Europa League: Basel at Fulham

One of the strange things about Europe is that someone you know from the United States is bound to be in the same location as you at some point. This was the case with my friend Todd San Jule. The last game Todd and I had attended together was the Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Packers NFC divisional playoff game on January 12, 2008.

This time we agreed to meet for the Fulham and Basel Europa League match at Craven Cottage. In order to get to Craven Cottage I took the underground to the Putney Bridge stop. The stadium is a far walk from the tube stop.

Obtaining Tickets
My original plan had been to arrive at Craven Cottage early, hang out at a pub by the stadium and meet Todd when he got off work. This plan changed when Todd got off work earlier than he thought and I arrived later than I thought.

While Todd was waiting for me I told him to buy tickets for the match. I thought the tickets were £20 since I had looked at ticketmaster.co.uk a few days before the match. However, that was the non-day-of-game price. The price at the box office was £30. If I had known of the price increase I would have bought tickets from the ticket touts I passed on the way from the Putney Bridge tube stop to the stadium – but I did not know.

It turned out ok though since our seats were a few rows from the field, halfway between mid-field and the top of the penalty box.

Craven Cottage
Craven Cottage is a classic old English football ground. It is nestled up to a river and is small enough where you really feel apart of the action. In the lowest scoring game I had seen in over a week, Fulham defeated FC Basel 1-0.

Post Game
After the game Todd and I went to The King’s Arm located at 425 New Kings Rd. There are quite a few pubs in the area to try. After one pint I needed to head back to Big Chris’ house so I could pack and book my hotel for Helsinki, Finland.

Thrown off a London Bus

The scheduling Gods shined upon me when creating the Europa League schedule. Originally I debated whether to leave for Finland on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning since the Europa League schedule was not out at the time. I did not know whether Fulham or Everton would play Thursday night. My preference was Fulham since I could take the train to London Thursday morning and attend the match. If Everton had been home I would have to take either a late train Thursday night or an early train Friday morning to attend the match. It all worked out in the end as Fulham was scheduled for Thursday, October 1.

I was awakened early by the construction going on outside my hostel room. Thus, I relaxed in my room for awhile (I was not in a rush to get back to London) before checking out of the hostel and walking to the train station. Trains from Manchester to London run every 20 minutes so I could just show up and hop on one. I took the 10:35 am train.

The train from Manchester arrives at Euston train station in London. Before I left London last Thursday I had confirmed with Big Chris that I could stay with him tonight so I needed to take the train from King’s Cross to Waterloo train station and walk to his house. The journey should have taken no more than 30 to 45 minutes. It took me two hours!

First, I need to start by saying I made it to Waterloo train station just fine. I took the Northern underground line from Euston. It is a direct shot to Waterloo. The next part of the story is where things went awry.

Rather than walk to Big Chris’ house, I saw a bus coming and decided to get on with my day travel pass. The bus was not going to take me by Big Chris’ house so I asked the bus driver where I should get off instead. He proceeded to say he would tell me where to get off. After a few minutes I asked another patron on the bus where we were and she said we just crossed the river so I was now going the wrong way. I proceeded to ask the bus driver why he did not tell me to get off the bus at the correct stop and he said it was not his job to do so. Thus, I gave him the bird as I left the bus and you could tell he was not happy about that.

Now I had options. First, I could wait for the bus coming in the opposite direction. Second, I could walk to Big Chris’ place. Third, I could take a taxi. The third option was probably the smartest at this point and I was not sure how long the walk was. So I decided to wait since I figured the bus would be by shortly. However, after about 30 minutes the bus still had not shown up. But you know what waiting for the bus is like – you think as soon as I take a cab it will show up and I have already waited this long. This thought process started with me after waiting for 10 minutes.

Finally the bus showed up. And can you guess who the driver was? You are correct – the driver who did not tell me to get off and who I had flipped off. So I got on at the back of the bus as everyone was getting off. Of course, the bus started to clear out after a couple of stops so I made my way up to the front of the bus and asked the bus driver why he did not tell me to get off the bus in the first place. However, rather than listen to my question he stopped the bus and told me he would not drive the bus if I stayed on. I told him I would not get off. He told me he would not drive the bus and he was calling the London police to escort me off the bus. I could not believe this was happening. I believed his threat and got off the bus rather than deal with the London police.

I had officially been thrown off of a London bus. I ended up walking to Big Chris’ house instead. After my journey I needed a nap and went right to sleep.

After a couple of hours I woke up and met Big Chris at the Grand Union for a pint before taking the tube to the Fulham match. Big Chris found my bus story to be quite amusing.

Europa League Play-off: Stabaek at Valencia

One part of Spanish soccer I do like is the late start times of soccer matches. La Liga’s weekly Saturday night contest begins at 10 pm (meaning it ends close to midnight) – no sporting event in the United States has that scheduled start time. Last season, I remember thinking it was crazy that Game 2 of the NLDS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs had an 8:37 pm start time at Wrigley Field.

Thus, I should not have been surprised when the Europa League Play-off match hosted by Valencia had a scheduled start time of 9:30 pm. I left Benimassot at 6:30 pm and by the time I found the Mestalla and parked the car it was 8:30 pm.

Parking at the Mestalla
The Mestalla is similar to Wrigley Field in that the stadium is in the middle of the city. There is no parking lot in the immediate vicinity as apartments, restaurants and bars surround the stadium. I found a parking garage (Garaje Primado Reig) within a few blocks of the stadium which cost .0329 cents per minute – a strange cost metric for a public parking lot but at less than 2 euros per hour I was not going to complain.

Obtaining Tickets
After walking the few blocks to the stadium, I headed straight for the ticket office. I remembered many extra tickets around the box office when attending games at Real Madrid and Barcelona in December 2004. As I had thought, scalpers and fans had extra tickets. However, with the cheapest seat from the ticket office costing 10 euros there was no reason to buy from a scalper unless they could beat the 10 euro price point. They could not so I bought a seat in the upper deck for 10 euros.

The Match
With Valencia already ahead in aggregate 3-0 from their match at Stabaek, Valencia did not have to worry about not advancing to the group stage of the Europa League. In convincing fashion Valencia won the second match 4-1 (7-1 on aggregate).

Miku scored three goals for Valencia – one in the 28th, 29th and 80th minute while Nikola Zigic scored the other goal for Valencia. Stabaek’s Pontus Farnerud made the match close towards the end of the first half as he scored at the 36th minute to cut Valencia’s lead to 2-1. However, Valencia was too much for Stabaek in the end.

Estadio Mestalla
The upper deck at the Mestalla is one of the steepest I have ever seen. I cannot think of another stadium that compares. Other stadiums would probably have three rows in the same height that the Mestalla has two rows.

The pitch at the Mestalla was a complete mess. It appeared to be a dirt pitch with patches of grass around the field. The pitch broke up every time a player would try to cut. At halftime the stadium crew came out to fix the divots created by the players in the first half. Also, they watered at halftime with the sprinkler system. They did that before the game as well, which at the time I thought was odd but finally realized it was necessary.