Damn Belgians

You know when you have made the same journey every day for several months that it becomes almost reflex? Even busy crossroads' can be overcome whilst listening to your ipod without looking at the traffic AND avoiding the charity muggers attempting to accost the pedestrians. Easy to understand, then, my surprise during the week as my usual walk to work was interupted in a most unusual fashion. I should further explain that I have a Japanese ipod that doesn't have one of those pesky-nanny-state EU noise reduction devices attached. Which means that it is loud! So, I'm absent-mindedly trundling aong when I look up and there is Christiano Ronaldo, juggling a football about six feet away from me. Out of nowhere, a little gay Portuguse man grabbed my arm and told me to get out of the way. Apparently, I had walked right over the shin-high tape that told me that I was entering the filming of Ronaldo's new advert. Brilliantly, the little gay guy didn't realise that I wasn't meant to be there and I stood for the next ten minutes or so watching them film. For a brief but wonderful moment, I had a vision of myself running full pelt at the greasy bastard and challenging him knee-high, ending his career outside the Sofitel Hotel with cameras rolling to capture every excruciating contortion on his slimy face.

Anyway, when somebody offered me tickets to go and see the Portugal v Belgium match, the image came back to me as I hoped that some Belgian hero (if that is not an oxymoron) would prove to be more of a man than I and smash his face in. Unfortunately, he tormented the Belgian defence and scored two goals. Git. Good game, though, even if I had to watch it sitting on the stairs. The police told us that somehow too many tickets had been sold and therefore there weren't enough seats for everyone. We didn't push too hard to get our seats, as the tickets came from pretty dubious sources. In Britain, the match would have been abandoned. Here, we were asked to sit on the steps and watch the match from the best seats in the house. The Alvalade (Sporting Lisbon's stadium) is big and brash but badly organised. Like Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen came and MDF'd his way around the place. I didn't take my camera because I still have reservations about getting my pocket-picked, even though the only crime I have witnessed in Lisbon since I got here is people jumping on the tram for free. The pictures I have attached are actually from the Estade de Luz, Benfica's ground. I went there to see the Celtic match there, but decided to pay it another visit to take a few pics. Like the Alvalade, it was built for the 2004 European Championships and, while they look shiny and modern, both grounds lack the atmosphere that I'm sure the grounds that they replaced would have held by the bucket-load. They both have the ubiquitous running track around the pitch, keeping fans at least thirty-feet away from the action. Sporting's ground even has a dry-moat around the pitch to seperate the fans from their idols. They do, however, have a real community feeling. They are not just a football stadium, as they contain bowling alleys, cinemas, gyms and just about everything else that you can imagine. Far from feeling like the clubs have provided these services in order to bleed the last few cents from your pockets, it seems that they were trying to make the stadiums part of the local infrastructure and social scene. It's a model that some of the Premiership teams could look at. This is especially prescient as Liverpool are looking at leaving Anfield - God I hope that they get it right!! If they name the stadium the McDon-o-drome I will burn my kit and hang up my boots; I will make myself unavailable for selection in all but European finals.

I have now made it my mission to try to get to all of the top division teams grounds in Portugal during my time here. I'll keep you posted on my progress.