Craiova vs. Oţelul Galaţi

I was able to go to my first European soccer game yesterday with my friends Stefan, Ovi and Emi. It was the hometown team Univeristatea Craiova vs. Oţelul Galaţi. Oţelul was in first place when the match started. They are not the best team, my Romanian friends tell me, it is just early in the season and they have played a few good games. It made for an interesting game to watch, and was a new and fun experience for me. Here is Stefan as he eagerly yearns for the game to start.
Ovi and Emi are here also before the start of the game.
Craiova's stadium can hold around 40,000 people, but it is under repair. As a result, this game was played in the second largest stadium in town, which only holds around 10,000 people. The enitre stadium was sold out, except for the visitor's section, which might have had 20 people in it.Many people prefered to sit on the hill side than in their seats.
Before the game started, fans were waving this banner. I couldn't read what it said from my seat. However, is was fun to be a part of a passionate fan base at a futbol game.
Here a member of Oţelul tries to tackle Costea (#10), the best player on Craiova's team.

A rush for the ball. (You can see the ball, it is just over the stands in this picture.)This is a foul on Oţelul that wasn't called and sent the crowd roaring, because they wanted a penalty.

In the end, Craiova won. The goal was scored on a header in the second half. I didn't have my camera out at the time, so there are no pictures of it. It was pretty. Anyways, we won, and the team played pretty well. It was a fairly slow game, because Oţelul was primarily trying to play defense. They rarely tried to attack. There weren't very many chances for either side, but we got one, and that's all that we needed.

I enjoyed it. I've wanted to go to a European futbol match for a long time, and I got to yesterday. This isn't the English Premiership, bu it doesn't matter. I really enjoyed myself, and this still was a high level of play.

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