bench and left his team a man down. Pictured below, he takes on Turkey’s top player winning the ball high in the air.

After the game we bid farewell to Burton and Tito who are headed to the Copper Canyon by way of El Fuerte. Kyle and I are hoping to join them in a few days but that will depend on how well the US fares against Poland on Thursday.

The US had a day off, accepting a forfiet from Iran. The Mexican World Cup organizing committee is responsible for providing food for all the competing athletes during the games. They had originally committed to ensure that food prepared according to halal principles would be provided for the Iranian contingent. When they reneged on this promise, the Iranian team withdrew. The Calabria contingent, minus Nico who needed to scout Turkey and review Japan game footage, took advantage of the situation to make a day trip to Mazatlan. We arrived by noon, made a brief tour of the old city and had the MOST amazing lunch ever.

We then walked down to the beach and strolled up the promenade where we had a chance to watch a pair of cliff divers taking a 45 foot plunge into 8 feet of undulating seas (I will post video/pics when we return). Kyle ventured to the diving platform but wisely decided not to attempt the feat.

See if you can figure out which part of the statue below is alive.

We concluded our sightseeing with an ice cream break and then made the 2 hour and 45 minute return drive to Culiacan.