SK Slavia vs. Tottenham Hotspurs

Last night I went to see my first pro soccer game, it was an experience. SK Slavia is the local team and because they are the best Czech team the qualified for the Champions league which is the best few teams from each league. They did well enough in the Champions league to qualify for the EUFA Cup which is why they were playing Tottenham, a team from the English Premiership. Tottenham is the better team by a fair amount and won 2-1. I can now understand why people are into pro soccer, I never did before this experience. I have always thought that soccer was too slow and that not enough ever happened. Tottenham already had a 2-0 lead at half time and was in total control of the match but Slavia came back after half time totally fired up and they were the better looking team in the second half. They scored their goal to bring themselves within 1 in about the 65 minute—soccer games are 90 minutes. The next 25 minutes were very tense; I was really getting into it and every time Slavia got close to scoring was intense. Slavia had some great opportunities but couldn’t quite finish. I am glad that I now understand the draw to soccer and won’t make fun of it anymore, well not as much anyway. The Slavia stadium was torn down recently and they are building a new one so they played in the crappiest stadium I’ve ever seen. It was small and rusty and just screamed Cold War construction. I saw some concept art on the internet of the new stadium and it looks like it will be amazing, I guess I’ll have to come back eventually to see a game there. The fans are a large part of what made the game exciting, they are hugely dedicated to the game and did a lot of yelling and chants. The chants are awesome, the whole stadium—minus the visitors section—chanting in unison. It was also interesting to learn that they don’t boo, they whistle to jeer the other team and mostly the ref. At first we went to the upper deck, where our tickets were for, but we left after half time because it was very obvious that we were not wanted there. In the second half we learned it was because we got confused and sat with the season ticket holders, that explains the stares, glares, and the guy who said a bunch of stuff to me in Czech that I didn’t understand. We were going to leave early, it was cold and we wanted to beat the rush, plus the team was losing 2-0. Once Slavia scored and the game got intense we decided to stay until the end, I’m glad we did it was very fun and exciting. As the game wound down the announcer asked the Tottenham fans not to leave their seats until instructed to do so and as we walked out we saw about 100 cops all in full riot gear on just our side of the stadium. They are serious about game security, there guys looked they were about to invade and didn’t look like they’d hesitate to use their clubs. Soccer fans are so rabid they won’t even let them leave the stadium at the same time, wow. I guess that’s part of what make the game great. Also, I got a Slavia jersey earlier in the day (thank you Grandma and Grandpa), it’s really cool and I’m going to wear it this weekend when CEA takes us all to Liberec, a Czech city.