Soccer!!?

Myself, Amado and Moose before the game

The mascot; a lion

Outside the stadium

I got the opportunity to attend a soccer match today.  A friend of mine from Design of Integrated Circuits (we call him Moose) invited myself and another kid from that class (Amado).  Moose is Danish, but, Amado is from Mexico.  We had a great time.  

 Moose told me that this is the "game of the year."  It certainly seemed that way.  Moose picked Amado and I up on campus at 3pm for the 5:30 game.  First thing we did was park near the stadium (I knew it was serious when we got out of his car and could hear the buzz from the stadium about 1km away; 2 hours before gametime...).  Then, we had a couple beers in the park next door.  That seemed to be the thing to do.  It wasn't so much "tailgating," with food as it was just casual drinking.  

 About an hour and a half before game time, we went into the stadium store because jerseys were on sale and Moose needed a new one.  It was very crowded in there because the sale was really good.  1 jersey for 40USD.  That is really good, so good that I bought one as well.  A jersey with Carlsberg on it is the only souvenir I wanted from Denmark so I decided to splurge and buy it here. That way I could wear it for the game as well.

 The stadium is relatively new.  It was built in the 90's.  It is the largest stadium in Denmark with a capacity of 42,000.  It was definitely filled.  Moose explained to me that this game will likely determine the champion.  There are only 3 games left in the season and these two teams were number 1 and 2 in the league.  Therefore, this game was for all the marbles.  Not only that, but, there is always some bad blood between these two teams.  They have the biggest rivalry in Denmark.

 The game was supposed to start at 5:30pm, but, it had to be postponed to 5:45 because there were still too many people in line waiting to get in.  If the game started with that many people still outside there could possibly be a riot.

A huge flag that we held up during their national anthem.

 The game was crazy.  Moose had the best seats in the house.  He got lucky to get his season tickets here.  All seats cost the same price in Denmark.  He is right at midfield, about 10 rows up. Perfect.  All his neighbors were really nice as well.  It is like a big family.

 This was my first professional soccer game and it lived up to my expectations.  You hear that soccer fans are the craziest and that did prove to be true.  The section I was in was certainly not a place for children.  It was just a lot of drunken people getting more drunk.  However, everyone was rooting for the same team, FCK (football club of Kobenhavn), so there were no problems.  In fact, they separate the away fans from the home fans by a distance and a couple fences and station all the police over there.

The opposing fans are in the top of this pic.  They had a bunch of flares lit.

Comradery

I don't think the confetti ever stopped flowing the entire game.  Not to mention all the toilet paper.  We didn't sit down either; no one did in our section.  A beer shower accompanied every goal.  The final score was 4-0.  It was really cool.

When I got back to my room, I went into the kitchen and Thomas was in there.  He said "I didn't know you went to THAT soccer game!"  He was very impressed.

 

Thanking the fans at the end of the game.  Not my hand.