Arsenal vs SC Braga

The last Champions League game I attended at Emirates was back in March when we played FC Porto at home.  That will go down in history as a terrible game for the FC Porto team and their supporters as the score ended 5 -0.

I had pictures that SC Braga were going to give us a very difficult time. This Portuguese team is noted for its large number of Brazilians who play in this team. And let’s face facts, Brazilians are noted for bringing two great things to the western world: The famous ‘Brazilian’ wax, and obviously footballing greats. I was expecting them to give Arsenal a very hard time and my expected goal result was 2-1 to Arsenal. However, I was stunned to see that not only did we win the game, we completely clobbered them with a final score of 6 – 0!

It all started so badly for Braga in the 8th minute when our striker, Chamakh, was felled in the penalty area. Fabregas took the penalty and we were 1 -0 up. On the half hour mark Arshavin netted a second.  Chamakh made an awesome goal at 34 minutes, and half time had not even blown. In the second Fabregas scored and later  Vela came on for Arshavin where Vela scored 2 goals. Incredible game. I was ecstatic about the score and had to be restrained from singing loudly in joyous praise of my team. It will be interesting when Arsenal visit SC Braga as they have one of the most beautiful stadiums which is hewn into a rock face! A little tit-bit of information, SC Braga’s coach in the 1920’s was so impressed of Arsenal and its Highbury stadium that on his return he ordered the team to adopt the new red and white so they could assert their new identity. They were also known as ‘Arsenal do Minho’.

This was a strange atmosphere for me as first of all I was up in the rafters watching this game. It was brilliant to watch the game at a good birds eye viewing but the atmosphere was a bit a dead. Unlike the atmosphere down at the Clock End during the Bolton Wanderers game, there was so much singing, hurling fun abuse, and good banter. I was really missing a lot of that football spirit up so high. At this level there also appeared to be a lot of non-regular supporters i.e. those that happened by chance to buy a ticket during the public sale. It’s good that Arsenal can offer tickets to the public (after priority given to its members) but the atmosphere was lacking.

It got me thinking about my 30min Obs Res (yes, you were most probably wondering when I was going to discuss writing!) and whether I should also look at the location within an arena to create the best atmosphere. Even though the atmosphere down on the lower terraces is phenomenal, if you’re located at the North Bank or Clock End, then your viewing will be restricted because of the parallax phenomenon. Anything happening at the other end is impossible to discern – however there are some people who are ordained with such great eyesight that they’ve been able to bypass parallax and give us a running commentary!

Imagine spending money to realise that the view is good but the atmosphere is lacking? For the first-timer they would never notice the difference. But for the connoisseur footie fan they would most probably be livid. But suppose the atmosphere is actually linked into the participants that are attending? A Saturday 3pm match is going to have a very different feel to a Champions League match at 7.45pm in which the general public can buy tickets, and because the match takes place late evening it’s also cold! That was the weird thing that I noticed the cold. I was layered up but still cold. One of the main reasons is the undulating shape of the stadium is very prominent at that height (to let air into the stadium) so you really feel the cold air seeping into your bones.

Maybe that’s something I should think about in my story – the location of where the father and daughter sit to watch the game.