Meh-Hi-Co Meh-Hi-Co Ra-Ra-Ra

Another match day, another long trip, this time to Gelsenkirchen. It was a top of the table clash between Portugal and Mexico. I have to give it to the Mexican fans, they sure know how to make alot of noise. I think they outnumbered the Portuguese supports 2:1, but they had the better chants and were way more colourful and entertaining.

OK so far, I've been very impressed with Germany, both Frankfurt and Leipzig were both modern and fun, so Gelsenkirchen had alot to live up to. I have to say that I felt let down by this host city. The place was a bit of a dive and unlike the other cities, though there are plenty of churches and the locals were friendly enough.

We got to Fanfest early to have a look around. They were still doing sound checks and getting ready for the main event when we arrived, so after beer and a quick look around we moved on to the main stadium.

The home ground of Shalke 04 is a pretty impressive stadium. It has all the mod-cons and the roof was closed for today's match. Now I was impressed with our seats for our France vs Korea match, but our seats weren't so great for this one, they had netting up behind the goal that did obstruct our view. Still we were front row and just near the corner flag so they weren't all bad.


The game was pretty open and exciting, real end to end stuff. I thought Mexico should've come away with atleast a point, but atleast they made it through to the second round as well. I was very disappointed when Scolari chose not to play 5 starters for this game, I felt cheated that I wasn't going to get to see Roanldo and Deco play even though I'd paid full price for my ticket. I was going to support Portugal before the match, but that snub changed my allegiances.