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lobelia321I am happy and sated. I had a fantastic time!!
Today was a dream.
The Emirates Stadium is a fantastic architectural site. The outside of it is fantastic, and the inside of it is just breathtaking. When I first stepped foot into the tiers of seats, it literally took my speech away; I was so awed by the vast bowl of sunshine, the brilliant emerald pitch, the wave-like arrangement of red seats, the Norman-Foster-esque white steel tubular roof and the Pantheon-like oval eye of the sky above. And the sky! Brilliant blue, with little fleece clouds! The pitch patterned in shade and sunlight. What a September day!
Outside, as we walked from my friend's house to the stadium, the plot thickened a bit before we got to the stadium: pools of fans milling around, women and men and children in yellow shirts everywhere (plus a few sprinkled Argentinian supporters...), people banging drums -- a carnival atmosphere on this brilliant day. it reminded me of the last time I milled around as a pedestrian on London's streets which was during the protest march against the war on Iraq (remember,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lazlet? *winks*).
The atmosphere in the stadium was fantastic. What it must be like when a competitive game is played! The subdued roar in this big bowl. 59.000 people! At the start, they had a minute of silence for all victims of violence in the recent years as today is the anniversary of the Beslan massacre, and the effect of 59.000 people rising to their feet in silence was quite powerful.
When the game started, I was so confused it took me a while to adjust my brain to the fact that I was actually at a live Brazil:Argentina match. Me, I, who have only been to two live football games in my entire life, and both of those at a tiny provincial stadium. 3 weeks ago I ogled Ryan O'Neil from West Ham, and all of a sudden I'm propelled into one of the world's most famous stadia and am witnessing live on stage some of the world's most famous players!! How did this happen?
I love football! I love football fandom!! I just loved the whole thing today!
We had fantastic seats (the operative word of the day is definitely fantastic), near the corner but not behind the goal, in the director's tier which is the tier above the lowest tier, and right up against the balcony railings. The stupid sons had contrived to lose our binoculars and I have to say, these would have been immensely helpful because even with our fantastic seats, I still couldn't make out anybody's face nor even read the names next to the numbers on the screen so half the time was trying, with my friend, to figure out who the fuck was who. For about 65 minutes we mistook Robinho for Dudu!! How shameful -- I love Robinho, and here I couldn't even identify him!
30 minutes before the end, they brought Kaká on, and I went into a sort of brief delirium. The whole game suddenly lurched onto a different register, nay another dimension. I was transfixed by the vision of Kaká. A total Troy moment (the ancient Greeks transfixed by Achilles whenever he enters the battlefield). As I have bored on about a hundred times before, football stars are the modern Achilles. They are larger than life Heroes. For me, at any rate, an aura radiated around Kaká -- it was quite extraordinary; I couldn't take my eyes off him. I couldn't make out his face (I seem to have the eyesight of a mole, even with spectacles) but his physique and gait was totally recognisable, and the way he always lifts his face slightly up into the heavens. Being the football god he is, that seems only apt.
Also, if I were a man I'd have had an erection for sure. The sentence kept running through my head and brimming on the tip of my tongue: 'I need to have sex with this man.' I was most shamelessly Mary Sueish!
Later, he did his extraordinary glory run and scored his goal but it was on the other side of the pitch -- and that's one thing I realised watching matches live: you love it when action happens near where you sit -- and I so wanted Argentina to put more pressure on Brazil, simply to bring all the Brazilians closer to where we were sitting!
But it is the first few minutes of Kaká on the pitch that shimmer in my memory. They were such exquisite minutes. And it wasn't even and only the slash, nor even and only my admiration for his skills, but a sort of unarticulated combination of the two plus simply the Hero's Aura. It was as if I were floating.
My gay friend is also enamoured of Kaká so that helped but he has a 24-year-old Brazilian boyfriend so my need is greater...! This did however mean that for him, too, Brazil is a cathected site -- even more so than for me, in fact.
I now really, really want to see Arsenal play. I really, really, REALLY want to see Arsenal play Manchester United! And then I will have seen both of my football darling boys live on stage!
Afterwards, we walked with thousands of others milling pedestrianishly anarchically onto the car-clogged streets to Carluccio's in Islington -- and some of you know how I love Carluccio's! (*winks atlazlet, sheldrake and sophrosyne31*)
Pics wot I took
The Emirates stadium. I love it.
The crowd. Incl. sikhs in Brazil shirts and yellow turbans. I love London.
The pitch seen from where I sat.
Pics wot gentlemen of Getty took
Kaká on his glory run
Celebrating Kakás goal (incl. member of the public who rushed onto the pitch; 5 men in all rushed onto the pitch and ran around hugging players until they were dragged off by nonplussed security personnel -- oh, how I would have loved to be those men)
I really need to have sex with this man.
Robinho (ach, der Kleine -- ist aber gar nicht so klein!)
In the air: Tevez. Dear Tevez, you are not pretty but you are a wizard on the turf.
Pics wot I gacked fromfavoriteflavour over here
ETA: More pics of the day added as I found them; these ones are from the wonderful soccergirlz.de site:
Bonus pic of Daniel Carvalho:
Today was a dream.
