La Final Feliz - Wembley May 2011

Last night was my third Champions League Final and with me in the stadium, the winners were always Spanish clubs. Viva Espana.

It took me a while to sell my extra ticket so I did not have so much time to chase down the football celebrities. These 2 photos were the best I could do.

a famous Barca fan

the family of Chicharito

It was an exciting match and Barcelona was the deserved winner. But I must say I was disappointed with the performance of MANU, especially the way they kept giving away possessions.

I was at the match with 2 friend who were Barca socios, Miguelito and Xavier.



Whenever I am with Spanish friends, I try to learn something new about the Spanish language.

This time, I learned the difference between el final and la final.

The 2011 Champions League game at Wembley was 'LA' Final Feliz.

From Wembley, this is Vuzinho.

How I got my ticket(s) to the 2011 Champions League Final

At the start of this year, I booked my flights and hotel to be in London for the Champions League Final next Saturday. Then I found out I was not successful in the UEFA ticket lottery for the neutral fans.

So I said to myself, well it will be fun to be there for the festivities even if I am not in the stadium.

Then I looked around on the internet to see how much tickets were sold for in the secondary market. They were not cheap.

Then at the start of May, I found a man on Ebay listing his ticket in an auction. I took the chance to write to him and asked if he would end the auction and sell me the ticket. I made him an offer.

He came back with a counter offer slightly more. I agreed immediately.

For the next few days, we wrote and spoke daily. We tried to figure out how to exchange the ticket and the money. You see, this man lives in Palermo, Sicily.

When I told some friends about this potential transaction, you can imagine the advice I got. How can I trust a man I have never met and this man is not just Italian, he is a Sicilian.

Then the man came up with a reasonable idea. He would send the ticket to me using UPS Cash on Delivery. I would have to pay the courier the cash when the ticket arrives in Zurich.

The next day, he went to UPS and found out they only do Cash on Delivery with package, not letter.

He wrote to me an email to tell me the bad news. And then an amazing thing happened. He wrote that he trusted me and that he would mail me the ticket and that I could pay him after I had a chance to inspect the ticket.

I was flabbergasted!!! FIFA and UEFA often take my money more than a year before I receive the tickets. And here is a man I have never met and only spoke on the phone to and he would let me have the ticket before paying.

The next afternoon, I got a letter delivered by UPS. I checked and everything was genuine. I got my ticket to the Champions League Final in Wembley.

I transferred the money to his account and told him I will wear the pink Palermo shirt to the game to show my appreciation of the Sicilian way of doing business.

Wembley here I come and Forza Palermo!

PS: one week later, a friend of a friend of me offered me another ticket to the game, but at a better price. So now I have two tickets and have to find someone to go with me.

Europa League Final 2011 Dublin

Thanks to Mandy from England, I got two tickets to the Final of the Europa League in Dublin. Porto vs. Braga, 2 clubs from Northern Portugal.

So I asked my friend Clive to join me. I met Clive in 2009 at a match in Luzern. He is a retired Englishman who was successful in many businesses including music promotion, wrestling promotion, commodity trading, shipping, etc.

During the trip, I also learned that Clive was at Wembley for the 1966 World Cup Semi-Final between England and Portugal. He saw Eusebio played.

We arrived in Dublin the night before the match and found out that some 15,000 Portuguese fans were also there. And you thought Portugal has an economic crisis!

We also found out that the Queen of England was visiting Ireland at the same time.

Football fans and the Queen - who would cause more troubles?

The match was played at the beautiful stadium called
1) Aviva Stadium - the official name
2) Lansdowne Road - the unofficial name as preferred by the locals and
3) Dublin Arena - the name used by UEFA just for this match because Aviva is not a sponsor of UEFA

The stadium is only 1 year old. And you thought there is an economic crisis in Ireland!

The opening ceremony was really cool. When the line-up of each team was announced, 22 kids, each wearing one player shirt, ran out to the field to show the fans the position of each player.

The match was disappointed, especially Porto. This was a team that won the Portuguese league without losing one match. But against Braga, they were tentative and was lucky to score just before halftime when a Braga defender lost possession at the halfway line.

But the goal was a beauty - a curving cross from Guarin and a nice header from Falcao. Both Colombians.

In the second haf, Porto was happy to preserve the 1-0 advantage. Braga was the better team in terms of possessions and passing but their finishing left a lot to be desired.

Porto won 1-0 and when they walked up to the tribune to receive the trophy, I was hoping to see the Queen handing out the trophy just like in the 1966 WC Final. But she was not there.

The fans from both teams behaved well. And the many neutral fans also were exemplary. We saw a few Liverpool and Manchester City fans at the game. These fans had bought tickets hoping their clubs would make the Final.

I wonder if the Queen would have been at the game if one of those English clubs were playing.

I wonder if she will be at Wembley next week for the Champions League Final.

I will be there. Thanks to a new friend from Sicily.

That will be my next blog.





 



How I met the coach of Bulgaria

I wanted to meet the coach of the Bulgaria team. He is a German and he was the captain of the West Germany team that won the World Cup in 1990 in Italia.

So before going to Sofia, I found out the hotel where the Bulgarian team was staying. Unfortunately, it was a resort a couple of hours outside the city.

I also found out the Swiss team was sleeping at the Sofia Hilton, only about a 10 minute walk from my hotel. So when I arrived in Sofia on Friday afternoon, I went there. When I got to the hotel, I put on the 'exclusive' Swiss training shirt (see last story) so I could get pass the security guards.

No problem. The first person I saw in the lobby was the Swiss Federation President. He was standing with a few other people and he gave me a funny look. I just smiled at him and then he smiled back. Then I saw all the players sitting around (they were waiting for the bus to take them to training).

