Austria Wien 2-3 Dinamo Zagreb, Tuesday 27th August 2013

Austria Wien 2-3 Dinamo Zagreb, att. 10,500 (capacity) (Champions League Play-off, 2nd leg)

Welcome to ...

A packed house (capacity: 10,500) at the Generali Arena, as homesters Austria Vienna took on the Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb.  The prize?  A £10m windfall in the form of Champions League qualification, and a greater chance of repeating the whole process next year.  1. win league 2. scrape through qualification process 3. get mullered by everyone and finish bottom of the group.  Well, that's the plan.

Almost crane-like.

Pre-match was a doddle. Met up with Londontyke exiles Bob and Mo in the ‘Irish pub of the Year 2004’ for a couple of beers, before being guided into the southern Viennese suburbs via U-bahn and tram to Austria's ground.  And well done Bob's season ticket holding workmate for helping sort tickets.

Mo looks pleased to be in.

I know what the Austrian press has since written about the Bad Blue Boys (Dinamo’s ferocious support), so let me tell you another perspective of life as a Dinamo fan: Get to ground early; queue in orderly fashion, then watch as ALL the home fans are ushered past you and into the ground.  Although potentially running a narrow gauntlet past said fans, they stood patiently in their ‘kettle’, awaiting their turn.  Thus, Bob, Mo, Sarah and I took our seats.  10-15 minutes in, flares started landing on the pitch from behind the stand.  I stood on a chair. Over the dividing wall and lo!  The Zagreb fans STILL hadn't been allowed in.  Now, I know my team has little chance of ever getting a game in Europe, but I know how p***ed off I’d be if I was kept outside while the game was going on.

A flare lands on the pitch.

Presumably this was all an attempt to keep the fans segregated.  However, it's not Zagreb fans’ fault that they had to walk through the home turnstiles to get to the away block.  And when Zagreb scored, you could see pockets of Croatian fans on three sides of the pitch in the home ends, celebrating.  What do you do when the match is a sell-out?

...while away fans remain kettled outside.

2-0 up from the 1^st leg (against the odds), Austria notch again after 5 minutes.  I’d barely settled.  We’re in for an easy time of it, then.  Not a bit of it.  Zagreb pull their socks up and by half-time are leading 1-2.  Some of their fans might even have seen the 2^nd.

Dinamo fans celebrate scoring.

At half-time I declare I'm not having another beer but will buy anyone else one who cares for it.  The beer’s horrid.  Turns out to be alcohol-free, but surely alcohol doesn't taste of anything?  Bob had an inkling beforehand but presumed the lager-coloured liquid was the real thing.  No-one had another, although I felt the Croatian calling the kiosk servers ‘criminals’ for refusing him a litre of beer didn’t know what favour he’d gained.

The teams come out.

It was all Zagreb second half.  The best Austria could hope for was a break and that wasn't going to happen.  Time and again Zagreb swept forward. It was only a matter of time.  Then it came.  Despite heroics from the home keeper, he was beaten by a looping header.  Austria's dreams of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich et al looked depleted

Hilariously (given what comes), Zagreb throw on defenders for forwards.  They had done their job, 3-1 up, through on away goals.  So the game plan was blown to bits on 82 minutes when Austria scored on a breakaway, a sub of their own bundling in a cross.

Makeshift segregation at the back of the stand.

Thereafter, the game slowed.  Zagreb no longer had the personnel to attack, while Austria were happy to wind down the clock.  Full-time, 2-3 (4-3 on aggregate) and it was joy unconfined.  One or two Austrians were even in tears.  Getting through to the group stages meant everything to these fans (and players).  It was a welcome respite to the likes of Arsenal spending the season moaning about the competition before their usual early exit.

Unbelievable!  Austria are through!  

Good luck Austria.  Their group games will be played at the national stadium (capacity: 50,000) but they were unlucky with the draw, pulling Atletico Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg and Porto.  Maybe they’ll learn from their city mates Rapid, who did the same and sold out the stadium in 3 match packages.  However, they were forced to play the games behind closed doors and offered fans league games instead of a refund.  I shouldn’t laugh.

My summer of football was at a conclusion, I could concentrate on touristing with the other half.  Now, where’s the nearest palace?

The Damage:
€25 ent

Austria Wien wall.

Anti-missile devices.

The Champs Lge banner (?) gets an outing.

The teams line up.

A couple of Austrians show their colours.

Match action.

Zagreb fans still kettled after kick-off.

Down the touchline.

Club shop.

Spot the policeman.

Viktoria Plzen 6-2 Nomme Kalju (UEFA Champions League), Wednesday 7th August 2013

Viktoria Plzen 6-2 Nomme Kalju (Champions League)

A whale in Plzen, yesterday.

