Last week I attended my first football match ever! The game was late at night and in the freezing cold but the courageous playing of both Huuhkajat and Tricolorii was enough to warm me up. I have never been an avid sports enthusiast, but I have paid a bit of attention to the European championship qualifier games during this fall. The actual championship will be determined in 2016.
The game started slowly but after the first 20 minutes of the first half, things started picking up. Finland was clearly dominating the match at that point, harassing the Romanian team and tenaciously pushing the action toward their goal. However, this is when the tables turned: the end of the first half showed the (in my opinion) absolute unfairness from the – supposedly – impartial referee. Finland got two yellow cards within five minutes – over absolutely nothing. The Romanian team, encouraged by Finland’s bad luck, started pushing back and shortly after made the first goal of the game.
The second half did not have the best of beginnings where Finland is concerned: The crowd was furious. And so was I. As a non-sports gal, I never expected to be so affected by the events of the game. But fuming and grinding my teeth I was. Romanians were cheering and their team had become excited about their newly found success. During the second half they made another goal and Finnish fans started to lose hope.
In the end, it was quite brutal. Finns were cursing and visibly upset by the way the second half was played. I have to admit, Romanians played a good game, but my national pride was wounded. The game ended with 0-2 for Romania.
Football is not quite my cup of tea, but I think I’ll allow myself to be dragged to more games – if for nothing else other than to see Finland win.