Match Fixing

Standard Liege  2  FC Krasnodar  1

Europa League – Group Stages

We rose from our pits on the Wednesday morning knowing we had a long day ahead, for it was time for what is becoming the almost annual trip to Borussia Dortmund, which in my view is the greatest venue in Europe.

Bobbles Blog has featured Dortmund before, so I won’t go into too much detail, suffice to say that for the first time this season we decided to go into the centre of the City before the game. The National Football Museum was a very interesting experience, especially the sections dedicated to the old East Germany.

Post Museum, which our Dutch friends took little joy from, given the animosity between the two nations, we had a wander into the main square which was full of fans from both Dortmund and visiting Atletico Madrid. It was a superb atmosphere and what the Champions League should be all about, until of course someone decides to light a flare and the local Polizei decide to intervene!

The game was excellent as was the atmsosphere, Dortmund won 4-0 and the quality was significantly better than at the Ajax v Benfica game the night before, which is probably reflective of the respective national leagues.

An early night was had upon our return to Duiven, only we had a long journey to make the following day, and it was me that was driving, for we were on our way to Wallonia, to Liege, to watch the mighty Standard play crack Russian outfit Krasnodar.

Red Army

The Volkswagen Polo made its way past Arnhem and out towards Eindhoven, before dropping South to the historic City of Maastricht. Once past the City famed for it’s Treaty, we were soon over the border into Belgium and the landscape noticeably changed as we drove along the banks of the River Meuse and into the industrial centre that is Liege. The scenery was fantastic, but Liege itself, a French speaking part of the Country is steeped in it’s past. Steel manufacturing was the major source of employment, and looking at some of the properties around the City, wealth came from it.

A quick stop at the ground to buy tickets proved to be hassle free, less than 9,000 attended the last Europa League game in a stadium that holds over 26,000. After that it was time to check into our Hotel and make our way back into town via the local bus service.

Irish Pubs are the lifeblood of the football weekend and as soon as we spied one that looked to be within walking distance of the City Centre, you’ve never seen three men leap from their seats so quickly and pile off of a bus. The Shamrock on Rue Saint Gilles was a perfect pit-stop to plan the rest of the evening.

Maurice's Place

Trip Advisor sorted us out a restaurant called Huggy’s, which in effect was a quite brilliant burger bar serving a great selection of vegetarian options, which all of us skipped over and went straight for the meat options. The helpful staff pointed us in the direction of a Taxi Rank, and it was there where Mr Hatt Senior got into an altercation with a chap who decided to try to climb into the taxi that we’d already commandeered. No violence of any note ensued, but he did seem to move very quickly indeed from the back seat to the pavement!

Our Taxi driver was under instructions (mine) to drop us off where two pubs sat, less than five minutes form the stadium, which he duly did. The Sclessin area of Liege is not the most appealing part of the City, but the pub we found ourselves in certainly was appealing in the build up to the game as Standard fans and the odd Krasnodar bod turned up for refreshments. It wasn’t the warmest night but when a Krasnodar fan turned up in shorts it did raise a few eyebrows, but then I guess when you live close to the Black Sea, just North of the Georgian border, cold weather is not a major concern to you.

Suitably imbibed, and with a very modest crowd expected, we didn’t rush to the Stade Maurice Dufrasne which was only a five minute walk away. The stadium, named after some chap called Maurice, reminds me very much of the Valley home of Charlton Athletic.

A steep three tier stand clad and seated in red sweeps from behind the Southern end, all along the West side and round to the Northern end. It looked pretty impressive, even more so if it swept the whole way round, but it didn’t, and the side we had seats on was a two tiered stand-alone structure, which looked considerably older than the rest of the ground.

 A Bookie's Worst Nightmare

Belgian football is currently going through a period of controversy, all due to allegations of match fixing that have resulted in numerous arrests in the past month. Many top flight clubs have been implicated and Standard Liege are one of those clubs. What the outcome of this will be remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a major talking point.

On the back of this, our friends back in the Netherlands were more than happy to bombard us with banter once they realised where we were, the best text being

“Can you find out what the final score will be so I can have a bet on it?”

Theo had a bet, he had a tenner on Krasnodar winning 2-1, the odds were very generous, but were Liege going to play ball and meet his requirements?

Well, it certainly looked like it in the first half where the away side were well on top, playing much the better football and carving out chances. They took the lead in the 39^th minute through ‘Ari’, and at that point 2-1 was still on…..

It was even more on two minutes after the break when Renaud Emond equalised, so all we needed now was for the Russians to grab that all important bookie-beating winning goal.

Krasnodar lobbed everything at it, and you got the feeling the goal was going to come very late in the game, just to keep the punters on edge, and guess what?

The goal finally did arrive, in the 93^rd minute it was 2-1…..to Standard Liege?

A very unlikely win based on the quality of the two sides on display, and if Liege wanted to prove to anyone that they aren’t bent, then this game was a great example.

So, we now had to plan our next move, and given the fact we’d spent a fair few Euro’s down at the local pub we decided to revisit and see if the lads behind the bar would book us a taxi, which they duly did, giving us an hours ‘reflection’ time post match.

We reflected well.