Dispatch from Abroad – Sarah in München – September 2024

Hallo aus München!

It’s a beautiful evening for football here in the Bavarian capital and I am heading to the

Allianz Arena for the match between FC Bayern Munich and Bayern 04 Leverkusen. It’s

my first time to the Allianz and I am very excited!

We took to U-Bahn from the city, and it took about 18 minutes to get to the Fröttmaning

station. While the station name might not convey it is the stop for the Allianz, there is no

mistaking it is! The first giveaway is you can see the iconic Allianz from the train. The

second is that from the minute you step off the train, there are vendors selling FCB

scarves, hats, etc. Upon leaving the station, there are vendors selling wursts and a

biergarten along the short walk to the Allianz.

Walking around before kickoff, the stadium and concourses are large with plenty of

space. I went into the massive fanshop on the second level and while I was tempted to

purchase something, the line to check out wrapped around the entire store, so I decided

against it. Afterall, I wanted to watch the match, and I would have still been in that line at

halftime! I left the shop and proceeded back downstairs to the main concourse and had

a pre-match beer – a Paulaner – and pretzel. Then it was time for the match.

We bought tickets on the secondary market, so our seats were in the Leverkusen

section, which was ok, I just had to zip my jacket to cover up my Bayern shirt. The seats

were great and on a corner, so we had a birds eye view of all the action on the pitch. No

food or drink allowed in the seats, which is pretty common across Europe.

The match was lively – this was the Oktoberfest home match for Bayern and

Leverkusen won the Bundesliga last year after going undefeated, so there was a lot to

play for – and there were two first half goals. Leverkusen scored first on a strong strike

from Andrich at the top of the box off a corner. Bayern equalized soon thereafter on a

stunning strike from Pavlovich beyond the arc. The Südkurve went wild. I personally

love when the PA announcer formally announces the goal to the crowd and says the

player’s first name and the crowd shouts his last. Very fun to participate in that!

Ah, I should pause. The Südkurve is the Bayern equivalent of The Kop. When I watch

on TV, I call it the “flag section” because supporters there are constantly waving

massive flags. It is also the section where there is non-stop singing, jumping,

choreographed jumping, and Tifos. We were directly opposite it and man, did I want to

be over there!

Back to the match. There were other opportunities for goals, but it ended in a 1-1 draw.

Probably fair. Sides were evenly matched and neither team deserved all three points.

Wirtz was the best player on the pitch, hands down, and impressive to watch.

At the full-time whistle, I thought we would be promptly asked to leave. Much to my

delight, I was wrong! The concession stands were open and serving food and drink for

about an hour after the match. So, we had a beer, took photos, watched the subs do

their post-match workouts on the pitch, and took it all in. How smart to keep

concessions open after the match and allow people to have a drink and a chat after the

match and wait out the rush to the train.

All in all, a great experience and I look forward to going back.

Mia san mia.

Watch the match recap via ESPN FC.

Dispatch from abroad - Karlo in Madrid - September 2024

OK, so it should be clearly said here, I am a Barcelona supporter so technically this would be a “hate-watch”, but the truth is that the new Bernebeu seems very modern inside with the wrap-around screen showing highlights within the match. Plus, I was excited to watch Mbappe, Bellingham, Vini Jr., and Rodrygo in their first season together. This match was against Espanyol, famous local rivals of Barcelona FC, and for US Men’s National Team supporters, the former club of Mauricio Pochettino when he played as center-back.

When buying resale tickets in Spain, you often get physical tickets, which cannot be mailed to you. I’ve used StubHub International often and also for this purchase. It’s important to know where you are staying so you can be ready with a physical address in country (e.g. Spain), though you can update it later on Stubhub. I had to trust that the tickets would appear at my hotel and they did after timely communication with the seller on WhatsApp. I also had to return the Socio cards, which were like any ID just without a picture, the next day to the hotel front desk, which I did.

A socio card holder.

An edited image of the two socio cards with details removed.

We took the subway as the Bernabeu is in the north part of Madrid, the outer part of the city. There is a beautiful, long boulevard with a pedestrian walkway called Paseo de la Castellana that you can walk if it’s a nice day. It can be reached easily by walking north on Paseo de Recoletos, passing Plaza Colon, then becoming Paseo de la Castellana. The subway goes directly to the stadium and while there is a long line when you leave the stadium, it is quite orderly and does move, so be patient. The stop is called…Santiago Bernabeu.

Pre-renovation in November 2017 at the Bernabeu. I sat in the very top row to watch this match against Malaga and watched Ronaldo, Benzema and Casemiro score goals as they won 3 - 2.

Post-renovation in September 2024. I had much better seats this match.

Prior to the match, there are numerous bars where you can order a beer and a sandwich for take-away. I recommend you bring food into the stadium, which we didn’t do, but noticed that others had. I bought two scarfs and planned to give one to guest of the show, Christopher (listen to his episode about his Spurs fandom here). I also felt the need to blend in and enjoy the game as a local would.

