Futbol!!

As an anniversary present to Dave, I bought us tickets to our first "football" match. We have yet to pledge allegiance to a team, but most of our friends seem to be Arsenal fans, so we figured that would be a good team to start.

So the way it seems to work is that Arsenal is a member of the English Premier League, which is made up of about 20 English football teams. The best teams of the EPL get to compete in the Champions League, where they play teams from other countries throughout the season, in addition to their regular games. We got to see Arsenal play in a Champions League game against a team from France called Marseilles.

The Emirates stadium in Arsenal was huge. I guess the same size as a football stadium, but it sits in a part of London that makes it look enormous by comparison. 

The atmosphere on the way from the tube to the stadium was pretty electric. There were booths everywhere selling Arsenal gear and a lot of French fans chanting. Even though we had the nose bleed seats, the view was fantastic.

Who has an awesome girlfriend that surprises you with tickets to a football match?

Why yes, I would love to eat a meat pie while watching my football game. Sadly, as this was a Champions League game, they did not serve any beer.

And Marseilles takes the field for a warm-up

I loved the scarves that they sold. They were knitted half in Arsenal colors and half in Marseilles colors to commemorate the specific game you went to.

And now it is time for both teams to take the field. 

National anthem time:

 Kick-off

 Some action shots

 When we had initially arrived in the stadium, it was pretty empty, save for the Marseilles fan section, which continued the loud chanting from the streets. As the game proceeded, they oddly remained the loudest sections in the stadium - apparently Arsenal fans are not very loud supporters.

  Penalty kick 

 Yellow card!

 Blocked!

More footballin

Unfortunately, the game ended 0-0, so we didn't have the pleasure of witnessing our first gooooalllllll...but all the more reason to go back. Especially cause now we have our fancy new jerseys.