Football Crazy!

I sat in the local bar last Friday night watching Chelsea FC losing badly to Atletico Madrid. Just after half time the landlord ushered me and my drinking buddy through to the back dining room. Now I knew this room existed, having previously watched people coming out of it through the narrow doorway, past the end of the bar area, with smiles on their faces indicating that they had satisfactorily filled their stomachs to bursting. However, what soon became apparent, was that he wanted to show off his new addition to the dining room, namely a very familiar looking large white sheet of plywood screwed to the wall. I instantly recognised this board as being the very same one that had previously been precariously balanced up against the wall in the main bar for use as a projection screen during the Euro 2012 football tournament. And so here it was again, in it's more permanent position, with Chelsea and Madrid battling it out in the relative dark of the dining room in super-gigantico-vision. Being projected onto the wall in such a massive way didn't seem to be helping Chelsea out much though! For those who care, the full time score was 4-1 to Madrid. Anyway, having felt suitably awed by the spectacle, and also a little uncomfortable at being singled out as the Inglês who'd be interested in the big screen, we retired back into the main bar to watch the remainder of the game on the regularly sized television. To be honest I was that focused on the game, and instead spent some considerable time harping on about my car, but as my regular readers well know, that's another story.

Anyway, previously that day, while at work, I had already had a football related conversation with one of my new colleagues. The nature of my job is split among two departments and I was being questioned as to where my true allegiance lay, by means of a football metaphor, to whit, was I supporting Benfica or Sporting? Focusing completely on the football analogy and ignoring any reference to work I replied, "Well, neither actually." as I retrieved my newly acquired Estoril Praia football club season ticket from my wallet and proudly flicked it down on the table between us.

My brother once said on my facebook page that the heat of the Portuguese sun had altered my brain because of my new found fascination for football. Back in Blighty I was not into football in the slightest. My main hobby was playing bass guitar in a metal band and the other guys in the band were all into football in a massive way. There were occasions where we'd have to re-arrange rehearsals because of an important cup tie or league game. The reality of course is that I haven't acquired this fondness for the beautiful game in so much as had it thrust upon me. It's difficult in these parts to avoid the game with Estoril Praia's stadium five minutes walk down the road and two of Portugal's biggest teams in Lisboa only half an hour's drive away. Perhaps the sun has gone to my head? Perhaps not. With my old band mates we always had music to fall back upon when the football conversation got too much for me, but here, it's either football or work. Ah well, what's a man to do, eh?

Last weekend was the first home match for Estoril Praia this season and so, of course, wanting to make the most use out of my season ticket I went. And I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the match, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. It was almost comical watching the teams run out onto the pitch and line up with the referees and linesmen between them. The opposition were clearly used to playing difficult games against the likes of Benfica and were obviously substantially more muscular than the skinny Estoril players! It was immediately apparent from the first kick of the ball that Estoril's opponents had every intention of putting those extra muscles to full use and beat us to every tackle and every header. Well, not quite. There was a fleeting moment about 4 minutes into the game when Estoril had a cross in to the penalty box with an open goal, but alas, the striker struck, and missed! He missed the ball! I cannot believe he missed the ball. It was like watching a clip from an episode of "You've Been Framed." Alas, we were very lucky to pull back a penalty in the closing minutes of the second half and equalise to a final score of one goal apiece.

Yesterday I took the liberty of checking up on Estoril Praia's standings on the Liga Zon website and was very pleasantly surprised to see that we'd had another good match. As you can see from following this link, the third game this season was against Vitória Guimarães, to whom we drew 2-2. What's more is that we'd apparently had a fantastically dramatic match, if the little graph is anything to go by; One-nil up, then two-nil just after half time and numerous yellow cards on both sides before Guimarães made one back. And it's truly a shame that Guimarães pulled that second goal of theirs out of the hat at the 94th minute, as a win would have put Estoril significantly higher up the table. Ah well. I suppose there is still a very slim chance that Sporting will lose to Marítimo on the 16th and stay at the bottom of the league. A very slim chance indeed.