and so, as is the nature of such things, not all that long after the completion of a (on the whole, look you see) quite agreeable world cup it is so that domestic football leagues resume their business. well, leagues based in the northern hemisphere, at the least, with particular emphasis on European ones.
before competition "proper" kicks off there is the small matter of "friendlies". these are of course warm up games, existing in intention to give players a chance to get into form, have new players settle in to the team and try out any new tactical masterplans the coaching staff have devised. a reality of the modern day game, of course, is that for some teams friendlies have become not that much more than lucrative opportunities to make yet more coins. well, it is a (very) big business these days, we all stood around and watch it become such, so fair enough. nice for the fans of the "big" (massive) teams around the world that often friendlies are played overseas. you cannot sell too many shirts.
my ostensible team, Middlesbrough, are not really "galactic" in terms of an international following, so there's not (too) much in the way of desire or ambition for them to go and play friendlies in different lands. so, as was the case last year (here you go) a friendly was arranged this year against very decent opponents, if not what you would call "a grade" famous. no disrespect is intended, and certainly i would suggest the opponents are "bigger" than us.
our guests this year were Espanyol, who(m) i would suggest are the "second" biggest team in the Catalan region of Spain. well, it would take some doing to topple Barcelona from their status as the biggest, even if that side no longer seems to get as many favourable decisions from officials these days. having (very much) enjoyed the afternoon out last year (2025) i went along again this (2026).
i did not, as it happens, attend alone. well, no, of course there were quite a few there (more than the one last year), what i mean is i didn't "go solo". with tickets priced at £10 for adults and all of £1 (a single solitary pound) for under 18s, i took my youngest (known) son and his girlfriend. despite William not being all that interested in football his girlfriend very much is, and so i got tickets. so yes, then, one or two pictures to follow (two) do indeed feature moi. like this one.
quite a decent match day programme (of sorts) i am holding there. more of a "fold out" poster, as it happens, with all our fixtures for the season on it. as was the case last year, this shall be getting posted to New Zealand for Dad to do with it as he sees fit. yes, i did indeed offer both of my guests (as it were) a programme each but they declined.
yes, indeed there is some video here for you all. first up is the one below, which shows that it was perhaps not just the players who needed a bit of a chance to be ready for the season ahead.........
tradition dictates that the visiting team starting line up is read out (over the speaker system) first, giving fans who(m) have made the trip a chance to cheer them and, invariably, the home fans every opportunity to boo them. after that the home team gets read out, with a second or two pause between names, allowing the larger home crowd to cheer. usually this is so. not on that fine (very) early August afternoon, however. timings were a bit off, and so we were left with just a bit of a "speed read" through half of our team, as the match kicked off before it was completed. apparently the referee had no interest at all in a slight delay to let the huddled masses applaud some names.
didn't really have too many expectations (or hopes) for the match, although i was quite interested in seeing how we got on without Hackney. he was, i believe, voted "player of the season" by his contemporaries across the division we are perpetually in, and was always destined to go on to what gets notionally called a "bigger" (as in Premier League) club. not too surprised he has moved on to Everton, but somewhat surprised that we got a fee of "only" north of £15 million. most thought it would be a figure far north of £20 million. just 30 years ago Newcastle were described as "bonkers" for spending a whole £15 million on Alan Shearer. imagine what the figures shall be like in 30 years from now.
picture above is from the match, and yes that is two (2) empty stands. last year there was only the one section of the ground open for fans, the west stand. this time the west and south were, so to your left you are seeing the empty north stand, and across the east stand. from what i recall of the announcements there was some 15,000 in attendance. quite a lot of that was families, taking full advantage of the rather generous pricing for under 18s.
should it be that you are presently reading this (and thanks for doing so) in the hope of some details of the game, well, it finished 3-3. last year it was 2-2, so presumably next year (2027) it will be 4-4. for our team (the Boro), relative newcomer Leo Castledine got a couple, sandwiching one from the lad most likely to be our key player this season, Morgan Whittaker. in terms of the latter, that all did seem improbable for a while. many - myself very much included - wondered why, exactly, we persevered with him, since he seemed "not up to it". by chance i was at the Ipswich match where we all saw him transform from being error prone to someone who could dictate the match (to use some classic punditry wording). rather surprised (and delighted) that we have managed to hold on to him, which isn't a statement many fans would have made prior to that transformative performance against Ipswich.
bit more video for you above, then, and by chance it was our third goal that i captured. just a chance recording, really, although of course you can't (really) clearly see what's going on down at the business end of the pitch. not sure why i recorded a corner being taken. generally a "problem" Middlesbrough has is an inability to score from things like open play, corners, free kicks and penalties (not that we get awarded too many). over time we have been seen as a "goal scorers graveyard", where prolific players have come with much promise and not delivered. even when they buck that trend, well, who does not recall Ravanelli scoring 30 goals for us in a season that ended with relegation and two cup final defeats. mind, Boksic was good, but at a cost.
the score got to 3-3 with around twenty (or so) minutes to go, and at that point both teams appeared to elect that such was enough. for the remainder of the afternoon it was quite clear, and this is fair, both sides were happy just to try out a few tactics they had been working on. especially as the opponents would not be familiar with such, unless of course one of the two had done a Southampton.
a rather nice chap, who(m) had come all the way from Spennymoor and assured me (not that i had any reason or wish to doubt such) that he had been watching Boro since 1963, seemed not so much frustrated as he was confused as to why, in that final stretch, neither side played with any real impetus or momentum. i offered him the suggestion that there was, in essence, absolutely "nothing on the line" here, no prize was at the end. he seemed content with that.
go on then, one more picture. and yes, a (vague) warning, as i do indeed feature in it. but so does William. not his girlfriend, however, as it would strike me as inappropriate to do so. my intention with this picture was to kind of echo one i took with his older brother, my oldest (known) son, somewhere around nine (9) years ago at (obviously) a different match. nine and a half years ago, as point of fact.
easiest thing to say here, and to describe any friendly match, is that "one cannot tell" much of how the season ahead shall go on the basis of this game. well, if we had got battered 4-0 i suspect you would be perfectly fine having a guess that a tough season was waiting. by the same measure, i suppose, had we gone and won 4-0 there there would be (reasonable) expectation of a decent run.
how likely am i to go to further matches? it would be lovely. clearly i am not a "proper fan" as i cannot make most games, mostly down to cost and transport. also i am not one of those who(m) plays the "i have been a fan for x years" card. maybe one or two select matches, then.
sigueu excel·lents els uns amb els altres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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