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Finally Frankfurt football
June 17th, 2006
Today I did what I didn’t do the last time a match was played in Frankfurt – I bought a ticket from a tout (scalper).
It was probably my last chance to see a match in the city that I will have spent two weeks in by the time I leave it. Consequently, I was prepared to pay a bit more today.
You learn something new every day. When I tried to get a ticket for South Korea v Togo four days ago, I didn’t realise that one trick used by touts is to hold up signs saying that they’re looking for tickets as if they want to buy, not sell.
I found this out at the main train station when I asked a guy holding a sign whether anyone had offered him anything. He said that he was buying and selling. He then asked me what I wanted.
This tout (today we’ll call him J) gave me the impression that he had tickets for all three of today’s matches. I told him that I only wanted one ticket to Portugal v Iran. He said “come with me” and we walked outside. (There was feverish ticket trading at Frankfurt’s main train station today. That didn’t seem to be the case for South Korea v Togo.)
J seemed quite laid back. He didn’t fit the stereotype that I described a few days ago. But I had no idea where he was taking me. We walked to the front of the station and for a moment I thought he was going to introduce me to a colleague of his sitting in the back of a van.
Even though J seemed like a nice guy, I wasn’t prepared to follow him into some narrow alley. But just when I was about to tell him that, he stopped in the middle of a big crowd and made a phone call.
When his mate finally arrived (let’s call him K) I was told that the best they could do was sell me a category 3 ticket for 250 euros. I said that that was 100 euros more than I could pay (which wasn’t exactly true but ticket trading is a rough game). K got really upset and stormed off. But J asked me to wait, and chased after his buddy to tell him that he should negotiate. I suspected that this might be an act but eventually J came back alone and offered the same ticket for 200 euros.
I was amazed by how relaxed J was. He was prepared to let me hold the ticket up to the light to check its watermark and, while I was doing that, he stepped a few metres away to make another call. I could have run off with it. (He was also happy to continue negotiating.)
The ticket looked perfectly legitimate (it wouldn’t be easy to replicate them) but, after buying it for 180 euros, I started to wonder if I’d just made the most stupid decision of my life. It’s a lot of money and how sick would I feel if I found that the ticket was a fake? (By the way, I had spoken to other touts but I couldn’t find a better price.)
Now I really wanted to get to the stadium as soon as possible. Even though I was 99% sure about the ticket’s authenticity, I simply had to know. Fortunately the story had a happy ending.
You might be thinking that I paid too much for this match. But I have now ensured that I will have seen a minimum of 8 matches, 13 teams and 6 stadiums in the World Cup finals by the time I leave Germany. (And I went to two pre-tournament friendlies.) With only one ticket bought from a tout, I’m quite happy with that.
So I finally got to see some football in Frankfurt. I felt a bit guilty because the ticket that I was sold was in the name of Portugal’s football federation. I was effectively there at the expense of a Portuguese fan.
It’s a great stadium – I nearly liked it as much as Gelsenkirchen’s (still my favourite). From the outside, it looks more colosseum-like and the perennial problem of curving stands around a square pitch is solved by continuing to curve them around the touchlines. This means that if you’re sitting over the halfway line, you’d be two or three more metres away from the pitch than might otherwise be the case. (But that’s still much better than having a running track in the way.)
My category 3 ticket had me nicely elevated over a corner flag. From television, I would have been in line with the far touchline and behind the goal on viewers’ right.
It was a good match. To add to the entertainment value, I was sitting with four England fans from Millwall. Like most South Londoners, they talked at a million miles per hour and had a natural gift for comedy.
Iran survived an early storm and played quite well (but a little too cautiously) until Deco scored for the Portuguese in the second half. After a silly challenge gave Portugal a penalty and a 2-0 lead, there would be no coming back for Team Melli.
Incidentally, the stadium’s retractable cloth top was used to ensure that the players weren’t exposed to the warm sun. Why wasn’t the same done when England played Paraguay in afternoon heat at the same venue?
After the match, I met Majeed Panahi and we had a drink at his nearby hotel. Majeed runs www.teammelli.com, a fine English-language website for Iran fans. He emailed me after seeing my Iran team presentation on this site and we decided to meet after realising that we’d be in Frankfurt at the same time. While we chatted, we watched the telecast of the sensational match between Ghana and the Czech Republic.
I returned to the main train station area in time to watch the day’s other remarkable game between Italy and USA. It’s nice to see that Group E is wide open. In a couple of other groups, we already know the two teams going to the last 16.
It’s early to bed tonight. I need all my energy for another big day in Munich tomorrow where Brazil takes on Group F leader Australia (sorry, couldn’t resist). Again, if I’m late with tomorrow’s diary entry, you’ll surely understand.
This might surprise you, but I’m not at all nervous. (Before the Australia-Japan game, I was a complete wreck.) Everyone expects Brazil to win.
Maybe I’ll be more anxious as game time approaches. You’ll find out tomorrow.
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