Österreich : Norwegen

After the planned March trip had fallen victim to the evil Corona, we wanted to visit the Women's European Championship in England, which had also been postponed by a year due to Corona. And as Austria it was of course our duty to keep our fingers crossed for our women's team in the final group match against Norway. After a narrow defeat against England - who would later go on to win the European title - and a commanding victory against Northern Ireland, a draw against the Scandinavians would be enough.

The match was to take place in Brighton in southern England. They had already been there once for a match in autumn, where they were not so enthusiastic about the city now. However, this might have been due to the season, because the summery Brighton was hardly recognisable. The beautiful, but a little too hot weather did the rest and the time until the game was spent comfortably in one or the other garden on the beach and in the city centre. The fans also visited the fan village, where many fans were already present. The Norwegians in particular were represented in large numbers, although it was often impossible to distinguish them from the Austrian fans due to the numerous red shirts on both sides.

The transfer from the station to the American Express Community Stadium in Falmer was then quick and speedy as usual. Unfortunately, there were no assigned fan sectors before the game, and so the individual groups sat somewhat scattered. Which did not stop us from singing along loudly with our anthem, which almost moved some of those present to tears. Whether it was because of the emotion or because of the vocal performance remains to be seen.

From kick-off, the Austrians were the more active team. The first 45 minutes were probably one of the best this team has ever delivered. Unfortunately, the ball did not want to enter the goal for a long time. So they had to wait until the 39th minute before Nicole Billa scored the much-celebrated opening goal. With this result they went into the break. As the usual British rules applied in the stadium, we were not allowed to take beer into the stands. We would not have expected that at the European Women's Championship. So we had to compensate the loss of electrolytes caused by the heat during the break.

Also after half-time, the Austrians were the superior team at first. Towards the end, Norway started to throw everything forward. Unfortunately, they were not able to take advantage of the counter-attacks they made possible, sometimes only just missing 2:0. In the final minutes, they had to shake a bit. But Manuela Zinsberger kept the box clean, and the team celebrated the absolutely deserved victory and thus also the advancement to the quarterfinals. The players celebrated long after thefinal whistle in the stadium and provided with their self-brought music box for proper mood. 

We wanted to take this to the pubs in Brighton later, but it wasn't that easy. First we were turned away because of the dress, which we found a bit bizarre when Host City is advertised everywhere in the city. Then we weren't allowed in because we didn't have any ID with us. We didn't expect to need it at our age. In the end, we made it to an Irish pub where we ended the successful evening.