Where possible, I try to avoid situations which lead me to feel too self-conscious.   Today, I failed.

Having just attended the tour of the Plzen Urquell brewery, replete with unpasteurised pilsner (ahhhh, the amber nectar), I passed the stadium on the way into town.  Yes, I went a very circuitous route.  As it was a couple of hours or so to kick-off, I thought I’d pop in and get my ticket early, job’s a good  un.  However, the main ticket office was closed, a note suggesting it was temporary.  Nonetheless, I didn’t fancy waiting, so I headed towards a portacabin, and, here’s the clue – it was outside the away end.

'My'kiosk.

I think I startled the old guy in charge of ticket selling. He’d yet to get said tickets out of his brown leather satchel (stylish!)  I’d been umming and arring where to sit. Should I go ‘large’  in the upper tier of the Big Stand, or a seat behind the goals?  But this was quibbling between paying 120/150 CHK (£4/£5). So why not leave it to chance and see what I get?
I’ll tell you why not.  You get a ticket in the away end, a team of minnows 4-0 down from the 1^st leg, whose national sport is wife carrying.  You will find yourself ON YOUR OWN at kick off time with the rest of the stadium wondering whothehell is loyal enough to make that sort of journey.  I didn’t fancy having 9000-odd pairs of eyes on me (not that they were, but we all have a look at the away end to see how many they’ve brought, don’t we?)  So, with the pick of the seats, I sat high up, 2^nd row off the back.  All the better for seeing the action at the far end.

The old terrace...directly behind one of the stands.

Thank goodness then, after 5 minutes, I was joined in the away corner by someone else -  a good looking lady in a bright orange dress.  Dressed for the exec boxes, I’d have thought. Maybe Estonians have higher standards (probably!)  Was she even a fan?  It could have been the press officer for Viktoria for all I knew.


Kalju scored.  ‘Quintieri’.  Didn’t sound very Estonian to me.  He turned out to be Italian, while elsewhere in the team there were 2 Japanese, a Gambian and the obligatory Brazilian.  Who knew?  Quintieri took a sharp pass on the edge of the apex of the 6 yard box and dragged the ball into the far corner.  Shock.

Kalju's hardcore away support.

It was all Plzen though and only poor shooting was preventing them from scoring.  When playing sides much worse, teams forget the basics and think they can score from anywhere.  Consequently, we had Viktoria players hitting the stand from all kinds of distances.

The equaliser, about 20 minutes in, came from nothing. A harmless cross was gathered at the near post by the Kalju keeper.  ‘Penalty’ said the ref.  I guess some idiot shoved a Viktoria player right in front of him, though protests suggested otherwise.

Resistance was broken and Viktoria were 2-1 up at the break with an OUTSTANDING hit.  The ball was rolled in from the right and the Plzen player let the ball go across him before rifling it into the top corner with his left.  I was right behind it – the keeper never stood a chance.

The view to my left.

At half-time I trotted to the loo (another lonely experience) before I met Kalju’s other fan on the stairs.  We got chatting and it turned out, quite by coincidence, that she’d been sent to a conference in Plzen that very week.  If only she’d found out about the game sooner, I suspect she’d have been in the VIP section – she knew the club’s owner.  His usual business apparently is club owner (a nightclub; it didn’t sound like his business stretched that far).  So, we sat together in the second half.  She hadn’t joined me when she came in cos she could tell I wasn’t Estonian – while I was thinking she hadn’t joined me cos SHE wasn’t Estonian.  Surely, if she was, she’d come and join her fellow brethren.

The cleanest half time toilets I've ever seen.

Kalju were terrible.  During the 2^nd half they tried ever more resourceful ways to concede goals and lost 6-2.  At least I’d seen some goals.  The one I remember best was either a classy finish, or was completely telegraphed seconds before he hit the ball.  The pass was laid back to him, 25 yards out, and with defenders in front of him he curled the ball in with his left peg.  Nice finish,but avoidable.  Worse, this player didn’t look a pound under 16 stones.  Think Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock.  The way he celebrated suggested he didn’t get many.

The stand to my right (the old chunk of terrace is behind this).

The Plzen fans left happy.  I was expecting a very small crowd tonite, but they turned out in numbers.  Many of the empty seats were behind the goal, suggesting a lot of fans wanted to avoid the ultras, who perhaps numbered 500 directly behind one net.   It was another decent atmosphere for the most part (urged on by a man with a drum) with most of the stadium clapping in kind to certain chants.  And what do you do when you’re winning THIS easily?  That’s right, get the Mexican Wave going.  I think they'd done this before, cos when it got to the away end, the wave didn’t ‘jump’ past us, but turned back on itself.  A neat idea to stop any visiting fans spoiling the fun.  Oh, and on a miscellaneous note, Plzen use the same music as Norwich City to celebrate a goal.  Go Delia!

