A ‘super’ start to the season

It’s been a while since I last blogged, mostly due to a lack of anything to talk about. Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to head out to Brazil over the summer but fellow Focus Images photographer Andy Tobin was and his blog of the World Cup is worth a read if you haven’t already.

The new football season started last Tuesday for me as I headed down to Cardiff for the UEFA Super Cup Final (how can a competition have a ‘final’ when it’s only one match?!) between Real Madrid and Sevilla.

I had to miss the press conference and training on the Monday due to other commitments, so I headed down to Wales on the train on Tuesday. After a 7 hour trip – which may, or may not be partly due to the fact that I got confused between Newport and Bridgend – I arrived at Cardiff Central station about 4pm where I somehow managed to blag a free official UEFA chauffeured taxi to the ground just in time for the photographer’s briefing.

For the Europa League and Champions League finals you’re allocated a ‘priority group’, and your position within that group is determined by when you arrive. Thankfully – for me at least – all the positions for the Super Cup were allocated before the match, meaning no ridiculous queuing or pushing in.

After the slow process of choosing my position was complete – I was about 60th out of 70 – I headed out to shoot some GV’s, or general views, with my new Opteka 6.5mm fisheye, a cheap-ish manual focus fisheye I picked up last week.

A few hours of time-killing later and I was out pitch side ready for the warm up. Before the match the story was all about Bale and his return to Cardiff so I got a picture out of him during the warm up as soon as possible for any potential online usages.

Not long after and it was nearly kick-off time. With 70 photographers looking to shoot the managers and team line-ups, it was a little bit cramped but UEFA put out a platform for us to stand on which made it a little easier.

After shooting the line-up I started to head to my seat to get ready. As I got off the platform I spotted Cristiano Ronaldo on the sideline having a quick drink from a water bottle, so I stopped and took a few portraits. Thankfully he then decided to stare straight down my lens which is always nice but especially so when it’s one of the best footballers in the world.

On to the game, and Real Madrid looked the better team from the off. I was doing Sevilla attack for the first half so I concentrated on trying to get some shots of the new Madrid signings.

Madrid soon scored and the celebration ran to the far corner, so I concentrated on Iker Casillas who barely celebrated, however, a very considerate fan in the crowd waved a Spanish flag so not all was lost.

Nothing much else happened in the first half and before I knew it the second half had started. I’d positioned myself on the left hand side of the goal which meant Bale was on my side of the pitch for the second half and I managed to get some decent stock of him.

Ronaldo scored his – and Madrid’s – second goal and put the game beyond doubt. I got the goal picture but was a bit blocked by the defender in front and the guys either side of me got it a lot cleaner.

Despite a bit of late pressure from Sevilla, Madrid ran out comfortable winners and I headed over to the corner to be escorted onto the pitch for the trophy lift. Again, UEFA set up a platform for us to stand on so, despite the number of photographers, there was not much pushing and shoving.

The players came down onto the pitch for the obligatory – and in my view, pointless – posing with the trophy.

After the posing, all that was left was the run around, or lap of honour as it’s known. None of the players celebrated much and the main picture – Bale with the trophy and a Welsh flag – was a huge pull as I left the 300mm and he posed in the middle of the pitch.

Ah well, everyone else seemed to agree that it was one of the worst celebrations they’ve seen – it was just a glorified friendly though I guess!

View the full set on the phcimages.com website.