When I saw the players, I understood immediately why the President was looking at me funnily. Many of the players were wearing the same shirt as I did.

I approached two players who play in Serie A and and asked them for a photo. Like the President, a few players were really startled to see me in the 'exclusive' training shirt. They must have thought to themselves 'who is this new player that Ottmar Hitzfeld called up and did not tell us about?'



When the bus arrived and the players left the hotel, I thought what if I got on that bus too?

The next day, I went to the stadium early hoping to meet the Bulgaria team and their coach. I had a seat in the main tribune and I could stand by the entrance to the locker rooms but there were policemen who did not let me get closer to the players or the coach. So this was the closest I got to the coach of Bulgaria



The game ended 0-0. Switzerland still has a mathematical chance to finish in the top 2 of their group but they must win all their 4 remaining games. And to win games, Switzerland has to score and that is something we are not doing very well at the moment.

The next day, I took bus 84 from the city center to the airport in Sofia. When we got near the airport, I saw the Bulgaria team bus passing by. It was empty except for the driver. My heart beat faster.

When I got to the airport, I saw a couple of Bulgarian players checking in. The Bulgaria team was flying to Cyprus to play a friendly game next week. I approached the players to ask for photos. One was a former Servette player, Martin Petrov.



It seemed that the rest of the team had already gone to the gate. And I did not see the coach of Bulgaria anywhere.

I went to check-in for my flight and suddenly I heard the noises of cameras clicking. I looked over to the counter where the Bulgarian players were checking in earlier and saw some photographers taking lots of photos of a tall beautiful woman.

I went over and took a photo of her and her companion.



then I asked a photogrpaher who these people were. She told me that was a friend (the woman) and the manager (the man) of the coach of Bulgaria.

I immediately followed them (like a good paparazzi) through security check point and passport control and to their gate. But like me, they did not know where the coach of Bulgaria was. But the team was there so I took another photo.



The whole time, I kept my eyes on the friend and the manager. Finally, the manager got a call and he told the friend that the coach was upstairs in the bar (the manager spoke in German).

So I followed them again and they went upstairs to a bar where the coach was waiting to buy drinks. I patiently waited for him to greet his manager and then his friend. They (the coach and the friend) were having an intimate conversation (I guessed it was intimate because she kept caressing his face).

Finally, when there was a break in the intimate scene, I approached Herr Mattheus and asked him for a photo. Here it is




The moral of the story: always follow a woman!

Sofia, Bulgaria - don't stop believing

Just a city boy
Born and raised in south Detroit...
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues...
Recently, I rediscovered this song by the band Journey while watching the TV show GLEE.
This song really sums up how I feel about the Swiss National Football team right now.

Going into the game against Bulgaria on Saturday, both Suisse and the home team have only 3 points after 3 games in the qualification for EURO 2012. Montenegro leads the group with 10 points in 4 games and England has 7 points in 3 games. Wales is last with zero point.

With only the top 2 teams having a chance to go to the EURO 2012, a draw is not good enough for both Suisse and Bulgaria.

This morning, I asked 11 football experts at my company to predict the score.
The results are (Bulgaria-Suisse): 3-0, 2-0, 1-1, 0-1, 1-1, 0-2, 0-1, 0-0, 2-1, 2-0, and 1-0
The 3 experts who predicted a Swiss victory are an actuary from Romania, an actuary from northern Germany, and a risk manager from Aarau. No Swiss person believes in Suisse (*).

It is not hard to understand this pessimism (or realism if you listen to my friend Dominik).

Last month, Suisse (ranked 23rd in the world) went to Malta for a friendly. This was the kind of match a big team would schedule to give confidence to your strikers. Malta is currently ranked 156th in the world, just below Fiji, New Caledonia, Cambodia, and Turkmenistan and just above Madagascar and Cayman Islands.

The game ended 0-0. Despite receiving two penalties, the Swiss could not score. And I was there. One of a few Swiss fans who travelled to Malta.

After I came back from Malta, I was so upset at the performance of the Swiss team that I decided to write a letter to the Swiss Football Federation (SFV). I addressed the letter to the President, the coach, and the team captain.

I told them who I am and how many times and the places I have followed the team. I told them how disappointed I was in Malta. I asked the team captain to reimburse the cost of my flights and my hotel in Malta. I gave him the number of my bank account at the post office.

I felt I had to write that letter. If nothing else, they needed to know the sacrifices the fans were making.

Nine days later, I received these.


The man in charge of media at the Federation wrote to me:
1) to thank me for writing the letter
2) to make up a bit for any inconvenience by giving me an exclusive Swiss training shirt and
3) to ask for my continued support

I WAS SPEECHLESS!!

Immediately, I demonstrated my belief by applying for the 'Follow The Team' ticket package on UEFA.com
The Team was Switzerland.

In Sofia, Bulgaria on Saturday night, I will be in the stadium wearing this exclusive shirt.

and I will wear it too when Suisse goes to Wembley in June.

and if Suisse wins both games, may be the SFV will hire me as the official mascot.

HOPP SUISSE!!!

Don't stop believin'
Hold on to that feelin'
Streetlight people
(here is the song 'dont stop believin' performed by the cast of GLEE on X factor show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmbPcotSfY&feature=related

(*) for many people living in Zurich, Aarau is a foreign country.

Introduction

My name is Vuzinho and I am a passionate football fan.

My favorite teams are Grasshoppers in Switzerland, AC Milan in Italy, Bayern Munich in Germany, Real Betis in Spain, and Leicester City in England.

I have been to every World Cup since USA 94 and every European Championship since England 96.

In my spare time, I follow the Swiss National Football team around.