Security was very light 40 minutes prior to the match and the security guards could tell we were tourists and clueless and looked at our socio cards and let us in without incident. After that you are shuttled to your section of the stadium. There isn’t much in the way of concessions and most people in our section brought sunflower seeds and were treating it like peanuts at a baseball game.

The game was exciting from the standpoint of seeing top players score goals. After scoreless first half, the second half didn’t disappoint. Madrid’s goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois had an error that lead to an own goal at the 54th minute, and Los Blancos responded with aplumb, firing in four goals from Dani Carvajal 58’, Rodrygo 75’, Vinicius Junior 78’, and Kylian Mbappe 90’ (P). Here’s the match recap via ESPN FC.

Dispatch from abroad - Karlo and Sarah in Liverpool - May 2024

In early 2024, Karlo and I, along with our spouses, planned a trip to Liverpool to attend

a match at Anfield. We decided on the penultimate home match on 5 May 2024 against

Spurs. It worked with all our schedules, and we thought (hoped?!) the weather would be

relatively nice for the match. As you can imagine, tickets are difficult to come by and the

secondary market is not really a guaranteed (or legal?) thing in England, so we

purchased hospitality tickets to the match. By 17 January 2024, tickets, flights and

hotels were booked and all we had to do was wait 4.5 months for the big day to arrive.

Karlo and Connie selfie while Sarah lounges ahead of us going to the Hospitality bus.

Never did we think that nine days later the football world would be rocked with the news

that Jürgen Klopp was stepping down as manager at the end of the season.

As my dad always said, I would rather be lucky than good, and boy were we lucky with

our timing on booking tickets to this match!

Liverpool legend

Hospitality lunch with special guests!

For the next few months, we followed the Reds campaign intently. While their title hopes

and hopes for the quadruple fell by the wayside, as the end of the season approached,

the magnitude of Klopp leaving really set in. And so did a sense of gratitude for all he

had done for the club.

When the big day arrived, we were ready! The four of us are in Liverpool and excited for

the Anfield experience. We arrived early to walk the grounds around Anfield and take it

all in. We queued up with others to enter the ground and then…magic.

We sat in the brand new Anfield Road Stand, which was so new you could almost smell

the fresh paint. The concourses were large with plenty of room to move about, have a

beer, and pie, if you like. We opted for beers – Carlsberg, probably the best beer in the

world – and were SHOCKED at the price. A bottle of Carlsberg cost £3.50. £3.50!!!!! In

the US, a domestic beer costs at least $14. But I digress.

Sarah captures Karlo’s first time through the Anfield gates.

Sarah’s spouse, Brian, whose family is from and still lives in Liverpool. A family of reds.

We finished our beers and made our way to the seats.

Walking into a new stadium is always a somewhat religious experience for me. The

anticipation of seeing the pitch or field for the first time and feeling the history of the

place is something that gets me every time and Anfield was no different. The grass was

so green. The seats so red. The Kop SO alive! It was super and before we knew it, the

starters were being announced. It was almost match time.

Sarah with scarf raised in front of the iconic You’ll Never Walk Alone gate at the stadium

But first…

You’ll Never Walk Alone.

I’ll be honest, as soon as the song started playing, I raised my scarf in the air and could

not stop the tears. Shoot, thinking about it now still brings tears to my eyes. It was one

of the most moving experiences of my life. Being in the stadium and hearing 61,000

people singing at a volume I still struggle to describe is something I will never forget.

You could almost feel the generations of LFC supporters who have gone before us

singing along. I know, I know (eyeroll), but honestly, if you ever have a chance to go and

have that experience, do it.

Anyway, back to the match because, it was time for kick off!

Liverpool started well and had an early goal right in front of us (!!!!!!!!!) from Mo Salah.

Robbo followed suit just before half and the Reds were up 2-0 at half.

At the half, we went down to the concourse for a beer and bathroom stop. It was

crowded but not so crowded that you couldn’t get a bite to eat or something to drink.

Things moved quickly and everyone was good about space.

The 20 minutes went quickly and it was time for the second half. Cody Gakpo scored in

the 50 th minute to put Liverpool up 3-0. Harvey Elliott followed 9 minutes later to make it

4-0. Richarlison scored in the 71 st minute and Son in the 77 th for Spurs, but it was not

enough to claw back into the match. At full time, it was a Liverpool victory at 4-2.

Karlo in front of the Jurgen Klopp mural in the neighborhood around Anfield.

Watching Klopp do his post-match fist pumping and chest beating to the crowd was fun,

and it was wild to think he had only one home game left. We stayed for a while soaking

it all in and as we made our way to the exit, we all remarked at how very fortunate we

were to be here for this match and see Klopp in one of his final matches as manager. As

Karlo would say, what a life!

The bar you need to go to before or after, as we did, right outside Anfield. The world famous Arkles! Co-host Ian has also been here!!

Watch the match recap here.