AC Sparta Praha Fotbol

On Thursday night we went to see the fotbol team AC Sparta Praha play at the AXA Arena. We took the metro to the next to the last stop and while we were on the up escalator coming out of the metro a group of men behind us and in front of us started singing along with each other. When the women in front of me started to look really angry and proceeded to flick off everyone singing we realized that the people singing were fans of the Croatian team that AC Sparta was playing that night as part of the UEFA Cup. When we arrived at the stadium there were armored police everywhere with helmets and shields and a lot of them were surrounding fans of the other team and escorting them into the stadium so they could not come in contact with anyone else going in.

We found our seats and another group of our friends were also at the game so we decided to try to walk over to their section of the stadium. When we tried to get over we went only a little bit farther than our section and were met with a cage because the arena is sectioned off for crowd control. On the way back to our seats I went to go buy a beer and found that they only sold non alcoholic beer. I guess this was also to keep the fans from getting crazier than they already are.

We got to our seats and were looking around the stadium and spotted the AC Sparta fan section. They had a million banners everywhere and I also noticed that their section was fenced off on both sides so that they couldn't go anywhere. The Croatian team also had a fan section on the other side of the arena that was about twice the size of the AC Sparta's section where they were also fenced in. They had someone beating a drum the entire game and both team's fan sections also sang chants for almost the whole game.

The game started and after about 10 minutes or so the Croatian team scored the first goal. Their fan section went insane and started lighting flares and even threw one of the flares out onto the field. A little later AC Sparta scored and their section reacted the same way with signing and chants and flares. We had seats very close to the field so we could see a lot that was going on but the more expensive seats are the ones in the upper sections so that you can look out onto the whole field. The game was pretty exciting and it made me want to play soccer again. It ended in a 3-3 tie which was enough for the Croatian team to move on in the tournament but unfortunately AC Sparta had to win to advance. Overall the game was a lot of fun and unlike any sporting event I have been to in America. We are already talking about going to another game soon.