October 21, 2009 - Champions League Group Stage
Real Madrid 2 - 3 AC Milan
Real Madrid midfielder Kaká failed to impress against his former club as AC Milan ran out 3-2 winners at the Santiago Bernabeu. The match was dominated by poor goalkeeping and poor defending, particularly on the side of Real Madrid.
Watching the match, I was fortunate in being on the right end of the field again. Four of the five goals were scored on my end and I managed a few good shots. Above we see the Milan celebration of Andrea Pirlo's goal to level the score at 1-1.
Raul had previously put the home side up after hideous goalkeeping by Dida, dropping the ball at Raul's feet. My shots of Raul's celebration were not completely sharp, but this image captured the emotion of the first goal.
Alexandre Pato had the best of the second half, however, with two goals to go with a few missed opportunities. His celebrations came directly towards my corner which was directly below the Milan supporters' section. It was particularly difficult getting clean shots of the goal celebrations with half of the Madrid supporters in front of me yelling insults. This leads to another lesson to get as close as possible to the field to avoid having fans jump up in front of you.
Pato had an excellent opportunity to score the match winner with a matter of minutes remaining, but his attempt went over the bar. He redeemed himself a few minutes later though a practically identical situation and slotted home the 3-2 winner.
More images can be seen on my website:
So I learned where not to sit whenever I visit the Vicente Calderon. Ended up on the south end next to the Atletico hardcore. On my right was a loud very aggressive fan yelling, trying to break things and almost getting in a fight. On my left was the stairs with people deciding that was a better location to sit than their seats, making everybody coming down bump into me. While I was in the front row, I either had people simply standing in front next to the railing or if not then still a large net across the entire end making photography pretty much impossible.
As a result I ended up with only a handful of acceptable images and none that I would put in my portfolio. With the large net in the way messing with the autofocus, I had to work exclusively with manual focus, resulting in many slightly out of focus images. While I was always shooting with an aperture of f/2.8, it only allowed me to shoot through the net with players a considerable distance away. The lighting at the Calderon also has to be at least a stop lower than at the Bernabeu, allowing for less flexibility.
As for the match itself, I was also unlucky with four of the five goals being scored at the opposite end. I completely missed the first goal from Kaka due to people standing in front of me. The second goal quieted the crowd for a while before they started insulting everybody: the ref, the Madrid players, their own players, each other, the club president, etc. Only in the second half after Sergio Ramos was sent off and Atletico scored two goals did the crowd start to get behind their side. The Real Madrid victory was deserved, but it should have been with a greater margin.
