Go Big or Go Home

You come halfway around the world to watch football, you have to go to at least one game.

I'm in Vienna for the second half of the tournament - the elimination rounds - and its a very different experience from being in Switzerland. The major difference is that it's hot. Like, really hot. Like, North Carolina hot. After two summers where I haven't had NC hot, it's kind of nice to experience it again. But its also kind of bad, because I have limited clothes and sweat a lot, which might make for a stinky Kevin. Also, the city is much bigger than the Swiss ones, and a lot more...cityish. There are a lot of big buildings and cars, and not much pretty greenery like in Switzerland. Also, the city doesn't seem as football-crazy, but that might just be because its so big and spread-out that the football madness isn't concentrated anywhere.

But back to the point of the post.

So, with stipend money running low, I decided to do the only thing that made reasonable sense. Blow quite a bit of it and actually go to a football game.

As I was taking the train from Zurich to Vienna, I sat with two Irish guys who were following the tounrament and going to the games. They said they had been able to procure tickets to four games so far at little more than face value. I was inspired. I figured I'm probably only following the Euro Cup once, so I might as well indluge and go to a game.

I figured this game would be my best chance. Turkey and Croatia were playing in Vienna, which is the biggest stadium in the tournament. There probably weren't going to be too many looking for tickets, as those countries are quite far away and relatively small. So I waited around outside the stadium until a little while before kickoff, paid a good chunk of change (but not as big as I was expecting) and went it.

Of all the crazy, unlikely, impossible things to happen at this game, as I was in my seat waiting for the game to start, none other than Alex Lim, a fellow UNC student and Morehead Scholar, rolls up into the seat right behind me. Mind you, this is a 51,428 person stadium, and here are two people who know each other sitting behind one another completely randomly.

The game was awesome. We were sitting in the Croatia, and despite being way in the back, still had a good view of the pitch. Croatia pretty much dominated the game, and should have had two or three goals, but seemed to have really bad luck. Turkey took maybe two shots the entire game, and it looked as if it would be Croatia going to the semi finals. But they couldn't find the back of the net.

After 90 minutes the score was still 0-0, so they went into extra time (which was great, because that means more football for my money). With two minutes to go in extra time, Croatia scored, and it seemed like the game winner. The section was going wild singing the one Croatian football song there is (as I clapped along because I don't know a word of Croatian). But then out of nowhere Turkey scored with what was proably less than two minutes left. The Turkey fans and players went wild and the Croatian players just lied down on the field.

At this point, everybody was going crazy.

So the game goes to PKs, and the fans are going crazy. Croatia took the first shot and went just wide, and all the Croats sat down hanging their heads. They would make the enxt and then miss again and have the fourth blocked. At that point, it was all over, and the Turkish crowd errupted in jubilation.

Tonight Holland plays Russia in Basel, and then Sunday Spain plays Italy. The more I watch the more exciting it becomes, and the atmosphere is just infectious. And while I probably don't have the funds to go to any more games, I will be having fun watching on giant TVs.