First time in Portuguese stadium

Portugal is known to be a country where football is the number one sport in the category of collective sports. Many international players were actually originated from Portugal such as the famous player Cristinao Ronaldo, in my personal opinion I like especially the previous squad composed of Louis Figo, Nuno Gomes, Deco and Pauleta, that really I enjoyed to watch in television during my high school and  was always supporting them.

But the idea that I could put my feet inside a Portuguese stadium to watch a game was really unimaginable and may be impossible !

In fact, in my home town Tunisia football is more considered for male audience and a girl would preferably be accompanied with family or friends to enter inside a stadium. In my case it was not possible of course to enter inside a stadium. My experience started when my gorgeous and very kind friends proposed me to attend a football game in the stadium of Braga not far from bairro das andorinhas.

Stadium discovery

Built inside the mountain, the Braga stadium has the most breath taking architecture as its creation and structure are unique. I had mixed feelings of happiness delight and excitement to see the stadium from inside, the entry to a regular game was not so much expensive, it only costs ten euros per person, the players of both teams were already inside the spacious field doing their regular training in the green grass. I liked especially to cheer for the team with the public and the atmosphere was really amazing because we were hearing some portuguese popular songs before the match begins. The game then started under the clapping of the audience, it was really impressive to see the astonishing skills of the players jumping in the air, dribling and running in very fast way. I had so much mixed feelings at that point and i felt that this is an experience that i will never probably forget all my life. The score board where we could see the result was constructed on the top of the hill and created so much wonderful landcape to admire, i did not really see before a landscape like this before it was really one of the most beautiful stadiums i could see in my life.

The game started very slowly and the adverse team seemed very much trained for the event and we thought that a possible win for the Braga team was a bit difficult. When the team of Braga scored a goal, all the stadium was upside down with cheers, all the people older and younger were crying, singning, loughing for that magical moment. Living such a memorable moment and this experience was one of the best for me because you really feel the love of Portuguese poeple to football to win prizes and to be always the champions. Even a grandmother was yelling on the players in very funny way to see the players produce the best of themselves. This competitive spirit is common inside the portuguese audience, for them cheering their squad is very important and they were giving much importance to winning whatever was the case. The funniest story is that my portuguese friend was really loving Porto team so much and he was not cheering for the Braga team at all and was not wanting them to win, he even told me that depending on his big love to his team, he even did not want to go to Lisbon to visit it or stay some days, it means that his love for his squard even influenced his regular habits and that was really surprising for me.

My friend from Dominican Republic was also surprised by this sport event because in his country it's baseball that have the biggest audience and followers so the atmosphere of the football really was new to him as well and he liked it very much and enjoyed every part of the match with great interest.

Porto team as well have the most great team in the Portuguese league as they won the last year's season and are the first across the country, i recommand to see them in their own stadium Estádio do Dragão since after my experience in Braga I had also the chance to watch Porto playing  so amazingly. Football is really a great way for people to interact with each other, it creates great emotions of passion and excitement mixed with happiness and explosion of joy when seeing the goals of the team I highly recommend it for any student going to Portugal as a way to discover more the hospitality and the kindness of Portuguese poeple. I knew actually that for the previous seasons the actual champion in the league called there ''liga portuguesa'' is the Porto team that won for the previous years and that is considered the best team of the whole country.

The price of one ticket to see such matchs was not so expensive just 10 euros but in international meetings like for exemple in the period of my internship, the national portuguese team was playing against russian national team for qualification i searched very well the price tickets for entry that turned out to be very expensive 150 euros for the entery to the stadium of Lisbon for this meeting, so i highly recommand to see a match from the local portuguese league to witness the war spirit and the great atmosphere of these events. The other team then tried so much to score goals by many amazing ways, so the spectacle was really worthy to see how the competitive spirit was increasing and the team was definitely refusing to loose.

End of the game

After all the efforts produced by the adverse team but in vain, they could not really score one goal, in the very last minutes of the match, a famous player of the Braga team had the ball in his feet and came running and crossing almost the half of the field with much enthousiasm, he passed the ball in the very last minute to his friend that scored the second goal, all the public was suddenly up and was cheering a lot happily for the victory of the team, it was the best part ever because we used to see this in TV but it was really the moment of glory that crowned so much difficult season, with much efforts in training, in other matchs, and spirits of fighters. After that amazing match and as all the crowd was going home, we went to discover another part of Porto city that was sete bicas by taking the metro of Ismai or  Senhor de matosinhos to discover a hidden place where existed mainly Norte shopping where we could hang out, watch the latest american movies that were not translated to portuguese but rather were in native english in that way we could understand everything of the movie. This way is used mainly to make the young generations learn english language by hearing it, the cinema was really a great experience especially when movies were very funny.

Living such an experience increase friendship values and beautiful links between poeple that start to talk about the game, to cheer for their team and to yell each other , to cry together and share a lot of amazing moments, even the special cheering songs that the public is telling become so attractive, we start unconsciously to cheer with them as it was out national team, all these moments are really unique to live aboard and i would advise in trying them because they leave a special feeling in our spirits and our hearts.

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