Day 1
So by now you all know how much I love to do my spur of the moment research trips and they pretty much lead me to be able to experience some truly amazing things.

A few months ago I had the chance to travel the world and during my travels not only did I get to immerse myself in so much history and different culture but I had the chance to do one of my research trips.

I’d been visiting some family and I found out that there would be a soccer match before I left the country. Something I’ve never had the chance to do is see a real soccer game. I’ve seen soccer games but not where pro teams are playing. How could I pass this up? It also got the idea wheel spinning so I knew I had to do everything to make this game before my travels continued.

I’d made arrangements to get to the stadium and get myself a ticket. What I found out that day was that the teams that would be playing this game are arch rivals and it gets crazy when both sides collide when it comes to fans. European soccer fans are huge when it comes to showing love for their teams.

The morning I made arrangements to make my way over to the stadium I had a friend of mine and my cousin come with me since I was not familiar with the area and did not want to get lost. When I arrived at the box office it turned out that it was to open in two hours so that was a bit of a bust. I noticed my friend and cousin talking to a very handsome guy who I’d never seen before. I figured it was an acquaintance since they had a lot of them in the area.

I was wrong.I quickly found out he was one of the guys from the pro soccer team I was trying to get tickets for. His name was Amir Spahic and he was one of the WKS Slask players. I was pretty surprised to see a pro athlete coming y the box office from the stadium and talking to fans. I’m pretty use to the fact that here you can’t get near a pro athlete because security will either push you out of the way or you just won’t see them out and about. He was pretty polite and easy to talk to. I listened as him and the guys chatted about the game and it looked as if they were old buddies they way they conversed.

Since I wasn’t sure when I’d get the chance to be back here again and have the opportunity to meet a pro soccer player I decided to snap a photo with him. Something to remember the trip into the city by. He was super nice and so great to talk to. I know not all athletes are this nice but this was a change since an athletes I’d seen previously were not this nice to fans.

So since I wasn’t able to get my hands on a pair of tickets I had to try to get back the next day and see if I could get one. By now I was pretty excited to be going to a game for the first time. I’d just met one of the team members, there was tons of hype about the upcoming game and I wanted to get inspired for a story. Plus I’d heard the crowd cheer from the stadium when I visited friends around the area and all I can say is that is insane. You can be two blocks or more away from the stadium but the cheers of the fans are so loud that you feel like you are standing right in the middle of the field.

Come back tomorrow for part 2 of my soccer fun…I’ve had to split this blog up into a few parts or this would ed up being one extra long blog.

Savannah