European Football Trips

F

Facefuzz

Well-known member
Any tips for European trips?

Where to get tickets, good and bad experiences, tips for getting to ground and good seats? That sort of thing.

I’m looking at going away again in March. Got my eye on Athletico Madrid v Barca as it’s a decent city to tour, impressive stadium and it should be a good game and an easy trip to plan.

Young un would fancy Dortmund or Real Madrid but tickets look difficult to get unless you go 3rd party and pay a fortune. I want to book flights and accommodation in advance so not sure what to do.

We went to AC Milan v Atlalanta earlier in the year. Brilliant.
Tickets go on sale on the club website about 2 weeks before game and usually plenty available. We sat in curva sud behind their vocal fans and paid €14 a ticket. There’s a tram system in Milan with different coloured lines. It’s fair priced and easy to navigate around.
My tip would be to fly into bergamo and spend a day and even a night there. It’s got a real nice old town up the hill although it’s very busy.
Both bergamo and malpense are about the same distance from Milan on the train and take about 1 hour. The train to Malpense is about €10 and bergamo slightly less.
I stayed not far from central Station as accommodation in the centre was very expensive. You can get anywhere around the city on the tram from there aswell.
You can get to the ground early as every game is on the scale of a cup final here with 50 plus stalls selling food, drink and merchandise (at slightly inflated prices).
Make sure you take passport or photo ID to game as they seemed to be checking all foreign visitors.
Do the stadium tour if you can which isn’t available on game days. The guides speak English and provide loads of history on the Giuseppe Meazza stadium and both clubs. Ours was Brazilian and chewed my ear about juninho for an hour.
If you’re going to AC Milan then get in before kickoff as the fans are unreal.
They have abit of an anthem based on an Italian song called Sara perche ti amo. It’s modified to insult juventus but the original is quite catchy and I regularly put it on at home 😂.

Anyway,
Post your tips and the post stick around. Could be a good place to pool some information.
 
Me and the boy did Germany last year. Early Friday flight to Schipol, picked up a hire car, drive to AirBnB in Cologne, then Friday night game at Mainz, Saturday afternoon at Monchengladbach and a stadium tour at Dortmund on the Sunday, Monday afternoon flight back from Amsterdam.

Was absolutely fantastic, tickets easy to get hold of in advance, but obviously the lines of Dortmund or Bayern would be harder. Look at her fixtures in advance and pick a weekend where there's plenty of games clustered around one area - Cologne or Dusseldorf usually a good bet. Only issue then is waiting to find out which games are on when over the weekend, this is usually announced about 4 else in advance. There's always Bundesliga 2 to look at as well if the fixtures don't quite work out.
 
Had a break in Utrech a few years ago. Compact ground at the edge of town but walkable from the city centre. I found it easy on the day to get a good seat above the halfway line from a walk up kiosk. May be different if playing a top side.
City is a better version of Amsterdam with canals, excellent bars and a lively nightlife. Very central and most major cities can be reached in under forty five minutes by frequent trains.
 
Chutney said:
Look at her fixtures in advance and pick a weekend where there's plenty of games clustered around one area - Cologne or Dusseldorf usually a good bet.
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This is exactly what I did for the Euros, Dortmund and Schalke in Gelsenkirchen are also nearby.

If you can get away for 4 or 5 days I try to time it around Champs/Europa league games and Cities that have two big teams. I did both Madrid teams that way. I would've done both Lisbon teams on the same trip a few weeks ago, until they moved the Benfica fixture late on to the Friday night we arrived.

TV scheduling is your enemy, games on the continent can often be moved very late on.
 
We did Dortmund last year. Flew into Cologne and spent a couple of nights there, got the train to Dortmund when they had the 9 euro train ticket deal. (9 euros for a full months travel on local trains). Applied for tickets through Dortmund's site. Similar to the euros where you choose your category and then pay if you're selected. They also did a ticket resale service and plenty of tickets came up on there. We only paid about 25-30 euros each. Was well worth it! We did look at going to another game on the Sunday but it got moved for TV I think.
 
A group of friends very recently watched St Pauli at home then watched Werder Bremen the next day, if you know about their history you know both fans are described as having very different attitudes to non football issues, my mates had a great time and really enjoyed the contrast, if you just want the best football then maybe both aren't for you.
I am personally looking for a chance to watch RW Oberhausen, which is the twin town of Boro and maybe at the same time get to watch Borussia Dortmund which has a link to Boro through the ultras.
I go to Spain a lot and are feeling a connection to Celta Vigo, some of their fan groups have adopted Andy Capp as their unofficial icon, not sure how I feel about that particularly as I have contempt for the mini Mackems in Hartlepool, but I guess I would ignore it and just enjoy the footall but the CV fans have a lot going for them, close by is A Coruna and then in Portugal you have Porto, Braga and Boavista, only 40 minutes to 90 minutes away by bus.
 
