Rayo Vallecano v Celta de Vigo, Monday 11th December 2023, 9pm

January 29, 2024

The trip to Madrid had originally come about because I’d seen that Rayo Vallecano were playing on a Monday night, presumably for television. I found a hotel right on the edge of Retiro Park that was around a forty minute walk from the ground. It was also handy for the Anthropology Museum that has the skeleton of a giant and the head of a pirate, but unfortunately, that’s closed on Mondays.

The park was ok though, we had a wander around to get the steps in as well as stopping for lunch in one of the restaurants there. It was warmer than you might expect Madrid to be in December and so we sat outside. This had the benefit of sparrows that were bold enough to land on the tablecloth, looking for crumbs. It didn’t take long before some of the braver ones were eating bread directly from my hand.

Earlier that morning I’d walked to the Campo de Futbol de Vallecas to buy my ticket. Most of the tickets that I’ve bought on this trip to Spain have been digital, but Rayo are old school and you can only get them at the ground. At 11am I joined a queue of about a dozen people and picked up a ticket for the upper tier Alta Lateral section. It was fifteen euros which I thought pretty cheap for La Liga. I’ve paid more than that for fourth and fifth tier fixtures.

I liked the look of the stadium. For a start, it’s in the city with shops and houses all around. That compares very favourably with, say, my visit the previous day to Atletico’s new out-of-town super stadium. There’s a Metro station right next to the entrance, but as it’s only a forty-minute walk, it was something that I could leave for others.

The fellas in front of me in the ticket queue were from the away side, Celta de Vigo. It’s a decent trip from Galicia, particularly for a 9pm kick-off on a Monday night. They had baggage with them though, so presumably were staying over, perhaps so that they could pop in and see the pirate’s head the next morning.

That evening I retraced my steps to the ground. It was a lot busier, although I suspect that the streets around the ground would be busy most nights. There were plenty of options for eating and drinking including roadside vendors selling cans of beer from cool boxes. I’m not sure you’d get away with that in the UK.

Lots of people were drinking from cans prior to going in as there’s no alcohol served inside the ground in the top divisions of Spanish football. I’m quite comfortable with that as it’s rarely a pleasurable experience chugging back crap beer in a freezing concourse anyway. I’d be even less comfortable if it were allowed in the seating areas. Whilst they could probably handle it in Spain you just know that goals in England would result in pints being hurled up into the air.

It’s not just the drinking that’s more civilised out here, the relationships between the fans are much more grown up. There’s no problem wearing away colours in the home parts of the ground or with away fans milling around outside the stadium pre or post-match. There were plenty of people wearing Celta scarves around me, something that wouldn’t be tolerated by some of the home fans even in the West Stand at the Boro.

The ground holds about fifteen thousand but wasn’t quite full. I could see a few vacant seats around me and also in the edges of the Tribuna opposite. To my right was the home vocal section where the Rayo fans spent the game singing and waving flags. It was probably the best atmosphere of the trip, certainly better than that at Atletico the day before.

Rayo are mid table and looked much changed from the side that I’d seen nick the win at Yeclano a few days earlier. They were wearing their Peru colours which I’d noticed since arriving in Madrid are also the colours adopted by the city taxis. Celta are third from bottom with Rafa in the dugout.  He’s from Madrid and so probably knows the area around the ground well. I’d like to think that he’ll have popped into Retiro park to hand feed the sparrows too.

Rayo looked good, with some swift one touch passing. Early on I’d have been confident of them taking the points, but half time came and went without them making their superiority count. Celta grew more into the game in the second half and whilst Rayo still had more urgency about them, they couldn’t do enough to break the visitors down. It finished goalless and after a fourth forty-minute stroll of the day I was back in the hotel as midnight approached.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Football, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Atletico Madrid v UE Almeria, Sunday 10th December 2023, 2pm

January 29, 2024

There’s a decent train service from Alicante to Madrid that only takes two hours and twenty minutes and so Jen and I decided to head into the capital for a couple of nights. We arrived mid-morning on the Sunday which should have been plenty of time for a 2pm kick-off at Atletico’s Civitas Metropolitan stadium, but I ballsed the metro up when making our way to the hotel and running out of time I had to take a taxi to the ground.

As you might expect it was busy outside of the seventy-thousand-seater stadium. In addition to the usual scarf and seeds stalls there must have been thirty or so proper food concessions around the outer perimeter of the stadium, selling just about any type of meal or drink you might want. They were all busy too with the queues lengthy enough for me to decide not to bother.

