The Experience of Watching a Football Match Live at the Stadium

I am an adherent football fan and love to watch football matches on the television. Even though I do not watch all the matches these days, I do check the news updates on what is going on in the soccer arena. These days, I have become too much busy with my works and rarely get time to spend enough time to watch a football match that spans over 2 hours of time. But I would always catch up with the match highlights on the television which do not span more than 30 minutes. By watching the highlights I am able to watch some of the best moments of world soccer without spending too much time.

But there is a huge difference in watching a full match and watching its highlights. Watching the full match always gives you a special feeling and happiness that is not present with the match highlights. Watching a full match live will always provide you with the necessary suspense and anxiety that can make the match more interesting. While watching the highlights, mostly you will be aware about the actual outcome of the match and this is just to watch how the player fared or how the goals were scored. So live matches are always much better to watch than highlights provided you have enough time to watch them.

While watching football matches live on the television, I always dreamed of watching any of the top class football match in front of my eyes in a stadium. I have seen many local football matches from the stadium, but in my country the standard of football, its players and the matches are low when compared with the international standards and hence I was never able to watch a match of high quality. I really wondered about the soccer skills of international players while watching them live on the television. The skills of the international players always brought a sense of watching a top class match from the stadium, but were never fulfilled for long years.

One of the major reasons was that there were not top class football players, teams or tournaments in India and this really deprived a lot of Indian football fans from watching a high quality match in front of a fully packed audience. But with the introduction of the Indian Super League (ISL), we the football fans in India really got a great opportunity to watch some top class matches and players in actions. There were several teams for ISL and most of the teams had hired some international players which really added more flavour to the tournament.

Initially I watched the matches on television and was surprised with the way the match was played as the international players really made an impact on the way the matches were played. They added more professionalism to the matches an it was quite evident from the accuracy of the passes and the shots that were played. Even though a lot of chances we missed, there was a real ambience that lit up the stadium. People from different parts of Kerala, especially the youngsters filled the stadium and we dancing to different tunes of drums and trumpets.

A lot of local vendors were seen inside the stadium who was selling local made whistles, face paints, wigs and jerseys. Taking advantage of the situation, they were charging 3 to 4 time higher for all these things. There were also food items such as chips, ice creams, mineral water etc which were being sold inside the stadium. We were not able to view the players clearly, but the 2 giant screens inside the stadium helped us in analyzing the match in a better way.

The match started exactly at the scheduled time and we just reached in time to see the kick-off. We got our seats almost on the top area of the stadium, but were in a better angle behind the goal post which helped us in getting a broader view of the match. The crowds were pretty brilliant in supporting the home team and whenever a good performance was displayed, the stadium roared like anything. The crowd also did not forget to support and appreciate the good moves of the opposite team.

The only disappointment for everyone inside the stadium was that the match ended in a goalless draw and the soccer fans had to go home without being able to see a goal being scored. It was quite evident when I talked with some of my friends and they were also very unhappy for not being able to see any goal being scored in the match. But the atmosphere inside the stadium was electric and each and everyone were enjoying the match in the best ways. The good thing is that unlike cricket matches, the match did not last more than 2 hours which was quite acceptable.

The security systems were also beefed up around and inside the stadium, as a lot of security officers were to be seen. Everyone including their belongings were thoroughly checked before letting them in and the police forces were on high alert around the area. The traffic around the stadium got congested before and after the match and the traffic police had a great job at hand to make sure that the traffic flowed freely without any issues. I really appreciate the traffic police on the way they managed the situation in a highly professional way.

People started leaving the stadium before the last 10 minutes as they almost made sure that no goals will be scored and the match will end in a draw. Another notable thing at the stadium was there were not clashes between individuals as well as groups and everyone got along very well. Usually clashes between individuals and groups inside the stadium are common, but the people of Kochi has become a role model to all by being pretty decent throughout the course of the match. They all sang in a uniform manner and there were also the special Mexican waves seen at the stadium on too many occasions.

Whatever be the outcome of the match, I am not going to forget this match in my life as it was one of my first experience and would always cherish this one for my life. I have taken some snaps and videos of the event so that I can recall it in the future. After the match I took almost one hour to get out of the stadium premises as the vehicles were all caught in a deadlock inside the stadium premises. People from all parts of Kerala seems to have travelled to Kochi to watch this match and I hope that in the coming matches, there will be a huge flow of soccer fans from across Kerala.

There are a lot of my friends who did not go to the stadium to watch the match and rather watched it from their homes. I strongly feel that they all might have missed out on a great opportunity to view and experience the amazing ambiance at the stadium. Even if we cannot see the player properly as we see on a television, we could still enjoy the match much more than when compared with watching the same on a television.

There are still matches left to be played in Kochi and I urge all of my friends to watch it together at the stadium and experience a rare feeling. I also hope to go to the stadium to watch more watches and it seems that it will turn out to be an addiction to me.