[ad_1]
F ¼ minute after the final whistle, long after the rest of the stadium emptied, the group of English fans behind a goal at the Samara Arena was still there. As they bounced back, they gave a passionate rendition of the national anthem. Hearing God save the Queen in a city that was once the epicenter of the Soviet Space Program was not the weirdest thing of an afternoon of conviction constantly overturned. Semifinal Cup for the first time since 1990. And it's really weird. The day had started early, with a history of aviation: surely the first charter flight from Stansted to Samara brought an English fan plane to the Kazakhstan border. Whatever the difficulty, whatever the distance, whatever the cost, they wanted to be here, to be witnesses of the story. Or at least, that's what we felt.
A few hours before the kickoff, the wide boulevards on the outside of the stadium were already filled with the multinational crowd of the World Cup. Robbie Lyle of Arsenal TV was part of the crowd.
"It was good," he said about the tournament. "So much easier than I expected … That said, I came here when Arsenal played at CSKA, the dress rehearsal if you will, and it was good as gold. "
[ad_2]
Source link