Editor’s note – Typos in the previous couple of entries can be attributed to the whacky Portuguese keyboards. Back on familiar turf with my PC.
Having slept in for the first time on the trip, I was feeling tip top. Bernard and I spent the morning wandering around the northern part of the inner city, where there were several parks to laze about in. One place even had a Lake Burly Griffin-esque water feature (which one bloke took his shirt off and waded through – no worries).
We had several hours to kill before heading to the Sporting Lisbon match, so we went to the pub to watch the EPL. Was great to watch football during the day, rather than half asleep at 2/3 am. We watched Everton fight back against Man Utd and Bernard insisted we watch Arsenal V Bolton. It was probably best we didn’t catch the Spurs game.
We quickly went back to the hostel – where I found out the Tigers had lost in a heart breaker… I was still very excited to be catching my first game of football in Europe.
We arrived at the Jose Avalade stadium, which was completely re done for the Euro 2004 Championships held in Portugal. It’s an awesome stadium, not many bad seats. We paid not much and got some of the best seats available (which is a trend in Portugal…Pay little, get heaps). The atmosphere was excellent, but sadly Sporting were not. They wasted several chances to take this game out, but just couldn’t. They were probably pretty lucky not to go down, as the Olanese had a perfectly good goal disallowed. The Portuguese have great talent on the ball, but their tactics and final delivery just isn’t as good. So many times they would break down the wings and then just faff about instead of crossing it all in. I guess that’s because most people in the country are so short. Bernard and I are giants amongst them. Anyhow, I loved my first footballing experience, despite the game being a bit ordinary.
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| 2010-09-14 |
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