The stadium was extremely impressive, although despite its magnificence I suspect that a lot of the home fans would have preferred to still be at their old ground. It struck me as a Highbury v Emirates scenario.

My seat was behind the goal but in the corner. I’d selected one three rows towards the front of the second tier of four, so it was reasonably close to the action. I’d bought the ticket online for sixty euros but as the crowd was only fifty-five thousand strong for the visit of bottom of the table Almeria, I could have got one at the ticket office if I’d preferred.

Once inside, I bought myself a pulled pork bun. If I’d wanted to, I could have had a zero alcohol Tanqueray gin with it. I’m not a big fan of gin. I’ll drink the alcoholic version at a push, as I will with most alcohol bar the surgical stuff. I can’t see the benefit of a zero-alcohol version though in the way that I can with beer, although it’s the same for any ‘spirit’. I suppose at least with gin flavour you’d sip it slowly.

Atletico started well and after having a decent Griezmann finish belatedly chalked off by VAR, they still managed to find themselves two-up by mid-way through the first half. At that point I suspected a rout. Almeria hung in there though and pulled a goal back in the second half. By the end it was Atletico that was running down the clock and their fans were delighted when the full-time whistle was eventually blown.

After the game I decided just to walk back to the hotel. It seemed an easier option than trying to negotiate the Metro along with thousand of other fans and I didn’t want to shell out for another thirty euro taxi fare. It was about five miles back to our hotel on the south side of Retiro park and took me a little under two hours. I made it back just before dark, which was handy as Madrid must be the dog shit capital of the world. Without the benefit of daylight, I’d have trodden in enough to have ended up an inch taller.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Football, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Alcoyano v Atletico Madrid B, Saturday 9th December 2023, 4pm

January 29, 2024

This game was in Alcoi, which is about an hour’s drive from where Jen and I were staying in Santa Pola. I’d had a look at what the town had to offer and apparently it’s famous for a couple of nearby national parks and some bridges. I didn’t have time before the game for any hiking but I did get to drive over a big suspension bridge.

It was ok, I suppose, but I’m from the part of the world that specialises in bridges and I much prefer the complexity of the Transporter and Newport bridges. I’ve also seen the bridges at Victoria Falls and Sydney harbour that were Teesside built, so neat as the Alcoi effort was, it barely registered.

Initially I struggled for somewhere to park, and drove past the Collao stadium a couple of times before eventually ending up, by fluke, no more than thirty yards from the stand behind one of the goals.

I’d bought my ticket in advance online for twenty-five euros on the basis that a ground that only has a capacity of four and a half thousand may very well sell out for a third tier game. It didn’t though and whilst my section of the Lateral Stand was fairly full, there was plenty of space towards the ends and in other parts of the ground.

Alcoyano, in a blue and white kit that included hooped socks, were hosting Atletico Madrid’s B team. Both sides were sitting just above the relegation zone, although with five of the twenty sides in the division going down, you’d have to be in the automatic promotion spots if you wanted to avoid looking over your shoulder at the lower reaches of the table.

Not a great deal happened in the first half and I spent a fair bit of time trying to work out what information the Atletico analyst next to me was entering into his laptop. He had a colleague who was filming the game and I’d have thought that it might have been easier to glean the stats from a recording afterwards, when you can pause the action as necessary.

The action ramped up after the break, with a scuffle resulting in a couple of yellows and a red. The Alcoyano miscreant took his time departing and removed his shirt in a Keegan/Bremner style sulk to add to the drama.

With a man advantage the Madrid kids eventually got the upper hand and rattled in three goals in the final twenty minutes to take the points. I’d hoped that the sat nav might take me over a different, perhaps better, bridge on the way out of town, but it didn’t so there’s nothing more to add.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Albacete Balompie v Villarreal B, Friday 8th December 2023, 6.30pm

January 29, 2024

If you read reviews of Albacete, it’s not uncommon for people to highlight that it’s a handy place to break your journey if you are heading from, say, Alicante to Madrid. That’s hardly inspiring and, sad to say, seems fairly accurate as the best thing about the place.

Albacete’s other claim to fame is as the knife capital of Spain. That’s probably more impressive, given that Spain is full of knife shops. Spainers love their knives. Albacete even has a knife museum, although as we had turned up on a public holiday, it was shut.

