I have had a soft spot for Italy ever since Liverpool played Brescia in the Champions League a couple of years ago. I took an interest in the league and became a fan of a number of the players. So when they qualified for the Euros they were one of the teams I wanted to come and watch.
The Italian league has grown and improved since Liverpool played Brescia, I wrote an article on the players strike at the time and will have a more football-focused blog up over on @LFCladiesfans.
Italy were playing in Rotterdam which is half an hour away from Utrecht on the train, so we were able to get there pretty easily from our base here.
For lunch before we headed out, I sampled the chicken nuggets and chips from McDonalds. This blog is bringing you all the important information from the Netherlands so with that in mind, I had to sample the local cuisine.
A quick scout of the menu showed that instead of cheese bites, the Dutch have shrimp bites with chili sauce (my mac autocorrected chili to child and this is why proofreading is important). Not a big seafood fan if I'm being honest so I steered away from that and went for the tried and trusted 6-nugget meal.
One of the best things about this country is their insistence on serving every portion of fries with some variety of mayonnaise. Maccies is no different! With my fries I was given some sort of garlic mayo which was nice. My nuggets were also nice, it may be the holiday feeling but I'd say they were nicer than the English nuggets, so that's another tick in the Dutch vs English column.
That's probably enough on McDonalds for now, stay tuned for later on though when I have a KFC.
When we arrived in Rotterdam there was this MASSIVE poster of Mandy van den Berg (der der der, der der der), the picture above doesn't actually do it's size any justice it was like extra extra extra extra large.
This city was a lot quieter than the day before in Utrecht, the fanzone was right outside the station but was just setting up for the day + the Netherlands don't play there till Thursday so it will likely be a lot busier then.
Even so, I had a dance with the tournament mascot Kicky and a few people wanted pictures of me in my Italian get up, probably because I was the only Italian fan strolling around.
We got the tram to the stadium and the conductor terrored me for being excited about seeing a windmill out of the window. He'd understand if his usual commute was the 15 through Tuebrook though.
Again the stadium was so much quieter than the day before, the final crowd figure was a disappointing 669! We watched both teams arrived, sat and ate ice pops with a couple of the volunteers before heading inside.
Of course we were sat in the Italian section and they handed us flags as we came in to wave which was exciting. The match was a bit of a weird one, of course I'll go into more detail on that over on my football blog but in the first half Russia had two chances and scored both. While Italy seemed to have all the possession but were unable to turn this into goals, plus the Russian 'keeper played a blinder.
My favourite Italian player Elena Linari started and in the second half Cristina Girelli came from the bench, Martina Rosucci was amongst the substitutes but didn't come on. Rosucci though hasn't played for months since doing her ACL - I think just before Christmas if my memory serves me right - so it was great just to see her amongst the squad.
As the match drew to a close, my phone erupted with people messaging me to say I'd been on television celebrating the Italian goal. I've never felt (or looked) more European.
After the game the Italians all signed my flag, I even made friends with Daniela Sabatino who had put two fingers up to my Liverpool scarf a few years ago, but was pulling a few of her team mates over to make sure they signed my flag. So I think we are best friends now.
I'm seeing Italy again on Friday I can't wait.
P.S I promised a review of my KFC, but then I thought I don't want to end up like that guy on YouTube so I'll just tell you I had spicy chicken and chips with sweet chili (not child) sauce.
Like I said today is a non-football day so I'll likely just tag day four on with day five (ENGLAND) so you don't get bored and stop reading.
Ciao. xo
ALL MY PICS SO FAR
bonus dancing with Kicky
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