Sakkāgēmu
Sunday 26th October (mo ichi do — once more)
As mentioned before, today I went to see a sakkāgēmu (soccer game) of Vissel Kobe versus Omiya Ardija.
After finishing the story this morning, I went to town to buy lunch and get a subway ride to Misakikoen, which is the subway station nearest to Noevir Stadium (Misakikoen stadium). After strolling around a bit through the neighborhood, I stopped by at the local McDonalds for a Biggumakku (Big Mac). That’s a healthy lunch if I ever saw one. Because, you know, it’s Japanese food, right?
The Big Mac could join me on a subway ride and after initial troubles of me being at the wrong subway station (yes, there are two non-connected stations along with an employee at the information desk, who doesn’t speak English), I found the proper line to Misakikoen. A smooth ride later, I came to the right station where fans where already gathering and all I needed to do was follow the line of red/white colored jerseys. 🙂
I bought a ticket for the cheapest places available and it turned out to be well worth the money. For only ¥3200 (less than €25) I could pick out any seat I wanted to in the designated section. The view was excellent as well. (Pics will follow.) And that’s without even mentioning the atmosphere in the stadium in general. The rivaling supporter groups were each trying to out-shout and out-drum the other group. Lots of banners and big flags were used as tools for intimidation as well.
During the first halve, Omiya scored 0-1 but that didn’t discourage the Ōsaka supporters in the least. In fact maybe due to their continued enthusiasm, the Ōsaka team almost scored 1-1. Later they did, as a result from being awarded a free kick. The stadium seemed to explode at that point. And later they even almost scored 2-1.
During half time, a show was being put on for the audience. Well, in fact it was just a commercial masked as a parade, methinks. Statistics showed that almost 13.000 visitors where in the audience. Not bad! (But to be honest, there still was quite some room to spare.)
Quickly during the second half 2-1 was scored and again the stadium appeared to explode with joy or something similar. A nice action by Ōsaka’s forward, who first landed the ball onto the keeper but then added a header to finish it off. Nice going! But Omiya weren’t out yet. They were even close to 2-2 but didn’t finish it off.
Other notable events were the fact that Omiya’s keeper received a yellow card for stalling, it appeared. After that, one of his team mates got a yellow card for taking a free kick way too quickly (even before the ball was lying still on the grass), being reprimanded about that and then finally starting arguing about that with the referee. That never is the smartest move to make.
Also noteworthy was the fact that, as far as I could tell, the Omiya supporters were singing and drumming literally non-stop. What endurance and devotion! At the end of the match there appeared a skirmish after a tackle on an Ōsaka player. But nothing came of it. It appeared though, that the home team’s coach was reprimanded for his part in the skirmish. Yes, coach, stay inside of your boxed area.
At the end of the match it appeared that some kind of bonuses or awards were given to two of the players of Ōsaka. I have no idea why about one, but the other was the man of the match, for some reason. Good for him, I hope he likes his ¥1.00.000 (€7000 or so). 😉 The Ōsaka club anthem was sung once more (as both were sung before the start of the match) and all was well.
Where do I sign up for my season’s pass? xD
Bonus Fun Fact: To me it appeared as though there was air conditioning in the stadium. It appeared to be much colder on the stands than it was outside. Wow?
After the game I went back to Sonnamiya station and walk around a bit through Motomachidori, a long street which acts as a shopping mall. Many shops, no restaurants. The restaurants were in other streets though, even a China Town, I’d say.
For dinner I settled at Kobe Beef, where they were proud to announce to me that at some time they had one an award, stating that their beef was very good. I think. The meal was indeed very good tough, except for the mandatory hard/tough parts in the steak. But well, what are you gonna do. After I was finished, it was raining cats and dogs so I had to walk back to the apartment through the rain. Thank goodness I had an umbrella and waterproof bag with me. Huzzah!
I concluded the day with talking to my hosts Bryan and Midori, which was totemo omoshiroi! (very interesting)
And as always, pictures will follow.