A very colourful day out in North London yesterday. An impressive number of Brazilians appeared from somewhere and Spring sunshine encouraged the Samba beat and the dancing girls. Bad planning meant my phone pancaked or I would be able to share some good photos with you.
I have now sat at the Emirates in the Lower tier, the middle ring and the Upper tier. The Lower tier isn't great, the middle is much better but the top tier is superb. We were three rows from the back and the view of the pitch was excellent. The leg-room is still generous and the seats are all padded. What you don't realise from below is that the swoop of the roof cuts our visibility of the stand opposite which strangely focuses your attention on the pitch.
I'm majoring on the view because Scotland were outclassed. Craig Levein was pleased with the result but our fans were nowhere near as happy with the performance. The lack of ambition was very familiar to me and poor old Kenny Miller looked like he was playing on a different pitch at times. Whenever the ball was booted clear in his general direction, he had the simple task of beating three defenders to it and then making his way past them to fashion a chance. So instead we watched the Brazilians make monkeys out of our toiling defence and pretty much wrap things up by half-time with a well taken goal from Neymar. The second-half penalty looked a joke to me and it ended the match as far as I was concerned.
I will look forward to our next matches against Lithuania and Lichtenstein when we play sides our own size and can make a game of it. It's always good to see friends from afar although really feel for my mate from Norway who was on a plane to Delhi from Heathrow last night after a heavy weekend. Rather him than me. I am off to Delhi myself next Sunday but my preparation will be considerably better.
Dave, I was rather surprised to see Scotland's national football team were playing a game in North London England.
ReplyDeleteWhich leads me to two questions;
1) Why?
2) When can we expect to see England play in Edinburgh?
Daggs,
ReplyDeleteIt was an international weekend and Scotland needed a game. Arsenal have used this weekend in recent years to stage a match (Brazil have played there before) and it was a money-spinner given the gate and TV audience. I'm guessing Brazil might not have agreed the extra flights and travel time to Glasgow with there players flying in from around tts world.
The SRU would die to host an England international at Murrayfield as they are desperate for the cash. Not so sure the FA would be so keen. There are certainly enough English people living in Glasgow and Edinburgh to make it viable.
You also have the benefit of being able to attract international opposition to London and have a better facility at Wembley than Murrayfield or Hampen.
Dave