My real first competition to watch was the football game Belgium – Italy, in the Workers’ Stadium next door. Thanks to the BOIC (Belgian Olympic Committee) lots of Belgians got tickets, I was lucky to have one just next to the VIP area.
It was for the football quarterfinals men in the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
Our chances were considered slim, worse even after the referee (unfairly?) gave a red card to a Belgian player and the Belgians had to face the Italians 10 against 11 and scored a penalty.
Well, the Belgians did great, recovered and managed to win 3 to 2. A full moon was there to watch over us.

The many Belgian supporters were of course ecstatic and we all headed to The Tree to celebrate with lots of Belgian beer.
We have so little to celebrate anyway so we have to take this unique opportunity!
The pics show the Belgian flag, the teams, the penalty goal, the supporters, public, Piet Moons and others from the BOIC and our VIP supporter ambassador Bernard Pierre who also joined us all in The Tree.
Yes The Tree is open but, for the silly reasons of the silly police, last order is 9:30pm to close around 10pm.
More about the highly incompetent police later on.
As for the Workers’ Stadium:
– security checks went fairly well considering the crowd of over 50,000
– indications were good and volunteers helpful
– drink and “food” outlets were a shame, impossible to buy anything unless you were ready to wait in line for 30 minutes. A real screw-up (as it is in most venues where overall the food is kinda horrible). Call that planning.
– the Panasonic screen was OK (north side) but the other one (south side) is of poor quality.
– the replay did not work for most of the game and we were left to guess what happened
– the public was cheerful and behaving nicely, a welcome difference with European hooliganism (though they were clearly favoring Italy, too bad guys)
– quality of repairs done at the stadium look questionable, the staircases already start showing damage.
So, next step – Shanghai on the 19th.