Back to chronicling some travel again on today’s blog and judging by its popularity last time out I’m calling it as being “Back by popular demand”.
And yes, I went over to everyone’s favourite football tournament, the FIFA Club World Cup. Now, I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’m so open minded I was willing to give it a go, and when my pal Francesco suggested we fly over to experience it and watch Inter take on River Plate – I thought, “why the hell not”.
The first thing to say is, I’m not a millionaire, far from it! In fact I’m not even rich, I do ok in my job but high rent and cost of living means I generally live month to month. So how were we going to plan this properly? Tickets weren’t an issue (as is well publicised) and with our Inter Club Memberships we easily purchased tickets in the “Inter end” for the game, for around €120.
But how to get to America? Seattle is as far away from London as it can possibly be so this wasn’t going to be cheap. BA were after £1600 for return flights, Virgin wanted more and the American airlines seemed to want me to fly exclusively with BA. I tried looking at connecting options if I could get into New York with Fly Norse for cheap but to no avail.
Suddenly, Icelandair revealed itself to me. I’d heard rumours before that they were cheap due to some variation on long haul taxes in the Viking island. A quick check on their website confirmed it. Around a £1000 saving on the previous cheapest option. It seemed mad to me, £650? Really? to get to Seattle and back?
Now there’s a few caveats here, that was the base fare and didn’t include my seat or luggage. There’s a generous free hand luggage allowance of a small wheeled suitcase and a backpack. The thing you pay £50 to bring on Ryanair. I didn’t need to book a seat either, as you can get one allocated for free, but for ease I decided to pay for a window.
So all in I think it was around £700 to fly. I didn’t get fed, you have to buy food, but that’s fairly reasonably priced. But there’s something I haven’t told you! In a bid to boost tourism, Icelandair offers up to 7 nights stopover in Iceland for no additional airfare. So whatever you pay for you flight, you can connect in up to a weeks time for nothing extra.
Francesco had already decided he was going to head over there on Friday night and give himself a few days to explore. It was a little trickier for me. Work commitments, a wedding and the Mrs being furious I was going away for a week without her meant I joined him on the Monday.
My layover was only 16 hours in Reykjavik and it was a bloody expensive 16 hours. Frustratingly for me, we were flying to Keflavik and not the central Reykjavik airport. There was an Icelandic Premier League game kicking off at 6pm that was right next to that airport, but Keflavik was around a 45 minute transfer away. Alas, I didn’t make it to the Icelandic match, but I did catch the second half in a bar while waiting for Francesco to return from an excursion.
It’s a shame I didn’t manage to make it, the game finished 7-1 and I wouldn’t have spent £45 on three pints… Never mind though, that wasn’t the game I was coming for. Francesco and I got a bit drunk and headed back to the hotel where blackout blinds were most welcome. It was around 2am when we got back there and the sun was still shining like it was 8pm in England. A truly bizarre experience!
Next morning we headed over to the airport for about 8am, our flight was at 10:30 and we didn’t want to take any chances. As it turns out, the process in Keflavik couldn’t have been smoother. We breezed through security, straight through passport control to be stamped out and headed straight for a coffee (pint).
Boarding was on time and quick and I must say I was hugely impressed with Icelandair. The plane was bright and spacious, we had huge TV screens for entertainment, the food and drink was well priced and the temperature was just right. I’m not sure what it is most airlines do, but pretty much every other plane I’ve been on has been too hot or too cold, but Icelandair got it just right.
After take off, I tucked into a cup of noodles, very tasty and 4 beers in between chatting with Francesco, reading a book, watching Twisters (don’t bother) and napping. It’s that weird thing flying to America where the travel time and time difference mean you essentially land the same time you leave. And we did just that. Arriving into Seattle roughly 30 minutes after take off. In reality, our day had moved on 7 hours, but in Seattle we were only 30 minutes further on in our day!
To stave off jetlag we enjoyed a nice long queue at the US border (sort it out Trump) and then an even longer queue for the bus to the car rental service. Each queue was around 40 minutes and moved the day along nicely. At the car rental area, we were greeted with our first taste of good ol’ fashioned USA when we were presented with a monster of a pick up truck!
It wasn’t exactly what we were used to, but you know what they say – when in Rome…
After checking in at our Motel on the outskirts of Seattle, we drove into town to check out the Inter team hotel, see what was going down. It turned out to be great timing, we arrived there about 6pm just in time for some kind of player curfew as we met Davide Frattesi. He was good enough to pose for pictures with us and some other fans before heading into the hotel. Sebastiano Esposito also stopped for a photo but didn’t seem best pleased to be doing so!
After dinner, we walked back past the hotel towards the car with some more perfect timing and stumbled across bona fide Inter and Argentina legend Javier Zanetti. He was a gentleman who stopped for photos and long chats with all the Inter fans – much to the annoyance of his wife who was waiting to go back into the hotel.
