Woo! Fiorentina! Donna, Mallory, and I went to a futbol game a few weeks back (April 11). Fiorentina vs. Palermo! The only exciting thing about being at a football (which is what the rest of the non-pretentious world calls "soccer") was the fact that I've never been to a real soccer game. It was really cool. I bought a scarf. I kind of felt it was a requirement. Also, I really wasn't wearing too much purple, so I needed to step it up.
Let's take a step back for a minute. We took a bus to the stadium because it's quite a far walk from downtown Florence. We ended up taking the bus the wrong way, so we got an hour tour of the Florentine suburbs before we got to the stadium. Whatever. Tickets were five euro for the cheap seats, which turned out to be like the student section at a Wisconsin Badgers (American) football game, which turned out to be a really cool experience. Before we got into the physical stadium, people (who looked like normal citizens wearing a lanyard with some sort of identification card) checked my ticket 4 times and I got patted down twice. I didn't realize I looked like such a threat. Again, whatever.
Let's take a step back for a minute. We took a bus to the stadium because it's quite a far walk from downtown Florence. We ended up taking the bus the wrong way, so we got an hour tour of the Florentine suburbs before we got to the stadium. Whatever. Tickets were five euro for the cheap seats, which turned out to be like the student section at a Wisconsin Badgers (American) football game, which turned out to be a really cool experience. Before we got into the physical stadium, people (who looked like normal citizens wearing a lanyard with some sort of identification card) checked my ticket 4 times and I got patted down twice. I didn't realize I looked like such a threat. Again, whatever.
Highlights of the game include the following:
- A man was walking around selling beer and he had a keg on his back (look below for a picture)
- Fiorentina scored once, but it didn't count because someone was offsides
- There was only 95 minutes of playing time
- All the Italian people took the game incredibly seriously. People were shouting curses at the players (which I sadly do not remember. But, every sentence was ended by the word "ragazzo", which means "guy." I think they were saying, "Kill that guy!" or something to that effect...
- There was a guy who was standing at the bottom who was leading all of the fight songs and chants. He was actually standing on top of a fence with a megaphone. I guess his mother never taught him that was dangerous...
In case you were wondering, this thrilling game ended up in a tie. 0-0. What really baffles me is how an entire continent (and the world even) can get so excited of a game that has a high possibility of ending up to be 0-0. All in all, it was really fun and definitely a great way to spend a Wednesday night.
