Football Tourist Recap (Late Spring and Early Fall 2015)

I've tried to pace my football recaps to five matches per post. So while I attended three matches in the late spring, it took a bit longer than expected to see another two. This was primarily due to the awkward scheduling of games in the summer. However, the Frankfurt trip got me up to five, so here is a short belated post...

I've been experimenting with uploading videos to YouTube. I've embedded one of those videos, which includes an excerpt of the Rapid Wien match that I attended back in April (now this blog has video!):

After five matches, the table below has my ratings for the quality of play, atmosphere, stadium and safety of each match.

Home Team	Stadium	Quality of Football	Atmosphere	Stadium (View, Amenities)	Safety	Overall
SK Rapid Wien	Ernst Happel Stadium	6	7	6	8	7
Sparta Praha	Generali Arena	6	5	7	8	6
ACF Fiorentina	Stadio Artemio Franchi	7	8	3	6	5
FSV Mainz 05	Coface Arena	10	7	8	10	9
Eintracht Frankfurt	Commerzbank Arena	7	7	8	8	7

Some explanatory notes:

• Sparta Praha has a nice stadium with loud fans, but there were too few of them at the match I attended to make for a good atmosphere. I think a marquee matchup against another top team would have likely led to a bigger crowd and better vibe.
• I penalized Fiorentina's stadium rating for both the poor view as well as the badly outdated ticketing systems that seriously delayed entry into the stadium. Any ticketholder who is not a club member has to have their identity checked in a computer system (I'm assuming this is for security purposes) and this system took several minutes to clear each person, so it took over an hour to get into the match. Europeans generally have more patience when it comes to slow moving lines, but I could sense a lot of frustrated fans waiting in that ticket office lineup.
• The FSV Mainz match had them playing host to Bayern Munich, and the visitors put on a show. Highest quality football I have ever seen live.

A shot of the match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Hertha Berlin. This is a different view from the one I posted earlier.

The supporter scarves for SK Rapid Wien, AC Sparta Praha, ACF Fiorentina, FSV Mainz 05 and Eintracht Frankfurt.

I'm falling behind on my posts, but I'll write something soon regarding a trip to Switzerland.