Shopping in Lyon
It's great not to have to think about getting to the next place for a few days. The Athena Hotel, Lyon will be my home for nine days and I do like the city, although it is pretty cold, wet and miserable at the moment. Feels like England!
My first task this morning was to find a cafe to do some blogging as the WiFi here really isn't great. I found a nice place for a coffee and a delicious freshly baked croissant but their WiFi was no better so I really haven't been able to upload any photos.
On the way back I bumped into my first bunch of Icelandic fans and I walked with them as they went to the train station. They were on their way to nearby St Ettiene for the game against Portugal later.
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| Strawberry Juice for brekkie |
I asked them... "Have you got tickets for all three games?"
"The first three" was the, quite correct, reply.
And why shouldn't they be confident? This is what it's all about.
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| "Go Island!" Says Algis Juozasson |
After changing rooms I went off to do some shopping. The hotel is very conveniently placed (Well done Rory!) right next to the main station in Lyon and central to the city. I had a nice stroll around the shopping centre before having a maccers and plugging in my laptop to do yesterdays blog. Again the speed was so poor, though, I couldn't up load photos.
There was no 3pm game today so I had time to get a bit of shut eye before setting of to watch the Austria v Hungary game. It's a bit frustrating not knowing which bars are showing which games. Many are geared up to show the football but some games are covered only by satelite TV and many bars don't subscribe to that so only show some of the games. The hotel is situated right next to the station and it has one of those Irish bars... O'McGuiness or something, so I thought that would be an easy place to go, thinking Gerry and Simon might be arriving soon. But, no, they weren't showing the game so, again I had a panic finding a bar to watch it. The night before I'd hailed a cab and paid 13 Euros so I thought I'd try Uber out. Sure enough, the driver came pretty quickly and the cost was about half - and no need to any get cash out. Bargain!
The bar I went to was practically empty and only horse racing was on. This didn't look good. But a word with the lovely bar maid and the big screen was turned on, just for me, and within a couple of minutes I was sat, on my own, with a glass of Kronenbourg watching Austria take on their historical partners in crime, Hungary. It was a pretty drab affair to start with and both teams made a lot of mistakes before it gradually settled down. In the second half the Hungarians grew increasingly comfortable on the ball and started to string together some nice moves. One such intricate set of passes ended with Szalai stroking the ball under the Austrian goalkeeper to break the deadlock and make the magyars happy. Austria, struggled to threaten back, and even the Bayern Munich star, Alba, seemed out of sorts, much to the disappointment of the one other fan who had now come to join me - a Paris St German fan who liked the player. As they pressed for the equaliser as the seconds ticked away, the inevitable break lead to a second goal for Hungary and a famous victory.
After this, I set off to walk to the fan park right in the center of Lyon. Unfortunately it started raining so I got a bit wet when I was there. I had no intention of actually going in but I wanted to be sure I knew where La Place Bellecour was, in case we needed to use the place later. On the way I bumped into a Forest fan, the fourth today - a good reason for wearing your club colours. He was from Northern Ireland and was in a happy mood. I carried on to the Old Town where I decided to get out of the rain and sit down for a meal in front of a big screen where I watched the first half of Portugal v Iceland in St Ettiene. It wasn't a classic match but the usual tensions between the tiny underdogs - Iceland has a population about that of Coventry - and a side with a lot of quality that could, theoretically, win it - Cristiano Ronaldo, their biggest star, certainly would say so.
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| England shirts are a bit pricey! Maybe, if they get to the quarter finals...? |
The bar I went to was practically empty and only horse racing was on. This didn't look good. But a word with the lovely bar maid and the big screen was turned on, just for me, and within a couple of minutes I was sat, on my own, with a glass of Kronenbourg watching Austria take on their historical partners in crime, Hungary. It was a pretty drab affair to start with and both teams made a lot of mistakes before it gradually settled down. In the second half the Hungarians grew increasingly comfortable on the ball and started to string together some nice moves. One such intricate set of passes ended with Szalai stroking the ball under the Austrian goalkeeper to break the deadlock and make the magyars happy. Austria, struggled to threaten back, and even the Bayern Munich star, Alba, seemed out of sorts, much to the disappointment of the one other fan who had now come to join me - a Paris St German fan who liked the player. As they pressed for the equaliser as the seconds ticked away, the inevitable break lead to a second goal for Hungary and a famous victory.
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| It is the CezBar or what? Good screen though. |
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| Canard l'Orange - very nice to watch football to |
When Portugal took the lead after half an hour with a goal from Nani, the ex-Manchester United player, the rather loud guy on the table of English fans next to me blurted "it was only a matter time, really, wasn't it?" Well he was wrong as, just 5 minutes into the second half, Iceland equalised. I watched the second half in my current favourite spot in Lyon, The Wallace, with a bunch of lads from Sheffield and a couple from Yeovil. The lad from Yeovil was almost in tears when he described his experience watching Yeovil beat Forest in the 3rd tier play off game at the City Ground, when Forest had won the first leg in Yeovil and looked to be heading for Wembley.
"For you Forest boys, I expect winning the European Cup was your biggest moment, but for us Yeovil boys, it was going over to the City Ground and winning there."
Sweet.
After failing to communicate to a couple of Portuguese fans, I called another Uber as I didn't fancy a 50 minute walk home in the cold and wet wearing only a thin short-sleeved Forest shirt. The cab driver arrived within a couple of minutes and we chatted about football on the way back.
So we have now seen all the teams play. (Well "we" being the football world. I missed seeing two of them, thanks French bars!)
Of course it's early days, but the "table" would look like this at the moment...
Of the 12 games so far 3 had a two-goal margin, 6 a one-goal margin and 3 were draws. There haven't been many goals. The World Cup in Brazil started with a hat full of goals but so far the average is just 1.83 per game. Still I think most of the games have been pretty good.
There have been few surprises. Hungary beating Austria is probably the biggest surprise as most people, me included, thought Austria would win that one. There were a few others that didn't go according to how I thought: Italy beating Belgium (I thought that would be a draw) Portugal drawing with Iceland (Portugal) and England failing to beat Russia are the ones I got wrong.
Aljice
Lyon
"For you Forest boys, I expect winning the European Cup was your biggest moment, but for us Yeovil boys, it was going over to the City Ground and winning there."
Sweet.
After failing to communicate to a couple of Portuguese fans, I called another Uber as I didn't fancy a 50 minute walk home in the cold and wet wearing only a thin short-sleeved Forest shirt. The cab driver arrived within a couple of minutes and we chatted about football on the way back.
So we have now seen all the teams play. (Well "we" being the football world. I missed seeing two of them, thanks French bars!)
Of course it's early days, but the "table" would look like this at the moment...
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| Only three draws but not many goals - 1.83 / game |
There have been few surprises. Hungary beating Austria is probably the biggest surprise as most people, me included, thought Austria would win that one. There were a few others that didn't go according to how I thought: Italy beating Belgium (I thought that would be a draw) Portugal drawing with Iceland (Portugal) and England failing to beat Russia are the ones I got wrong.
Aljice
Lyon
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