The Emirates Stadium is a fantastic architectural site. The outside of it is fantastic, and the inside of it is just breathtaking. When I first stepped foot into the tiers of seats, it literally took my speech away; I was so awed by the vast bowl of sunshine, the brilliant emerald pitch, the wave-like arrangement of red seats, the Norman-Foster-esque white steel tubular roof and the Pantheon-like oval eye of the sky above. And the sky! Brilliant blue, with little fleece clouds! The pitch patterned in shade and sunlight. What a September day!
Outside, as we walked from my friend's house to the stadium, the plot thickened a bit before we got to the stadium: pools of fans milling around, women and men and children in yellow shirts everywhere (plus a few sprinkled Argentinian supporters...), people banging drums -- a carnival atmosphere on this brilliant day. it reminded me of the last time I milled around as a pedestrian on London's streets which was during the protest march against the war on Iraq (remember,
lazlet? *winks*).The atmosphere in the stadium was fantastic. What it must be like when a competitive game is played! The subdued roar in this big bowl. 59.000 people! At the start, they had a minute of silence for all victims of violence in the recent years as today is the anniversary of the Beslan massacre, and the effect of 59.000 people rising to their feet in silence was quite powerful.
When the game started, I was so confused it took me a while to adjust my brain to the fact that I was actually at a live Brazil:Argentina match. Me, I, who have only been to two live football games in my entire life, and both of those at a tiny provincial stadium. 3 weeks ago I ogled Ryan O'Neil from West Ham, and all of a sudden I'm propelled into one of the world's most famous stadia and am witnessing live on stage some of the world's most famous players!! How did this happen?
I love football! I love football fandom!! I just loved the whole thing today!
We had fantastic seats (the operative word of the day is definitely fantastic), near the corner but not behind the goal, in the director's tier which is the tier above the lowest tier, and right up against the balcony railings. The stupid sons had contrived to lose our binoculars and I have to say, these would have been immensely helpful because even with our fantastic seats, I still couldn't make out anybody's face nor even read the names next to the numbers on the screen so half the time was trying, with my friend, to figure out who the fuck was who. For about 65 minutes we mistook Robinho for Dudu!! How shameful -- I love Robinho, and here I couldn't even identify him!
30 minutes before the end, they brought Kaká on, and I went into a sort of brief delirium. The whole game suddenly lurched onto a different register, nay another dimension. I was transfixed by the vision of Kaká. A total Troy moment (the ancient Greeks transfixed by Achilles whenever he enters the battlefield). As I have bored on about a hundred times before, football stars are the modern Achilles. They are larger than life Heroes. For me, at any rate, an aura radiated around Kaká -- it was quite extraordinary; I couldn't take my eyes off him. I couldn't make out his face (I seem to have the eyesight of a mole, even with spectacles) but his physique and gait was totally recognisable, and the way he always lifts his face slightly up into the heavens. Being the football god he is, that seems only apt.
Also, if I were a man I'd have had an erection for sure. The sentence kept running through my head and brimming on the tip of my tongue: 'I need to have sex with this man.' I was most shamelessly Mary Sueish!
Later, he did his extraordinary glory run and scored his goal but it was on the other side of the pitch -- and that's one thing I realised watching matches live: you love it when action happens near where you sit -- and I so wanted Argentina to put more pressure on Brazil, simply to bring all the Brazilians closer to where we were sitting!
But it is the first few minutes of Kaká on the pitch that shimmer in my memory. They were such exquisite minutes. And it wasn't even and only the slash, nor even and only my admiration for his skills, but a sort of unarticulated combination of the two plus simply the Hero's Aura. It was as if I were floating.
My gay friend is also enamoured of Kaká so that helped but he has a 24-year-old Brazilian boyfriend so my need is greater...! This did however mean that for him, too, Brazil is a cathected site -- even more so than for me, in fact.
I now really, really want to see Arsenal play. I really, really, REALLY want to see Arsenal play Manchester United! And then I will have seen both of my football darling boys live on stage!
Afterwards, we walked with thousands of others milling pedestrianishly anarchically onto the car-clogged streets to Carluccio's in Islington -- and some of you know how I love Carluccio's! (*winks at
lazlet, sheldrake and sophrosyne31*)Pics wot I took
The Emirates stadium. I love it.
The crowd. Incl. sikhs in Brazil shirts and yellow turbans. I love London.
The pitch seen from where I sat.
Pics wot gentlemen of Getty took
Kaká on his glory run
Celebrating Kakás goal (incl. member of the public who rushed onto the pitch; 5 men in all rushed onto the pitch and ran around hugging players until they were dragged off by nonplussed security personnel -- oh, how I would have loved to be those men)
I really need to have sex with this man.
Robinho (ach, der Kleine -- ist aber gar nicht so klein!)
In the air: Tevez. Dear Tevez, you are not pretty but you are a wizard on the turf.
Pics wot I gacked from
favoriteflavour over hereETA: More pics of the day added as I found them; these ones are from the wonderful soccergirlz.de site:
Bonus pic of Daniel Carvalho: