Today I'm going back ten years to 2012 and a match at the European Championships of 2012 between Greece and the Czech Republic played at the Stadion Miejski (Municipal Stadium) in Wroclaw, Poland and attended by 41,105.
Our trip to the jointly hosted Euro2012 tournament was another one where we applied for tickets long before the qualifiers were known and the draw had been made. It was also another tournament where I wanted to attend a few matches but wasn't worried whether I would see England or not. We decided to pick the Polish city of Wroclaw (pronouced Vro-slov) as the base for our matches and also applied for tickets for games in Poznan and were delighted when we were allocated tickets to three games, two in Wroclaw and one in Poznan.
Wroclaw is located in south-western Poland in a region known as Silesia. The city is the fourth largest in Poland and has a wonderful and historic city centre. As seems to be the way when the European Championships comes to town, UEFA had set up their Fan Zone and its big screen right in the middle of the historic quarter, close to numerous restaurants and bars. The city certainly had a feel of celebration associated with the tournament and it was a pleasure to be there. One little idiosyncrasy that I loved were the Gnomes or Dwarves of Wroclaw: hundreds of small brass figures which are to be found all around the city and which are now considered to be a tourist attraction in their own right.
Whilst in Wroclaw, we decided to visit what we thought was the club shop of Slask Wroclaw. When we entered I think we felt considerable unease due to the malevolent stare of the thuggish, shaven headed, thick set male who seemed uninterested and unwilling to help. We concluded later that this club shop" was probably the headquarters for the Slask Ultras (the Polish Ultras scene can be particularly aggressive and violent). It was a joy to escape the shop before we were polished off (see what I did there?)!
The featured match (the first of our three Euro 2012 matches) was the second of the Group A games for each side with the Czechs, in particular, in desperate need of a result having been hammered 4-1 by Russia in their opening game. Their response? They galloped into the fastest ever two goal lead in European Championship Finals history with goals from Petr Jiracek and Vaclav Pilar in the first six minutes of the match. It remained 2-0 until half time but, shortly after the break, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech committed an uncharacteristic slip-up to allow Greek striker Fanis Gekas to score. There was no further scoring however leaving the Czechs to enjoy their first-ever win against Greece.
The Czechs ended up winning Group A and, ironically, their first-match conquerors Russia were eliminated along with hosts Poland who had failed to make the most of home advantage and finished bottom of the Group despite losing only one game. Greece too advanced to the knockout stage, in second place despite having an inferior goal difference to third placed Russia with the head-to-head result between Greece and Russia deciding things. Neither the Czechs not the Greeks could make further headway however, both losing in the round of 16 to Portugal and Germany respectively. Spain ended up winning Euro 2012 comprehensively beating Italy 4-0 in the Final.
CRB Match No. 1901
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