Our Big Day: Attending A World Cup Game
Thu 15 Jun
I woke up with an amazing sense of anticipation. Today was the day Aaron and I were going to see Sweden play Paraguay. This game was probably going to determine who would be joining England as qualifiers from group B.
Aaron, Jannis and I took the bikes to H&M to get some t-shirts which we were going to get printed for the big game; represent NZ and all that. This turned out to be a bit of a mission, but we got the t-shirts printed and were home about 3:30 which gave us an hour to get ready before we had to catch the train to Olympiastadion (American sprinter Jesse Owens won four gold medals here at the 1936 Olympic Games).
We successfully picked up the tickets (we needed our passports to prove who we were) and wondered if there would be room for us to watch England/Trinidad & Tobago in the bar beside the stadium entrance; there was. Perfecto. We chatted to a couple of Swedish fans and hung out with some English lads over for the game too.
After England won 2-0 we joined the queue to the Stadium. Once in we both went mad. We were so overwelmed; the people in their team's colours, the singing and chanting that had already begun, the sheer size of the stadium. This was going to be incredible. We grabbed some refreshments and found our seats; third row back look diagonally down the ground from behind the goal - the cheap seats, but probably the closest to the action.
We watched the game, desperate to see a goal, but the crowd got a lot of our attention. Seeing 72,000 people doing a Mexican Wave was spectacular - so memorable. Like the German game the night before we had to wait until about the last 5 minutes before we saw a gooooooal. Ljungberg. Brilliant. 1-0 Sverige. Although low-scoring, this was one of the better games I have seen so far this World Cup. Fast-paced and lots of shots on goal.
An unforgettable day.
I woke up with an amazing sense of anticipation. Today was the day Aaron and I were going to see Sweden play Paraguay. This game was probably going to determine who would be joining England as qualifiers from group B.Aaron, Jannis and I took the bikes to H&M to get some t-shirts which we were going to get printed for the big game; represent NZ and all that. This turned out to be a bit of a mission, but we got the t-shirts printed and were home about 3:30 which gave us an hour to get ready before we had to catch the train to Olympiastadion (American sprinter Jesse Owens won four gold medals here at the 1936 Olympic Games).
We successfully picked up the tickets (we needed our passports to prove who we were) and wondered if there would be room for us to watch England/Trinidad & Tobago in the bar beside the stadium entrance; there was. Perfecto. We chatted to a couple of Swedish fans and hung out with some English lads over for the game too.After England won 2-0 we joined the queue to the Stadium. Once in we both went mad. We were so overwelmed; the people in their team's colours, the singing and chanting that had already begun, the sheer size of the stadium. This was going to be incredible. We grabbed some refreshments and found our seats; third row back look diagonally down the ground from behind the goal - the cheap seats, but probably the closest to the action.
We watched the game, desperate to see a goal, but the crowd got a lot of our attention. Seeing 72,000 people doing a Mexican Wave was spectacular - so memorable. Like the German game the night before we had to wait until about the last 5 minutes before we saw a gooooooal. Ljungberg. Brilliant. 1-0 Sverige. Although low-scoring, this was one of the better games I have seen so far this World Cup. Fast-paced and lots of shots on goal.An unforgettable day.
posted by jadodgson at 2:42 pm
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