Jen and I were staying slightly out of town as all the hotels in the centre were either full or closed. I suspect the latter. As that meant I had to drive in and park up I got to the Estadio Carlos Belmonte with around an hour to spare. It was already busy with home fans eating and drinking in bars and tents alongside the ground.

I’d bought my ticket in advance online, thirty euros for a second-tier clash with Villarreal’s B team. At sixteen and eighteenth respectively in the table, both sides needed the points if they aspired to mid-table mediocrity.

My seat was pretty decent. Fairly central in the main stand and seven rows from the pitch. The stand opposite had a sort of curvy metallic roof. My initial thought was space-age, although on reflection my idea of space-age is probably rooted in the sixties when space exploration peaked, rather than something futuristic. Whatever. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it had that old-fashioned space age look that’s now half a century out of date. I liked it though.

Right from the start Villarreal looked as if they would be happy with a point. They went down very easily, and the ref was happy to accommodate their time-wasting by stopping play every time to check on their welfare. I’m fine if it’s a head injury, in which case I’d make them undertake a concussion protocol off the pitch, but otherwise I’d let them writhe around until they got bored with it.

It took an Albacete goal a few minutes into the second half to spark some urgency from Villarreal. Unsurprisingly they no longer seemed to be seriously injured whenever an opposition player came within a yard of them. They started pushing forward and managed to hit the post from a counterattack soon afterwards.

It was the home team’s night though and a break down the left was finished with the ball tucked in low, across the keeper and into the far corner. That second goal was enough to take the points and put a little distance between the teams in the table.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Yeclano Deportivo v Rayo Vallecano, Wednesday 6th December 2023, 12 noon

January 29, 2024

I’d had my eye on this game for a while, mainly because it was a mid-week noon kick-off. As someone who can do his work whenever he likes, it seemed an ideal time for a game of football. Less ideal was the arse on of buying a ticket. The Kings Cup fixture was in Yecla, which is around an hour and twenty minute drive from Santa Pola. That’s ok when you only have to do the drive once. but the lack of online sales meant that I had to make an earlier trip to buy a thirty euro ticket in a café.

I rocked up early on matchday, which was just as well as there were large queues to get into a game that had already sold out. I suppose the visit of top-tier Rayo Vallecano was quite a big deal for a fourth-tier side. The four-thousand capacity crowd was sufficient to have vendors out selling half and half commemorative scarves.

With forty minutes to go to kick-off the ground was already packed. I trekked around to the far end and found a space next to some teenagers on the back row who were working their way through large bags of sunflower seeds. It seemed like the whole town had turned out for the bank holiday fixture, although I got the impression that a lot of them were visiting the Estadio Municipal La Constitucion for the first time in years.

Yeclano were in red and blue stripes with Rayo in their classic Peru kit. There were around three hundred away fans who had brought fifty or so flags between them. They waved them throughout the game as they out sang the home support.

The pitch looked a bit ropey with more areas of rough than Rayo will have been used to in La Liga, but with the hoardings and the stands close to the touchlines it made for a good atmosphere.

Yeclano’s main tactic was to simply boot the ball up field and hope to pick up some scraps. It rarely worked though and was invariably quickly returned to keep the pressure on their defence. My understanding was that Rayo had made a few changes and they took some time to gel.

Both sides were limited to long shots in the first half, and they came off at the break with the game goalless.

Extra-time was looming when Rayo broke the deadlock with a tap-in from a ball played square across the box. They scored a second in added time that may have squeezed though the net afterwards. None of the Rayo players celebrated and the home keeper attempted to restart with a goal kick. It was only the screaming remonstrations from the away bench that had the ref eventually pointing to the centre spot.

It was a decent effort from the fourth-tier side, but the Rayo were worth their place in the next round.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

CF Esperonca d’Andorra v Penya Encanarda d’Andorra, Sunday 3rd December 2023, 4.10pm

January 26, 2024

After my failed attempt earlier in the day to see a game at the Centre d’Entrenament de la FAF, I briskly returned after the match at the National Stadium had finished. I got lucky with a ten-minute delay to the advertised kick-off time which meant that the whistle blew to get things going just as I was settling into my seat in the four-row covered stand along one side of the pitch.

Ther’s a couple of pitches at the complex and this one has an artificial surface, which is just as well as four games were scheduled to take place on it that day, all in the Andorran Premier League. This fixture was between Esperonca, in blue, and Penya, in green. I’d estimate that there were probably around sixty people watching, many of whom may well have been players or staff from the previous or following games.

