Real Madrid vs. AC Milan

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:

Trommer Photography

Real Madrid vs. Olympique de Marseille

September 30, 2009 - Champions League Group Stage

Real Madrid 3 - 0 Olympique de Marseille

The key to getting good images is to be close to the action.  I typically try to get tickets in the first few rows behind one of the goals.  These tickets are generally relatively inexpensive due to the fact that while you are close to the field, you really do not have an overview of what is going on.  In this case I was 8 rows up directly behind a goal, perhaps the worst possible view as I had the crossbar directly in front of me.  Despite this fact I managed a few acceptable images including this shot from Cristiano Ronaldo.

From this location direcly in the middle behind the goal it is possible to get good images of players on the wings preparing crosses or dribbling towards the goal.

After realising that there were several empty seats in the far corner, I decided to try to move during halftime from my location to the other end of the field near the goal to which Real Madrid would be attacking in the second half. I fortunately found an unoccupied seat on the side near the corner flag again around 8 rows up. 

This turned out to be a very good decision as I ended up being almost directly in front of the area where the Madrid players came to celebrate all three goals.

In this picture Cristiano Ronaldo gives the thumbs up after scoring the initial goal.

The Swedish referee awarded a penalty on this occasion after Souleymane Diawara brought Ronaldo down with a hard tackle in the area.  Diawara was shown his second yellow card on the play and was sent off.

 Finally, the best images are always about capturing emotion and the expressions of the players.  This image shows the three new stars on the Real Madrid team: Kaka, Karim Benzema, and Cristiano Ronaldo celebrating after a goal.









More images from this match can be found at http://mtrommer.zenfolio.com/madrid-marseille