Euro 2016: Group Stage Part 2

After the England v Wales match we headed back to our accommodation from the first night. For all the apparently brilliant French cuisine we ended up eating at McDonald’s, again. Nothing out here seems to be open after 7pm! We got back to the house and managed to watch a rare bit of the tournament as Poland and Germany drew 0-0.

The next day we had a day off so we headed into Dieppe on the northern coast to get a decent meal and find a French data sim card. Before coming out here I bought one of these routers which is a fantastic bit of kit but we needed a sim to actually use it. After an hour queuing in an Orange shop and many language issues, we surprisingly came out with the right sim!

We headed back to the house and met up with the owners, who had come out for the weekend where much Jim Bean was drunk. A much needed day off.

Portugal v Austria

Next morning we were treated to a lovely cooked breakfast by the owners and a ride in their brilliant Tesla Model S. I’ve wanted a Tesla for a while and a (slightly terrifying!) 100mph drive down a French country lane did nothing to change my mind!

The match was at the Parc des Princes in Paris, which was a relatively short 2 hours away. All the venues have airport style scanners for media but they still require you to open your bags. I’d padlocked my Pelicase the night before but somehow the code had changed. I tried loads of different combinations but could not get it to open and security would not let me through without seeing inside, even though it was about to be x-rayed!

The Pelicase contained my 3 camera bodies, 70-200, 300, fisheye and remote triggers. There was nothing I could do except put it back in the car and go cap in hand to Canon, again. Normally we have to wait until 2 hours before kick-off beforeborrowing stuff and we’re only allowed 1 lens and 1 body, but I spoke to the ever helpful Jakki and she lent me a 400, 70-200, a 1DX Mk II and a 1DX. Phew.

As for the match, Portugal played poorly again and drew 0-0 with Austria, despite a penalty which Ronaldo duly missed. Photographing Ronaldo throwing a tantrum never gets old.

Romania v Albania

We stayed in Auxerre after the Portugal game which is about 1hr 30mins south of Paris and on the road towards Lyon, to break up our journey for our next match between two European giants, Romania and Albania…

Our place in Lyon was a very quaint house which resembled a Hobbit’s cave. I managed to get my Pelicase unlocked – it turned out that one of the numbers had changed one notch, I still have no idea how.

It was our first repeat visit to a ground and knowing where the parking, media entrance and media centre were made it much easier. Despite UEFA’s best efforts it can be confusing and typically unhelpful stewards around the ground are not much good.

My priority position was not great so I decided to sit down the side, near the Romania fans. Albania won a drab match 1-0, scoring their first ever goal at a major tournament, which thankfully I got quite nicely from my position.

Slovakia v England

Next up was England’s final group match against Slovakia in Saint-Etienne, less than an hour from Lyon. Our plan was to follow England for all 3 group matches and try and take in as many other games on the way, hence the slightly random fixtures such as Romania v Albania!

A 9 o’clock kick off allowed us to have a good lay-in for once and we arrived at about 3pm. I’d never get to a match 6 hours early in England but there’s a lot to do and time seems to disappear before you know it. You have to queue for your pitch position, borrow kit off Canon, eat, finish previous edits and shoot GV’s of the fans and stadium. Not to mention the admin involved with running an agency such as replying to emails and editing other content coming in.

England were shooting towards their fans in the first half so I decided to sit in the first position down the side in front of the fans and avoid the annoying extra official behind the goal, before moving at half-time and taking any available seats. The annoying thing about sitting there is you tend to get blocked by photographers on your inside and struggle to get any action down the wing.

In hindsight, it didn’t matter where I sat. The match was awful and my photos were not much better as England struggled to break down Slovakia and drew 0-0. Upon getting back to the media centre I was relieved to find that at least I wasn’t the only photographer struggling to get anything good from the match.

Ukraine v Poland

The next morning was a 3 and a half hour drive down to the south coast for Ukraine v Poland in Marseille. We were both a little flat after the England performance but a good drive down and a much warmer climate helped. I’m very jealous of the photographers who are based on the south coast for the entire tournament!

I was up in the tribune again for the match. With hindsight, I wish I’d chosen to shoot more games up there as the photos are a little different to your everyday football photos and it’s a little more relaxing in some ways as you have more space to work in and it’s a lot easier to follow the action.

Poland once again won 1-0 and the celebration ran back towards the bench. Perfect for those of us up in the tribune.

After the match, the media are allowed free bottles of Carlsberg. They’re often heavily guarded and limited to 1 per person but we managed to borrow 11 bottles from the fridge. It’s becoming a bit of a challenge!

Portugal v Hungary

Our final group game was back in Lyon for yet another Portugal match, this time against Hungary. Portugal could go through with a draw but needed to win to guarantee it.

I managed to get a position behind the goal on the manager’s side for the first time. This would be my first choice normally but due to being quite low on the priority list at times, I haven’t been able to do so.

Former Fulham player Zoltan Gera scored for Hungary quite early up my end. I got the goal and the celebration ran towards the bench in front of me. Great start and it meant that Portugal would have to attack as they were heading out.

Nani equalised for Portugal just before half-time to ensure the teams were level at the break. 4 goals in 15 minutes – including 2 from Ronaldo – at the beginning of the second half made the score 3-3. As the final whistle blew Portugal were set to finish as runner-up and play England in the next round but a late goal for Iceland against Austria meant Portugal scraped through in 3rd place and England faced Iceland instead, much to the delight of the English photographers at the time…

Overall the matches were quite poor in the group stage so it was good to finish with an exciting match for once.