Kevin Whitcher
Friday 15th June 11.30pm (St Petersburg time)
This morning, my host Ivan Merc took me into the centre for a stroll around. The metro stations on the line we were using are very deep. I timed the escalator when we returned and it took 3 minutes to get from the bottom to the top. The one at the station in the centre felt longer. God alone knows why they are so deep, but if you are in a hurry, good luck to you.
The centre of St Petersburg itself is a mix of old and new, but the old is particularly striking with some beautiful buildings, some of which were built for the Tsar at the time of construction. There is also a proliferation of women in historical costume trying to persuade visitors to have their photo taken with them (for a price of course) and also a large number of people dressed up in mascot style costumes for various reasons – some to do photos like the aforementioned women, some to give out flyers for local restaurants. The sun was shining strongly at times, so I have no idea how uncomfortable they were feeling. There were also a lot of people trying to sell city tours or boat trips. Ivan reckoned it was normally 400% busier in terms of tourists in the city (mostly from other parts of Russia, but also a good number from China), but that they had been put off from coming by the World Cup. We spotted, as one would expect, a far amount of fans from both Iran and Morocco, as well as some from Mexico. They are playing in Moscow on Sunday so presumably came north to catch a game beforehand or just see the city.
We returned to Chez Merc for some lunch before driving to a metro one stop north of the stadium, with that station and the stadium one we got out at both having been open for just three weeks. Before taking the train, we settled into a pub to watch Luis Suarez have an off day in front of goal for Uruguay v Egypt, with plentiful shots of Mo Salah on the Egypt bench. The standout performer was Uruguay captain and centre back Diego Godin, although it was his Atletico Madrid defensive partner Jiminez who scored a late winner with a header from a corner. On decent chances, it was probably deserved, but cruel given the timing.
We made our way to the stadium, exiting the metro there at 3.05pm. The stadium was approximately 200 yards away as the crow flies, but we had to follow a long route that took us two thirds of the way round the stadium, to then be faced with long queues to get in. We passed the ticket gate and security at 3.50pm. We were also on level 6 of 7, which meant a lot of stairs before we took our places a couple of minutes before kick off. One thing of interest. To get in, we had to scan our Fan ID cards first, and then the match ticket. I wonder if the two are correlated – in other words, if I had my own Fan ID and a match ticket in someone else’s name, would that flag a red light on the entrance machine? Who knows, but if you can only get in with the Fan ID matching the name on the ticket, touts are going to have a hard time shifting seats for these finals. My guess is they don’t have to correlate, but I will have to do some research online when I get the chance to find out.
The stadium itself had excellent views and was difficult to fault. It is far steeper than the Emirates, a bit closer to Munich’s Allianz Arena in feel. They had even put in some temporary stands where there was room for more in the premium ring and right at the back of the upper tiers. Ivan told me that the pitch can be wheeled out somehow to enjoy some sunshine (it would not get much due to the roof) and that the roof could close if need be. It was an impressive structure and a great place to watch a game of football. The atmosphere was exceptional, both sets of fans having plenty of horns similar in nature to a vuvuzela. They sure made a noise. It took me back to South Africa eight years ago.
The game started in fairly exciting fashion, but it soon became apparent that here were two sides who were not great at putting the ball in the net. Frankly, the crowd carried the day. There was non-alcoholic Budweiser on sale, and a pair of Mexicans sitting next to me bought about five of these each over the course of their time inside the stadium. One managed to kick one on the floor over, which made my jumper, on the floor under my own seat, stink of non-alcoholic beer. I cursed appropriately a few times, and he said sorry. I wasn’t in the mood for it though, even if it was highly predictable and the schoolboy error was mine. Iran scored late deep into injury time courtesy of an own goal from a late free-kick. It was cruel. They’d played a cautious game, rarely committing numbers forward, yet managing to have the best chance of the match in the opening 90 minutes.
Morocco had time for one more attempt, but it was not to be. Then, it transpired that our stand – or at least the upper tier of it – were being kept in. It appeared to be so that those in the more expensive seats lower down could beat the queues to the various options to get away from the stadium. I expect this on an Arsenal away trip, but never at a World Cup game. They’ll argue it was for safety reasons, but the ground was built to handle the number of spectators it has capacity for, so this just seemed like a case of prioritizing those who had paid more money. After ten minutes they finally let us out. I’d like to see them try this stunt with England fans if they lose a match.
The crowd control generally was way over the top, but there were so many police and army personnel in attendance, it was a case of tolerating it or simply not going into the game. Given the two sides, the attendance was very good – far better than that which had showed up to watch Uruguay and Egypt earlier (although the host city (Ekaterinburg has a far smaller population and is harder to get to), where the swathe of category 1 seats left empty was not a good look.
Once we finally got back to the metro, we took the one stop journey to where Ivan had parked his car. In a shopping mall car park, there was a large section reserved for those ordinary punters attending the World Cup game. I couldn’t believe it. Normally they do everything to dissuade people from using cars on matchday, and here we were being offered a parking spot only 100 metres from the metro. We drove back to his place and turned on the television at 9.12pm local time to see that Portugal were already 1-0 up against Spain. It turned out to be a cracking game, even allowing for Cristiano scoring a hat-trick and Diego Costa netting a pair. David De Gea’s error for the second Portugal goal was astonishing, but at least his team came back into it and took the lead in the second.
Tomorrow (Saturday) it's out fairly early to fly to Moscow where we will be watching Argentina face Iceland in Spartak Moscow’s stadium. So time for yours truly to hit the sack…
