You may have noticed EURO 2016 is on in France at the moment. I tried to get some tickets through the UEFA lottery during the spring for some games played in Nice, but failed unfortunately. So when Aki told me he had a couple of spare tickets for tone of the quarter-finals, I was more than happy to join the Finnish posse for a bit of footie!
The game was in Marseille, which meant leaving work a bit early, and catching the TGV from Antibes down to Marseille. The voyage went smoothly, and I then got the metro down to the train station, where I joined Aki and the rest of the Finns outside the impressive new football stadium (Le Stade de Velodrome). The game was between Poland and Portugal. The pre-game atmosphere was great - a bit surprisingly, the atmosphere was mostly created by the Polish fans (after all, there are a lot of people with Portuguese origin living in France!).
The match itself was, unfortunately, no classic. I had high expectations given that one Christiano Ronaldo was playing for Portugal, and one Lewandowski playing for Poland. Lewandowski did score the first goal with an impressive strike in the 2nd minute (his first in the championships - a bit disappointing considering his record for Bayer Munich).
After a rather uninspired starting period (where Ronaldo looked rather disinterested), Portugal picked up the pace in the second period, and eventually scored a well-deserved equalized thanks to a brilliant strike form promising young Renato Sanches.
After two periods of extra-time, where most teams seemed content to keep the status quo, it was time for penalties. My heart beat for Poland, but Portugal edged ahead thanks to some coolly taken penalties. All in all, a deserved win.
The trip back to Antibes was a bit of a pain, I was back at home around 3 AM in the morning. Still, it was definitely worth it! Not a classic match, but great atmosphere - I particularly liked the effort put in by the Polish fans. And no sign of the sad hooliganism that's marked way too many matches in this tournament!
The game was in Marseille, which meant leaving work a bit early, and catching the TGV from Antibes down to Marseille. The voyage went smoothly, and I then got the metro down to the train station, where I joined Aki and the rest of the Finns outside the impressive new football stadium (Le Stade de Velodrome). The game was between Poland and Portugal. The pre-game atmosphere was great - a bit surprisingly, the atmosphere was mostly created by the Polish fans (after all, there are a lot of people with Portuguese origin living in France!).
The match itself was, unfortunately, no classic. I had high expectations given that one Christiano Ronaldo was playing for Portugal, and one Lewandowski playing for Poland. Lewandowski did score the first goal with an impressive strike in the 2nd minute (his first in the championships - a bit disappointing considering his record for Bayer Munich).
After a rather uninspired starting period (where Ronaldo looked rather disinterested), Portugal picked up the pace in the second period, and eventually scored a well-deserved equalized thanks to a brilliant strike form promising young Renato Sanches.
After two periods of extra-time, where most teams seemed content to keep the status quo, it was time for penalties. My heart beat for Poland, but Portugal edged ahead thanks to some coolly taken penalties. All in all, a deserved win.
The trip back to Antibes was a bit of a pain, I was back at home around 3 AM in the morning. Still, it was definitely worth it! Not a classic match, but great atmosphere - I particularly liked the effort put in by the Polish fans. And no sign of the sad hooliganism that's marked way too many matches in this tournament!
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