Have Game? Will Travel!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Copa del Rey Round 2: Villajoyosa at Alcoyano

With a limited number of sporting events in the region, I chose to attend the Copa del Rey second round match between two Segunda Division B teams (Spain’s Third Division) – CD Alcoyano and Villajoyosa C.F. Last year, Villajoyosa was in the Tercera Division (Spain’s Fourth Division), but was promoted to the next level this after they won the division last year.

I chose to attend this match because, 1) Alcoy is the closest city to where Nicole and I are staying in Spain (about a 30 minute drive) and 2) the match was apart of the Copa del Rey rather than a Segunda Division B match. Teams such as Real Madrid and Barcelona will compete in the Copa del Rey in future rounds.

Parking
I arrived at the Campo del Collao about 15 minutes before the schedule 9 pm kickoff. I found a parking lot where, as was the case in Valencia, everyone seemed to just “squeeze” in. However, they made sure cars could leave early by leaving room. This lot was too tight for me to park in so I ended up parking on the sidewalk outside of this parking lot – I figured since other cars were parking on the sidewalk it was fine for me as well.

Obtaining Tickets
As with any minor league baseball or hockey game in the United States, there generally is no secondary ticket market. Thus, I did not even look for an extra ticket last night. I knew ticket prices ranged from 10 to 20 euros since I looked at the Alcoyano website earlier in the day. The first ticket window only sold 20 euro tickets for sideline seats. Instead, I walked to the next ticket window and bought a 10 euro seat behind the goal.

The Game
The stadium reminded me of a small minor league baseball stadium in the United States. There were a lot of sponsorships around the stadium and it only sat 5,000 fans.

Alcoyano scored a goal early in the first half and a second goal halfway through the second half to defeat Villajoyosa 2-0 and advance to the third round of the Copa del Rey.

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