Express & Star

Nathan Judah's Marbella Tour Diary - Day 6

When the Euro's started, I didn't realise I'd be watching one of the most pivotal football games of my life deep behind enemy lines - but here we are!!

Plus
Published
Venue for the game

The club media team were generous enough to invite Keeno and myself to a beach bar not too far away from the team hotel.

So what could have been the biggest 90 minutes or 120 minutes of my life as a football fan, would be sat around a large plastic table with nine chairs, a 75in TV in the distance and Spanish fans to the left, right and in-front of us.

Venue for the game

There was also a decent amount of support for England with a few families making it a partisan atmosphere as the national anthems belted out.

To the calm the nerves, it was necessary to indulge in an alcoholic beverage - so instead of going to the bar consistently, myself and my colleague decided to get a bottle of rose wine.

This wasn't your average bottle, the establishment are well known for 'going big' and with the magnitude of the game we were witnessing, I succumbed to their 3-litre bottle of rose wine!

Bottle to steady to nerves

LK: It was definitely needed too! I was very nervous before kick-off and for everyone around our table it was the biggest game of our lives. We were absolutely desperate to win.

Half-time.....ok.....not great, not terrible.... more wine please - this is not going to be an easy watch.

And then came the inevitable - a Spain goal.

That was bad enough, but because we had the English commentary, a lot of the Spanish fans were watching on their phones and were about 30 seconds ahead.

So a big cheer from them led us to believe we were in deep trouble - and just a few seconds later our worst fears were confirmed.

We were all very annoyed not only with conceding the goal, but also the fact the Spanish fans were reacting to every chance or goal before we could see it.