Around Euro 2024 – Day Six – Cologne

Day Six – Wednesday 19th June 2024   
Scotland 1 Switzerland 1   
Cologne RheinEnergieStadion – 9pm local time   

Having been to the east of Germany, it was time to criss-cross the country again as we headed from Leipzig to the industrial heartland of the west. Given the proximity of the four stadiums in the area, I’d secured Airbnb style accommodation (in spite of booking through a hotel website) for four nights in a place called Duisburg. Shortish trips to the relevant host city each day. What could go wrong?

 

Well, getting there in the first place. Engine-wise, my 14-year-old Nissan Micra has performed admirably on the trip so far. However, halfway to our destination, all of a sudden, the windscreen wipers stopped working. It had rained on and off during the morning, and they were working just fine. And then, they weren’t. I had a towel handy to reach out the window and sometimes just stuck my head out of the window for a clearer view. A lot of German autobahns seem to have roadworks, but it’s often very efficient. You just slow down and drive in narrower lanes marked by yellow paint. There is no hard shoulder option though. 

 

And even when there was, I had to weigh up the benefits of stopping and calling breakdown recovery. They’d tow me to a repair garage, the part would be ordered and at the very best I’d be back on the road the following day, more likely two. This wasn’t just a fuse as I could hear the mechanism operating when we stopped in a parking area at the first opportunity. It was mechanical. Once stopped, I checked the nearest mechanic and it wasn’t too far down the road. A small village really, but the guy looked at it for me and after some poking around, what transpired to be the linkage motor was broken. I asked where the nearest Nissan dealer might be, and he suggested Kassel. It wasn’t too far along the road and the rain had stopped. We found the place and they were good enough to take a look at it for us there and then. In the UK, I imagine at most authorised dealers they might say you need to book it in. They didn’t have the part (which was no huge surprise) but did offer to do a temporary repair – replicating what had been done in the past with some wires to hold things in place. I was happy with that, they charged my 82 euros for the labour and we were back on the road, in light rain, with the wipers working again… for about five minutes and then some clunking was heard as the wipers failed once more. 

No point in going back. Timewise, we would struggle to make our evening game – Scotland v Switzerland in Cologne. Fortunately, the rain was light, and stopped after a few minutes so that we reached our destination about two and a half hours later than planned. The guy who owned the studio flat that was to be our home for four nights let us in and showed us the ropes. Once settled, I had to make a decision on using the car to get to Cologne, about an hour’s drive. The weather was dry and there was no rain forecast so we went for it, leaving at 6pm as the Germany v Hungary game kicked off. We listened to the first half on the radio. Once in Cologne, we discovered parking in the centre was a prohibitive 4 euros an hour, so the plan to take a tram to the stadium was abandoned and we chanced our luck by heading towards the stadium, to find a nice free parking spot 20 minutes’ walk from the ground. 

We had time to buy some pizza and beer, then hopped on a tram to save ourselves the walk. We sat on the grass outside the stadium and consumed our evening meal. It had been a stressful day and it was good to just relax for a bit. We entered and had lower tier seats in the corner – facing the penalty area that the Swiss were to attack in the first half. They were ok seats, but it wouldn’t be easy to make out what was going on in the other half, so we explored upstairs and found some empty seats in the back row at the other end. It looked like they hadn’t actually been sold to anyone as it was a bit of a free for all with the odd empty. I like perspective, so was happy to see the game from this height. My son took a shine to a young female steward and spent about 15 minutes before the game and the entirety of half-time chatting with her. So he was happy enough up there.

The game itself was a very decent watch, with the drama at both ends. Although obviously technically better, Granit Xhaka’s side were unable to convert that into enough goals to win the game. In fairness, Scotland deserved their draw, and came close to winning it. Beat Hungary and they will go through. A draw in that game would not be enough. It’s in Stuttgart and we will be there to witness events. It was very sad to see Kieran Tierney stretchered off. You have to wonder whether or not he will ever be able to regain full fitness again after his injury history. My guess is that he will be loaned out until the end of his current deal and then released. Any hopes that he could be sold this summer are now history.

 

I’d visited the stadium once before, 18 years ago for the England 2 Sweden 2 group game in the 2006 World Cup. It’s not changed since then as far as I could see, and is a classic old style football stadium with four stands and – from the upper tier – some decent views of the surrounding area. The sun set behind us over the course of the game and I took a good few looks at it during the game. 

 

We had a record breaking glass collecting session after the final whistle – I honestly don’t think many people are aware of the deposit scheme. Between my son and I, we amassed 81 glasses – of which two were ours. So €237 for picking up other people’s classes. Mind you our tickets for this match were €200 each, so it’s merely a matter of softening the blow of the expense of the trip. I did ponder with my son at some point after we had got the car to Duisburg how many more tournaments I might be able to do this way. I do fancy Spain, Portugal and Morocco in 2030, but that’s some way off. The 2026 World Cup will be very expensive, and at best, I can see me doing 10 days and maybe 4 matches. My eye is on seeing the matches in Mexico at the time of writing – I have always wanted to experience the stadiums there. Back in 1986, I was doing my final exams for my degree for the first part of the tournament and didn’t have the money to make the trip for the knockout stages. I only started seeing tournament matches at Italy in 1990.

 

The queue for the trams looked very long, so we walked back to the car, accompanied by a lot of other people walking in the direction of the centre, although that is one hell of a walk. The drive back to Duisburg thankfully did not see any rain and after a day like this one, I was extra glad to hit the sack. 

 

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