A few years ago went to watch Barcelona v Seville. Bought tickets online in advance, flew into Girona and stayed in Girona for most of the trip, beats Barcelona into a cocked hat.

Christmas present from the missus was a weekend in Berlin with Hertha at home to Wolfsburg. Bumped into a bloke in a bar the night before who had something to do with the fans club, sorted us tickets out.

Followed Feyenoord for a couple of seasons in the 80's, just walk up and pay at the gate back then so long as it wasn't the Ajax game. You could also buy tickets at the tobacconists back then.

I spent a few weekends watching Sparta and Excelsior too, very enjoyable. You sometimes get a better vibe in a small ground than in a big one, and they're often more hospitable to the fan who isn't a regular, same as here.
 
I'm hoping to go to Istanbul in April. Galatasaray and Fenerbahce play at home on the same day - Has anyone ever been to one of those games? Any preference between the two?
 
This lad did Belgium earlier in the year. Not sure what happened to him mind 🤔

fmttmboro.com

Scouting for MFC in Europe this week

So I've not been as active as usual on the board. Tonight was OH Leuven vs KAS Eupen in the Belgian Jupiler League. Just a word of advice to @Nobby_Barnes. This is real scouting. Hard yards on a cold Tuesday night in January travelling by train between cities. NOT watching MFC highlights and...
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Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
A few years ago went to watch Barcelona v Seville. Bought tickets online in advance, flew into Girona and stayed in Girona for most of the trip, beats Barcelona into a cocked hat.

Christmas present from the missus was a weekend in Berlin with Hertha at home to Wolfsburg. Bumped into a bloke in a bar the night before who had something to do with the fans club, sorted us tickets out.

Followed Feyenoord for a couple of seasons in the 80's, just walk up and pay at the gate back then so long as it wasn't the Ajax game. You could also buy tickets at the tobacconists back then.

I spent a few weekends watching Sparta and Excelsior too, very enjoyable. You sometimes get a better vibe in a small ground than in a big one, and they're often more hospitable to the fan who isn't a regular, same as here.
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I think feyenoord and Union Berlin are some of the hardest tickets to get. I’ve spent a lot of time cycling around Holland and Belgium, been past most of the stadiums but never been to a game
 
I’m actually looking at Madrid for me and the bin lids at the minute but hate the fact they leave the confirmation & then tickets so late. I’m thinking midweek should be solid, scheduled for 3rd Jan so thinking if we land 2nd and leave 5th should cover all bases 🤷🏼‍♂️

Great shout about seeing a second team, never thought about that.

We’ve done Barca, PSG & Ajax so far all dead easy to plan.
 
Facefuzz said:
I think feyenoord and Union Berlin are some of the hardest tickets to get. I’ve spent a lot of time cycling around Holland and Belgium, been past most of the stadiums but never been to a game
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You can get Feyenoord tickets quite easily so long as it's not against Ajax / PSV. Excelsior was a bit more difficult due to the small ground.
 
Our 1st trip was Barcelona and paid top price through viagogo. Since then, we've done Atleti, Leganes, Seville, PSG, Milan and Atalanta. We always join the clubs membership and pay the same price as the locals. Always nice to try and get 2 matches at a time, looking at Valencia and Villareal next. As the poster has already said, Milan is brilliant and get cheap tickets in Curva nord/South, and did Atalanta and DeRoon was playing. Seville was brilliant in April as Seville Fair was on at the same time, Girona won 2-1 and no Stuani but was fantastic place to visit and very hot!!😁
 
If you're quick and have time, interrail tickets are on sale for a 25% discount until tomorrow. 10 days in 2 months first class travel for a bit over €400(less for under 27's or over 60s, and free for under 12s), plus £38 each way on the Eurostar with a (very) light meal and wine included each way.

Works better for Germany than Spain or France because there are supplements on the fast trains in France Spain and Italy, but you could take in several games in different cities over a couple of weekends. Lille would be a good first stop, then maybe Anderlecht in Brussels or Cologne. Or even Ajax and wear a Boro shirt to watch Chuba!
 
LessoftheLip said:
This lad did Belgium earlier in the year. Not sure what happened to him mind 🤔

fmttmboro.com

Scouting for MFC in Europe this week

So I've not been as active as usual on the board. Tonight was OH Leuven vs KAS Eupen in the Belgian Jupiler League. Just a word of advice to @Nobby_Barnes. This is real scouting. Hard yards on a cold Tuesday night in January travelling by train between cities. NOT watching MFC highlights and...
fmttmboro.com fmttmboro.com
Click to expand...
Last I heard he was working in Shoe Zone 👍
 
50th in February so me and 5 mates are going to see Verona v juventus.. Fly into Milan on Friday mrning, day and night there, then train to Verona for 2 days and nights there.
 
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