Penya took the lead bang on half-time when the final touch in some head tennis was nodded in at the back post. The ref booked at least three of the Esperonca players for protesting and it looked as if he had lost track of which players he had carded. Nevertheless, it made it clear that he was taking no shit from anyone.

I took advantage of the interval to nip across the road to a petrol station for a slash and a coffee.

Penya pushed on after the restart and doubled their lead when the home keeper parried a shot up in the air for a simple tap-in. They added a third late on with the under-pressure keeper flat out from a challenge moments earlier. Nobody argued this time, perhaps because they were all on a yellow.

The win will have helped Penya’s push for European qualification, although if they get there, I doubt that they’ll stick around at that level for very long.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Andorra v Huesca, Sunday 3rd December 2023, 2pm

January 26, 2024

The game that the Andorra trip was built around was a second-tier Spanish fixture at the Andorran National Stadium. We’d arrived that morning from Girona and driven straight through the border point, something that caused the guard some bemusement the next day as she searched in vain for our entry stamps.

Andorra is a busy place, with lots of visitors rocking up for the tax-free fags and booze. I’ve always thought them to be pretty cheap in Spain, but I suppose it doesn’t do any harm to save a little more. I’d bought my ticket in advance for twenty euros and despite the website later stating that the game was sold out, there were many empty seats inside. Perhaps the capacity had been restricted due to the building of a new stand along one side of the pitch.

Andorra were in blue, yellow and red, as if they were the last in the queue for picking strips, although I suspect it may well have been flag influenced. Huesca were in a white kit with a red cross on the shorts. It looked like the sort of budget gear that Sports Direct might knock out to accompany car window flags when England were playing in a tournament.

There was a decent turnout from visitors Huesca with a full away section and, as with the game in Girona the previous day, many more dotted around the home stands.

As we were up in the hills it’s no surprise that it was a bit chilly. With the temperature hovering around freezing I’d borrowed Jen’s buff and if the small club shop had been selling gloves, I’d have definitely bought a pair, tax-free or not.

Nothing of note happened in the first half and the second half wasn’t a great deal more exciting. It took until the final minute for the game to take off. A free kick was floated into the Huesca box and the flick-on header beat the keeper. That was the cue for the Final Countdown goal music and it was enough to clinch the points for Andorra.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Atletic Club d’Escaldes v UE Santa Coloma, Sunday 3rd December 2023, 11am

January 26, 2024

This was a game that got away. Jen and I had driven fron Girona to Andorra for a game in the afternoon at the National stadium and after parking the car thought we’d have a wander around. I’d intended to see at game at the Centre d’Entrenament de la FAF afterwards and so, with the intent of checking out its location, we had a wander along the river .

As we got close, I could see that there was a game on. Once we reached the ground the scoreboard revealed that there were nine minutes remaining and the home side a goal to the good. Every groundhopper has their own rules and mine are that in order to count a game I need to be inside the ground. Otherwise, you could tick off ground that you flew over or rattled past in a train.

I don’t need to see much of the match, a single kick is sufficient, but I’ve got to be inside the fence. With that in mind I set off at a speed walking pace to try and reach a bridge that would get me over the river. I managed it and made it to the ground just as they were approaching added time. By this time Atletic were two-up.

Unfortunately, I’d opted for a side of the ground where there wasn’t an entrance and was still outside of the fence. It was like one of those bad dreams where you have to be somewhere, but events conspire to keep directing you further away. Is it just me that has them?

At that point I gave in and when Jen caught up with me, we headed off for a coffee. I’ve posted my visit because the photos show a different side to the ground than the ones I took when successfully attending a game there later that afternoon. It meant that failing to get in wasn’t too big a deal and merely delayed the tick by a few hours.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Girona v Valencia, Saturday 2nd December 2023, 2pm

January 26, 2024

The Estadio Montilivi at Girona is a ground that I tried to see a game at around ten years ago. On that occasion Jen and I had driven up from way down south, probably around the Granada area. Sadly, that game was sold out, although it wasn’t surprising really as it was an end of season play-off fixture.

This time we only had a six-hour drive and as we headed away from the Costa Blanca we encountered our first rain of the trip.

I’d learned my lesson and  bought my ticket early online to make sure that I’d get in. It was as well that I did as the game sold out a week or so in advance. I paid forty-eight euros for a seat in one of the corners. The sell-out was no surprise as Girona are doing a bit of a Leicester and vying with Real Madrid for the title.

