Euro 2016

During the month of June and beginning of July was the Euro 2016 soccer tournament; the tournament runs opposite of the World Cup and is the same format, but only for European teams.

This was quite a fun time to be in Europe as many of the larger cities had large game watches setup; for example, Steve and I watched a game in a theatre in Bern that was arranged for a large viewing while he was in Switzerland for the Interlaken trip.  There was also a large screen setup in Geneve at the Planpalaias square with many food stands and bars where a few of us watched another game.  Paris also had a large game watch set up at the the Eiffel Tower so there was a ton of security there while I was doing my run.

Paris Game Watch

Geneva Game Watch

I went to the Ukraine v N. Ireland game in Lyon on June 16 with a coworker who was in town from Prague.  The atmosphere of the stadium was very loud; much louder than a US game as the stadiums are smaller (50k people) and partially covered over the stadium where people sit.  It was great having some cover as the weather was terrible; the game was suspended about 1 min. due to hail at one point.  Game was a lot of fun with the final being 2-0.

Game was postponed one minute due to hailing

We went to the semi-finals game in Bordeaux on the France road trip and saw Germany play Italy.  Game was a 1-1 tie at the end of 90 minutes that then went to a deep shootout to the 9th kickers on each team so that was pretty exciting and a bit unique.  Getting back from the game was a bit of a debacle as everyone was trying to take teams so we didn't end up getting back him until 2:30a.  Only other unique thing I noticed when watching games in Europe is rather than a moment of silence they do a moment of applause ha.

Italy fans pregame

Pregame Show

In the stadium!

Our entire France road trip was during the games and it was always fun to be able to catch the games from bars in the neighboring cities and find a team to root for; everywhere had so much energy even to watch teams from other countries.  I highly recommend being in Europe during the Euros or the World Cup!

Finals ended the day I returned from my road trip and the city was loud after Portugal upset France.  Probably a good result as there are so many coworkers of mine from France....