Perhaps this night was something of a victory after all!
Flagshagger boss Tommy Tuchel said: ‘If you hear just Wales fans for half an hour, it’s sad because the team deserved more support.
‘I would have wished for a bit more support in phases where it gets difficult. In the second half to get behind us, there was a bit too much support for Wales.’
Last time I saw Oviedo they lost 7-1 to Barcelona in April 1989.
But they did manage to keep Gary Lineker off the scoresheet. You’ve got to find small victories somewhere.
There’s been plenty of misery since but this miracle club are back in La Liga after 25 years.
Continue reading Raised from the dead – Real Oviedo 0 Levante 2
Looks like 2025 will be peak Rayo.
Last season’s eighth place brought them European experience in the shape of Conference League, er, glory.
And a visit from North Macedonia hotshots Shkendija, who hail from Tetovo in the east, near the border with Kosovo.
John Cleese – a surprise presence here in Gijon – would’ve exploded had he been at the game!
Three-nil up after 37, Sporting chucked it away to lose in the fifth minute of added time courtesy of VAR. What a game!
One of the delights of Gijon is the Life of Brian homage in the old city – designed to pique interest in this ancient city’s Roman origins.
Continue reading Albai ite domum – Sporting Gijon 3 Albacete 4
At 11.30pm I bumped into Porthmadog man about town Tommie Collins under the monstrous statue of Alexander the Great (see above) and said I thought we’d played well.
A not untypical torrent of, er, extreme disagreement came back my way and Tommie – ruddy about the face – got even ruddier it seemed in the dark, and strode off. Nice off-pink jacket by the way, Mr Collins, where can I get one?
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I was. Perhaps we were both right.
Continue reading Karma chameleons – North Macedonia 1 Wales 1
At squeaky bum time (45 minutes) nobody would’ve put Ben Davies down as the guy to rustle up a goal to calm everyone’s heebie-jeebies, screaming abdabs or chronic collywobbles.
Fantastic goal line clearances, yes. Brilliant last-ditch tackle, check. Fifty yard 70mph chase and snaffle, aye.
Goal, no.
Any town that boasts a Laurel and Hardy bar has to be admired.
Itty-bitty Eibar, wedged in the Basque country mountains halfway between Bilbao and San Sebastian, with a population of 27,500, channels the comic pair’s surreal genius.
This sliver of a community has hosted all the recent La Liga greats until 2021 and is a truly tremendous trip, though not easily reached.
The boys from the barrio were as old as Jimmy Carter last year.
And in Madrid’s Casa de Vacas (House of Cows) in the glorious Retiro park, the club had a celebratory exhibition.
Well it’s not the trophy room at Real or Barcelona, that’s for sure.
This game kicked off to chants of ‘Putin Khuylo’ (Putin is a dickhead).
The modern evil monster overshadowed an eve-of-Halloween clash at 3.30pm on a Wednesday.
Third, the wolfmen of Polissya, versus Ukraine Premier League fifth and the kids, off school for half term, were out in droves.
Continue reading Howl lotta love – Polissya Zhytomyr 2 Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih 1
For my money, it’s the most beautiful ground in the world.
War has renewed the Lobanovski stadium’s former glory.
Dinamo play here, not the Olimpiski, as do Zorya Luhansk, despite leaving Luhansk ten years back.
Continue reading Where the trees sing – Dinamo Kyiv 1 Shakhtar Donetsk 1
These guys have played all over the shop. One season up the road in Yuzhne, then down the road in Ovidiopol, and now across the city of Odesa at Spartak.
No wonder the Pharma chameleons have got no fans – they’re probably flummoxed by the ever-changing venues and underlying sense of impermanence when all they want is a local club they feel they can relate to.
Continue reading Gone fishin’ – Real Pharma 2 Nyva Vinnytsia 1 (2016)
Ukraine soldiers on, and so does its premier league.
Football is played in the face of evil. In a sense, its very existence is poetic. And symbolic.
Never a dull moment here. Woken at 3am by a Shahed flying over Kyiv, it was panic stations.
Almost as scary was the five-hour bus to Oleksandriya driven on bad roads by a guy seemingly on steroids whose phone was stuck to his ear most of the way (top tip: NEVER get the bus to Oleksandriya).
Continue reading UPL plays on – FK Oleksandriya 1 Vorskla Poltava 0
Miles from Nowhere 