Jen and I weren’t the only ones to have made the trip north and as we had breakfast in town we saw and heard a fair few Valencia fans who had made the journey up the coast.

I was at the ground with time to spare and if I’d been a bit more organised, I could probably have got myself a voucher for free paella as everyone else seemed to have done. There were large communal tables in a set up that encouraged socialising. As I had neither paella nor the language skills for a chat, I left them to it and headed inside.

It was cold and windy inside the fourteen-thousand capacity ground, which looked as if it had been expanded with temporary stands on three sides of the pitch.

One of the attractions of this game was the chance to see former Boro player Cristhian Stuani. He’s someone that I appreciated at the Boro as, even when played wide, he had that knack of getting into goalscoring positions and then taking the chances.

I think he’s more highly rated by Boro fans these days after his success at Girona, but back in the day I remember him being derided as ‘Northern League’, usually by the same fans who got on the backs of Tav or Downing yet were taken in by Tuncay’s haring around for effect and those selfish fancy flicks.

Sadly, Stuani started this game on the bench along with his Boro Premier season team mate, Espinosa. Girona began the game well, playing the ball around at the back and having a ‘goal’ disallowed by the VAR for offside.

Valencia had a section for their fans to my left, but there were also a lot of them dotted around the home areas. Nobody minded that they wore their scarves and waved their flags and that’s exactly as it should be.

Despite the Girona dominance, Valencia took the lead ten minutes into the second half with a neat little dinked effort. With Girona falling behind I anticipated that Stuani would get the call before long, but we had to wait until fifteen minutes from time before he appeared off the bench.

Almost immediately he caused some havoc in the Valencia defence with a point-blank header that was well saved. Five minutes later, and just like in that Brighton game, he was in the right place at the right time and tapped in the equaliser at the back post.

It got better for the veteran striker when with three minutes to go he ghosted in and added the winner. Not bad for ‘Northern League’. The Girona fans were ecstatic as with Real Madrid not playing until the evening the three points took their team back to the top of the table.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

Callosa Deportiva v Redovan, Sunday 26th November 2023, 5.30pm

January 24, 2024

I got to Callosa with plenty of time to spare before the sixth-tier Liga Comunitat Valenciana Grupo Sud game between Callosa Deportiva and near-neighbours, Redovan. There’s only a couple of kilometres between the two towns and it’s possible that I may have actually parked closer to the away team’s ground. The ticket office was open and so I got myself a ten euro ticket.

I had a pre-match wander into town but it was mainly shut. There were a few Spainers doing spainy things, old men drinking in rough looking bars, families taking a stroll with granny in a fur coat, the granddaughter’s boyfriend in a wife-beater to show off his pecs and grandad in his pre-civil war suit as if he was worried that he might drop down dead any moment and not be coffin ready.

With kick-off approaching we were treated to some shit mid-eighties music. You can probably predict the playlist of Final Countdown, She’s a Maniac, Maneater and Forever Young (Alphaville not Dylan). As nobody’s taste in mid-eighties music can be that bad, I can only presume that it’s cheaper to licence for compilations than the same-era stuff by the likes of Tom Waits, Billy Bragg, Jesus and Mary Chain or the Style Council.

Come to think of it, what is it with football and music from forty years ago? When I started going to football in the seventies the music seemed fairly up to date. We weren’t treated to George Formby pre-match or a blast of Glen Miller after a goal.

There wasn’t much choice of food. The pizza looked like squares of the cheapest supermarket margherita, but in its pre-cooked state. Instead, I chose an empanada, which I think was filled with tuna, egg and tomato.

If only I’d been as well prepared as four old fellas sat behind the goal. They had a table with a pig leg on it. One of them was on carving duties and he kept his mates supplied with slices of jamon throughout the game.

The first half was fairly even with both sides having their opportunities, but failing to take them. Callosa came the closest with a missed penalty that came back out off the inside of the post.

It was good natured for a derby, although I suppose when you all know where everyone else lives or you shop in the same Mercadona then you might tone the aggression down.

The game opened up in the second half with Callosa going in front soon after the break. Redovan equalised a few minutes later only for the home side to successfully convert their second penalty of the game.

A well-taken half-volley clinched the points for Callosa shortly before the end but Redovan managed a consolation deep in added time to make the score a respectable three-two home victory.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Football | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries