Advertisement
Published: March 5th 2008
the crazy huge banner
they unfurled this monster before the game, it was pretty nuts. all of these pictures are from my roomie aaron edwards¡FUTBOL! we ended up getting to go to the champions league game last night against fenerbaçhe, a team from turkey. it was pretty crazy. i went to 2 decent games in the states: man u vs bayern munich and usa vs brasil, however the atmosphere here blew them away.
estadio sanchez pizjuan was packed and everybody at these games is a fanatic. there are not a lot of casual european soccer fans. the songs that the fans sing are awesome and just about everyone in the stadium sings every word. it was crazy. our señora used to be a season ticket holder and she tried to teach us some of the lyrics to the songs but the songs are actually fairly long and all in spanish doesn´t really help. here are some links of the song.
this one is like a music video of the song with pics from the city and lyrics
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vJ796uXclr0
this one is harder to follow but it´s the actual song at a the stadium against barcelona
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_EgKOQyxoU&watch_response
champions league is a tournament for the top clubs in each league across europe. in this round each team plays an away game and a home game
the roomies and brad´s mom
this was in the patio of hotel alfonso xiii before the game. against the same other team. in the away game we lost 3-2 so we have to win this one. after total goals, the first tie breaker is away goals. i only bring this up because it became important later.
we took a lead right away up 2-0. the we each scored one more going into the half 3-1. if this score holds up, we win and advance to the next round. the second half is sloppier and neither team really gets too close. with 15 minutes i turn to my roommate and say, we´re getting close to the next round! way to jinx it, ryan.
so fenerbaçhe scores and it´s 3-2. 2 more 15 minute overtimes and we´re still tied. oddly, this is the first cooler night in sevilla and we´re outside up high with the wind whipping around and naturally the game goes into overtime. but i digress. after overtime the penalty kicks start. it´s like the most stressful thing to watch in all of sports, in my opinion. it´s like watching at least 7 or 8 last second free throws in basketball, some games go through 20 of them before the games decided! in this case
us and some fenerbache randoms
they were in the patio too so we took a group pic. the one guy was from kansas city, random it was a little more efficient, unfortunately. teams alternate to see who will make the best of 5 kicks. we both made the first and stopped the second. then we missed, they made and we both made the next one. so we have to make our kick and then stop theirs just to keep the game going. we didn´t get a great kick and their keeper guessed the right way. there isn´t a ton of skill involved in a shootout. essentially, the goalie guesses left, right, or center and the shooter does the same. obviously it gets slightly more complex than that but when the game goes into a shootout, all bets are off.
we didn´t win, but it was still an amazing experience. aaron has some pictures that i will try to post when i get the chance.
also i´ve been upset about the retirement of brett favre. i´ve only known for a little over 24 hours but it is starting to sink in. today i watched a dozen videos online about it on espn and youtube and read 5 or so articles. here´s the link to my favorite one:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3276537&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1
well, on friday i´m
fans section without huge banner
they waved these flags and jumped up and down the whole game including overtimes and shootout. that´s dedication off to madrid. i plan on seeing the prado, museo reina sofia, el buen retiro, and hopefully el escorial and la valle de los caidos. hasta luego
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0318s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
