Football galore in Paris!

Je m'appelle, Ken. 
※ Je m'appelle means “I am called…” in French.

Today‘s entry is “Football Galore” in Paris series.

In the last entry, we showed you the photo of us two in front of the Eiffel Tower,

Actually, we took some video clips as well.

The first shot of “Football Galore” series is [lifting in front of the world famous Tower], The Eiffel Tower. 

By the way, we used the software called "VAIO Movie Story" from Sony for editing for your information.

And the second shot of “Football Galore” series is a live experience of watching the French A league, "Nancy vs. Paris Saint-Germain". 

We arrived at “Parc de France”, the home ground of the Paris SG around 6pm just one hour before kickoff.

the stadium was not even half full

"Unlike Germany and Spain, maybe soccer is not so popular here... It wasn’t crazy on the way to the stadium at all.” 

Is it? Wrong! 

Just before kickoff, the stadium has become packed with mostly Paris SG fans, except for some standing area which was closed.

I wasn’t sure what it was for, maybe a message for peace and hope or something? Lots of balloons were being handed out around the stadium.

What about Flu epidemic? The Balloons full of people’s spit were floating and bursting around like crazy.

I wonder if “ Mesdames et Messieurs” don’t care about it.

Then kick off. Just minutes ago we were wishing for peace and cheering up for both teams with balloons, now came the fire and smoke (like a warning flare) from the distant second floor.

Peace and hope has been burned to the ground without mercy w

Well, for the game, Nancy opened with the first goal shortly after kick-off. 


Paris SG however was pushing harder and they equalized in about 10 minutes after Nancy got the goal.

Unfortunately, Paris SG slowly started to lose the winning atmosphere. In the second half, the situation got even worse, the game finished with 1-1 draw after all. It was a frustrated game for Paris SG as a home team.

Somehow, despite this is the top A-leagues in Europe, I don’t think those teams much different to J-league team (Japanese league) in terms of their level of play as they are not real top teams in the league.

The individual skills and physical strength of French-African players are superb and very impressive, but for me it is far more interesting to watch the top J-league teams from perspective of their qualities and goal orientation as a team.

※Personally, I like watching St.Florence Hiroshima’s play. I just watched it on the TV before left Japan, it was excellent.

And to conclude our series of”Football Galore” we tried to move in the opposite direction from the stadium to the City after the match.

“Apparently it’s a cultural day today and there are lots of events in different spots across the city overnight. Why don’t you go to STALINGRAD station you can see the football event.”

A friend of us living in Paris recommended us, so we went there immediately.

Hey, some kind of grass football or what?

We couldn’t believe our eyes as it was a shocking ground!

Uneven surface ground, but with natural grass.

It was a 5-sided mini game, with soft rubber kind ball.
Of course, we jumped in and played the game!!

Instant, mixed team of 5, two French girls, PITO and us two.

Up against the local powerful kids team. 

lack of decisiveness, as a national team, was the problem and we lost the game, so this time we needed to recover our honor. 


 Here, Yomoken’s repeated hat-trick goals from the behind led the team to the victory of 3-2!

Some winning points were that flying high GK Assissi prevented about 5 points, and I, Yomoken was heading off the ball from 2.5m high by jumped up from the top of the hump, which was perfectly offensive-like attack against kids.

Throw-in if ball gone over the sideline

No French cuisine, no arts, we just enjoyed too much football here in Paris.

Now we are off to "Arch of Triumph prize" horse racing, in order to do something about our hardship as our financial situation is suffering in result of inflation and higher living cost in Europe

With a Trifecta, I sincerely wish to change our travel plan to the luxury five-star hotel style.