Sevilla vs. Espanya

As I said in my last post, I spent most of this weekend in Barcelona. After Saturday, a friend (Logan) who is visiting, and I went back on Sunday to see a futbol match: Espanyol vs Sevilla. It was a good game actually even though we thought that Espanyol would get killed. Coming into the game, Sevilla was 3rd and Espanyol was last in the league out of 20 teams. The game ended up 2-0 in favour of Sevilla but it was scoreless until the last ten minutes.

Espanyol plays in the Olympic Stadium that was built for the 1992 Olympics held in Barcelona. It was such a big place. Amazing too. It has the capacity to hold 55,000 people.

It was really neat. I enjoyed it. Logan had booked us tickets in the visitors section. We thought it'd be fun to sit there. But sitting in the visitors section at a hockey game is nothing compared to sitting in the visitors section at a futbol match. People are allowed into the stadium only at the entrance of their section. So we walked around looking for our section. As other lines to get in were long, ours was very short. We thought that was a great thing as we were already running a little late. But the minute we walked through the door, we were greeted by an army of law enforcement officers, complete with face shields, batons and other weapons in case a riot were to break loose. First thing I thought: This is not what I signed up for! We ended up not being able to find our correct seats (thank goodness!) and sat where everyone cheered for the home team. I didn't mind this in the least! We were looking around after for where we were supposed to sit and the visitors section is completely cornered off. Has two empty sections on each side of it along with a net so that things can't be thrown, from the inside out and from the outside in. I was pretty happy that we weren't sitting there. I expected it to be like sitting in the visitors section of a hockey game. However, I have yet to be at a hockey game where there is that many police to make sure things don't get out of control!

This is a picture that I can't take credit for. I was looking up the stadium on Google and came across this picture. In the foreground of the picture, you see the MNAC (the museum that I visited the day before) and in the background is the Barcelona Olympic Stadium. We had no idea they were so close to each other.

This is in the back of the stadium.

The view from the very top row of the stadium (not our seats).

The stands. It wasn't even that busy. Espanyol isn't the main team that plays there and they aren't doing very well in their league. FC Barcelona would pack these stands. They are #1 in the league. I would love to go and see a game of theirs while I'm here too.


This is the main entrance opening into the Olympic Stadium.

This is the view from our seats. We weren't really this far away. The camera doesn't do it justice.

The front of the Olympic Stadium.

The Olympic torch.

Another main entrance to the Olympic Stadium.
And another main entrance to the Olympic Stadium.

Until next time...