Today we return to football tourism with our quest to visit all the stadiums in the English Premier League. Up to this point we’ve covered Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, Fulham’s Craven Cottage, West Ham’s London Stadium, Spurs’ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and Brighton’s AmEx Stadium. Now, at long last, we’re visiting Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, which sits in North London, within walking distance of my new flat! We’re going watch the EFL Cup quarter-final against the classic South-London side, Crystal Palace.
So here’s our destination today, along with a couple of nice pictures from the walk over. This match took place on December 23rd, so you will see lots of Christmas imagery & references in the images.
Tonight is not a regular season match! No; this is UEFA Champions League (UCL). If you are not familiar, UCL is where to top placing teams from the domestic leagues all around Europe play against each other. So, for example, Arsenal plays in the English Premiere League, while Juventus plays in Italian Serie A. These are two famous clubs that would never play against each other during regular season play. The only place where you see international cross-over is UCL, and that is why it’s one of the coolest things in sports! Only the best teams from each domestic league will qualify, and the exact number of teams that make it into UCL from each domestic league depends on how good that league is. So, for example, in Ligue 1 (France) the top 3 teams qualify for the next season of UCL, where as La Liga (Spain) it’s the top 4 teams. This is because La Liga is more competitive than Ligue 1. How “competitiveness” is measured is subject to some controversy… but that’s the gist of it.
So this is a Champions League match, and PSG are up against the Spanish side Girona, who came out of nowhere to finish 3rd in their 2023/2024 campaign, behind only Barça and Real Madrid. Let’s do this!
Naples takes its calcio (football a.k.a. soccer) seriously. Support for Napoli is almost a religious belief here, and the fact that images of Maradona (the most famous Napoli player ever) outnumber images of Jesus in the streets of Naples can serve as proof of that. But it’s not just Maradona; there are images of the Napoli logo and Napoli players everywhere around Naples.