Wednesday was match day and the day began with another stop at the hotel – Francesco’s obsession – and we once again arrived just as the players returned from training. This time there was no mood for photos, Thuram, Bisseck and Frattesi all strolled straight into the hotel, while I’ve never seen Zielinski move so quick as when some kids wanted an autograph. Maybe Inter should employ some to follow him around the San Siro pitch?
The game kicked off at 6pm local time and we decided around midday that it was time for a beer and headed to the oldest pub in Seattle called Central Bar. On the way there, we once again tripped over an Inter legend when we saw Maicon out for a stroll.
Central Bar is your typical American pub, it looks a little like what an American thinks a British pub should look like. But the bar staff and the locals were welcoming and keen to learn about “soccer” from us and some River fans.
This leads me in nicely to dropping a little praise for River fans. They’re mental. They outnumbered Inter fans there by 20 to 1 and they were all over the city and constantly decked out in their River shirts. They also have this weird thing where when one group sees another group, they immediately start singing and jumping up and down. They had clearly come to party and were in bouyant mood on match day.
After a short pub crawl towards the stadium (Lumen Field is so central in Seattle it’s crazy), we arrived at a designated meeting point for the Inter fans. Some of the clubs from America had organised a get together at The Gantry pub just outside of the stadium.
Flags were prominent with Inter Club DC, Miami and Ohio present with Francesco and I repping London. It was great to see the fans come together like this and it was definitely a different experience to the San Siro being among American fans. Some of them are children of Italian immigrants, some of them are Italians who live and work in the States and others just liked Inter because they were in Milan on their honeymoon when Inter played.
We shared some beers (maybe too many) and sang songs, we bantered with River fans and appeared on various Argentinian TV stations who wanted to speak to us. It was a great way to pass a couple of hours pre match.
Around an hour before kick off, Francesco and I decided to head into the stadium. Now, let me tell you, Americans may not have the right kind of football, but their stadiums for this sport are nothing short of amazing. Lumen Field is a spectacular stadium, with the Inter fans housed in a large open air section behind one goal. Behind the stand was a plaza like area with food and drink stalls and general mingling.
Our seats were amazing, right down behind the goal and we got a great view of the spectacular River fans behind the other goal enjoying their day. The noise that came from them was incredible, I can only imagine the scenes if they’d scored.
As it stands, they didn’t. Inter actually played well, probably for the only time in the tournament. They had a nervy opening few minutes but quickly settled and were largely the better side. A few scuffed chances and the score could’ve been a lot better than 0-0 at half time.
Pio Esposito – the younger brother – was an absolute handful throughout and probably played his way into Chivu’s thinking for next season. His goal was therefore thoroughly well deserved. Good play by the also impressive Petar Susic played him in and he turned well before firing low into the net. The celebrations of his team mates tell you this was a popular goal.
The second followed from Bastoni who rode a couple of attempted assualts from the Argentinians before smashing low under the keeper and into the net. What followed was all a bit unsavoury if not desperately funny as Dumfries and Acuna clashed and followed it on after the full time whistle.
Inter had won, they’d played well and deserved it, I’m not sure if we’ll say that a lot based on the fall out that followed. More importantly though, it was literally a 5 minute walk from the ground the a dive bar where we enjoyed a few beers in the evening before heading back to the Motel.
The next couple of days were quite chilled. We drove North near to Canada to the Northern Cascades National Park which was breathtakingly beautiful, exploring small town America on the way. We did all the tourist bits in Seattle too, the Space Needle and the boat tour round the harbour and I’ve got to say I really enjoyed the city.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s not really enough going on in Seattle to warrant a flight around the World just to see it, but it’s clean and spacious, it isn’t as busy and bustling as some of the other US cities. It doesn’t really represent what we all hear about “Trump’s America” either, it all seemed a bit… woke, I guess. Everyone was friendly, there was Pride flags hanging everywhere as it was Pride month, the food was all Mexican, Vietnamese, Thai – people from all cultures were mixing.
Well worth adding to any trip you’ve got planned in the States.
As for the Club World Cup? Well, I had kept an open mind. I’m glad I did. Even though I only did one game I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Where else can we see Europe’s finest take on South America’s finest in something meaningful? I do a lot of international tournaments following England and the group stages are always the best part. Everyone from around the World is still there, everyone’s happy because the proper serious stuff hasn’t kicked off yet.
Seattle certainly had these vibes. After the games River fans and Inter fans were swapping shirts, swapping scarves, swapping flags, sharing a drink together and laughing together. There’s no doubt that FIFA’s new flagship tournament has some work to do – but I enjoyed myself in this first iteration.
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