Football (Soccer) at Wembley Stadium

Tonight's Olympic football match was at world-renown Wembley Stadium.  The match was between Brazil and Great Britain.

The photo above shows a view looking at the stadium from the Wembley Park underground (subway) station at road level. The distance from the  station to the stadium is about a half to three-quarters of a mile.  There's a passage way under the road that also leads to the underground station.

Above are a couple of different views of Wembley.  The place is enormous.

There are no ticket takers at Wembley.  You scan your ticket before you can go through the gate.

And this is the gate.  It made me think of a prison.  And the screening I went through after passing through gate (which included a full body pat down)  probably wasn't any less thorough than you'd get at a prison.

Almost 71,000 fans were in attendance for the match; a record for Great Britain's women's football team.  Unfortunately, virtually all of the fans take public transportation home and there's only one for them to get back to the underground station.

This is a picture I took looking back at the stadium after traveling about a third of the way to the underground station.  Now I've been a part of big groups in stadiums, but I've never had to travel home with those same groups before.

This is a picture I took when I finally reached the passage way (after a number of starts and stops) that leads into the station.

And I took this picture on the stairs seen in the picture above as I looked back towards the stadium.  Talk about a mass of humanity.  I bet some of those folks haven't made it home yet. 

The interior shoot of the stadium above was taken from my seat so I was quite a distance from the pitch (field).  Didn't really any good action shots to speak of.  I do have some shots below of a penalty shot.  Great Britain took the shot, but the Brazilian goalkeeper blocked it.  The third shot (which has been enlarged so the quality is very poor) shows the GB's player reaction after missing the shot.

 Good news, though.  Great Britain won 1-0. 

More Beach Volleyball!

Since I already have a post that includes beach volleyball photos, I'll try not to overdue it today. 

Since there were two teams from the Netherlands in today's matches (see the players in orange in the two pictures above), the Dutch were out in their orange to show their support.

Great Britain's women's team also played today, so the Union Jack was visible everywhere.  Unfortunately Team GB lost to Italy.

And oh yeah, there was more entertainment between matches.  

The London papers have had a lot of coverage of beach volleyball.  As you may know, English papers have a reputation for sensationalism.  See this article form the Evening Standard (even if I shot something similar, I would have been too embarrassed to post the picture they used) and this one which ran in the Daily Mail.

Will it be in or will it be out?

Today's Events - Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Beach Volleyball - Horse Garden Parade/Central London 2:30 PM (8:30 AM Central)
Game 1 - Men's Preliminary Round - Pool F
Latvia vs. Venezuela
Game 2 - Men's Preliminary Round - Pool E
Germany vs. Netherlands
Game 3 - Women's Preliminary Round - Pool E
Australia vs. Netherlands
Game 4 - Women's Preliminary Round - Pool F
Great Britain vs. Italy  
Here's a link to an article in yesterday's New York Times entitled "Beach Volleyball's Lure Isn't Just About the Athletics."  Really? You think so?
Here's the link to the official Olympic beach volleyball page.



Football (Soccer) - Wembley Stadium/Northwest London 7:45 PM (1:45 PM Central)
Women's First Round - Group E
Brazil vs. Great Britain
Here's the link to the official Olympic football page.

US Women's Basketball Team

There were two games at tonight's women's basketball session.  The first game featured Canada (red) against Great Britain (white).

As you can imagine, there were a lot of British fans on hands.

Great Britain's Natalie Stafford suffered a black eye after catching an elbow in Great Britain's 65-73 loss to Canada.



The second game in the session saw the US breeze past Angola.  The final score was 93-38.

Tip-off.

Coach Geno Auriemma

Lindsay Whalen

Simone Augustus

Sue Bird

Time out.

Maya Moore

Angel McCoughtry

Asjha Jones

The halftime entertainment included a unique presentation of the Olympic rings.

Swin Cash

Diana Taurasi

Candace Parker

Women's Water Polo

Water polo is not the easiest sport to shoot.  The ball movement is pretty fast around a fairly small area (around the goals any way, not much happens in the middle of the pool). Also, you can barely see the players; they're mostly hidden in the water.

While it's tough to shoot, it's very fun to watch.  And if I thought team handball was physical, water polo puts it to shame.  Not only is there as much grabbing, but there's also a lot of pushing your opponent under water.

The photos below are a mix of images from two different games.

Other than boxing, water polo is the only other sport I know of where you get to wear a robe as your warmup outfit.

The Spanish team before the start of the match.

The water polo version of a jump ball.

Yup, that's going to be a goal.

In case you were wondering, they have a 30 second shot clock in water polo.

As you see from the two pictures above, water polo is no less physical than team handball. 

A trip to the penalty box (I'm not sure if that's what they call it in water polo) follows more egregious fouls.

If the defensive team commits a foul inside its own 5-metre line, their opponents get a penalty throw on goal as seen above.

In this case, the penalty throw resulted in a goal.

See the open area behind the goal?  

If an errant shot ends up in that area, they have a ball boy to dive into the pool to go and get it.

He gets to wear a rob too.

A water polo version of a timeout.

The Spanish team setting up a play.