Attendance: 9,482  (Doosan Arena)

The Damage: 
CHK 120 (£4) ent

Tunes: 
Lunatico (Gotan Project)
Aman Iman: Water is Life (Tinariwen)
The Best of… (Hardfloor)

Main ticket office (closed).

Match prices.

Main Stand

Back of stand opposite Main Stand.

Welcome to...

Main Stand

U Sektor.

Its not often I see a climbing wall outside a stadium...

...let alone beach volleyball.

back of Main Stand

The old terrace and back of stand

Champions!

The Doosan by night.

Match action

The Perfect Czech meal...unfiltered Pilsner Urquell

..with goulash in bread.  Love it!

Basel 1-0 Maccabi Tel Aviv, Tuesday 30th July 2013 (UEFA Champions League, 3rd qualifying round, 1st leg)

A waterpark with a difference, pre-match

I arrived in Basel early, certainly early enough to get to the stadium to buy a ticket before I went off exploring. Shame then that at 3pm the stadium was completely shut. Was I even in the right place though? From the outside, it looks like a mixture of flats, conference halls and a shopping centre – all of which it is. And that’s not even the bit wot looks like a huge metal buboe bulging from its armpit. But inside, there lurks a football stadium, and a smart one at that. The two ends are two-tiered, while a huge three-tiered stand skirts around the corner at one end. But what time was kick off?

A small clue there's a football stadium somewhere...

I’d read somewhere it was 7 o’clock, but I chose to disregard such information. Surely it was an 8:45 KO, given the lack of openness at St. Jakob Park. So I pootled around the streets of Basel, wandered along the river (what sights!) and eventually doubled back on myself, all the time unworried by what time the match was to start. Easy life. I got there 7:30. I knew the match had started cos I could vaguely hear some sound through an exit. (Bloody good soundproofing, all these flats, conference halls, etc).

Basel ultras

I’d missed half an hour. Thankfully, the players, no doubt aware of my misfortune, had evidently refused to open their account. Within minutes, I’d seen the only goal of the game. A tasty move from right to left ended with a flick on to a player who drove it home from the edge of the box. It was like rugby (in the rare event of some skill shown), where the defending team (Maccabi) were dragged too far to one side and 3 or 4 sideways (yet forward – as all passes in rugby are: if you run and throw a ball sideways, it will still go forward because of your momentum). Sorry…where was I? Yes, swift sideways passes and it left the last attacker all on his own to dive…sorry…finish it in the far corner. Something like that anyway. And that was it.

Half-time fayre, Basel-style

No more scoring, a couple of near misses, a few brief flirtations and that was that. A comfortable home win though it should’ve been 2 or 3. The fans? Maccabi brought a smattering among the 12,523 who attended. By far the busiest area was the fankurve behind the goal, where I sat, but it was still a case of peas rattling around a tunnel. When I asked for the cheapest ticket, the lady apologised. ‘But it will be with the Basel fans.’ Which brought me to another irritation; cos I couldn’t buy a match ticket earlier, I’d scrimped on my Swiss francs all day cos I didn’t know how much I’d need to get in. (Later on, I found I coulda bought a match ticket from the club shop.) Anyway, everything else in this town was expensive, so why not the football? In the end it was 19 CHF (£13). Job’s a good un. And I managed a cheeky upgrade too, sneaking upstairs for the 2nd half and having a wonderful view.

Random bunting under the stand

The ultras made a decent rattle till tailing off late on. Still, with virtually no away fans and the other stands less than densely populated, you’re whistling to yourself really. So, I’ve a few francs left and while technically still in Switzerland, Deutsche Bahn just made me pay for a coffee in Euros. Grrrrr! Understandable, I s'pose. In my pocket I now possess change in pounds, euros, zlotys and francs. I’m liking the sound of a common European currency more and more.

The basics: 
match: 19 CHF
Sausage and a beer: 12 CHF (£8 – like in England, but worse!)
programme: small, but free
badge: none in club shop
= 31CHF(£22)

The Tunes:
The Three E.P.s - The Beta Band
several episodes of 'Fighting Talk'

Room for several little uns...

Does what it says on the tin.  And it is a tin.

Impressive triple-decker

Sunset over St. Jakob

You are here!

Somewhere in there is a footie stadium waiting to get out

Selfridges, Birmingham...or St. Jakob Park?

Sektor D.  You have been told.

Lower tier behind the goal

Upper tier behind the goal