Manchester United at FC Seoul

Last night, Friday July 24th, we went to the Manchester United at FC Seoul game at World Cup Stadium. This was the first time either one of us has seen a British Premier League team play in real life; because we've always watched them on tv, so it was a real pleasure to see them play in person.

We took the subway all the way out to the World Cup Stadium stop. The station there is all decked out in posters and signs for FC Seoul. There were a couple of other places in town that had Man U stuff -- such as the stairway down to the underground shopping area at Lotte Young Plaza. They had Man U posters lining the walls there.


Inside the stadium building they have a Home Plus store, kind of like a giant Target store, with groceries. There is also a movie theater.


We got there with plenty of time to wander around before the game (so we would miss the transportation crush getting there, leaving was a whole different story). This is the view of the stadium from over by the access to the stream and jogging trail. We watched people going grocery shopping at Home Plus try and park their cars and then get out of the parking lot when they were finished. Fortunately there were Home Plus employees out in the parking lot that would stop pedestrians and help guide people as they backed up, otherwise there were a few times when we were sitting on a bench that we might have lost our feet as people backed up.


Outside the stadium, they had the usual displays of products and merchandise for sale. Including this tower of Smirnoff. They were handing out samples of the ginger ale and lime and the soda and lemon Smirnoff vodka beverages. The ginger ale one actually tasted like ginger ale, but it didn't have that bite that ginger ale has. Real ginger ale, when I pour a glass, has bubbles that tickle my nose when I drink, and the taste has a bit of a bite to it. Both of these were drinkable, but nothing special.


There's a little park area, a stream, and a bridge crossing the stream near the entrance to the stadium area, so we wandered out that way for a bit before the game.


The Smirnoff flags we got. Unfortunately, we did not get Budweiser thunder sticks. Maybe next time.


View from the stadium. A sea of apartments. Instead of building vast tracts of houses, they build vast seas of apartment towers here.


The sign board inside.

Warmup before the game.


The act before the game. Not sure who the performers were. Nor did I know who was performing at half time either. But whoever it was has to be one of the more popular K-pop groups at the moment based upon the amount of screaming from all the pre-teen and teen girls and the mass swarming in the seats near the centerline on the side of the stage. Many of the younger boys and girls near us moved towards the front of our section and pulled out their zoom lenses and starting snapping away.


The view from our seats.


Snack.


The game was a lot of fun. It was fun to be at a friendly game where the crowd cheered for both teams. The fireworks at kickoff and the beginning of the second half startled me. And they set off fireworks when FC Seoul scored, too. The crowd cheered when the cameras focused on a player or the coach from Man U and they showed them on the big screens. Park Ji Sung, the Korean player on Man U, elicited huge roars when the camera showed him on the big screen. About 60 minutes into the game, the crowd started chanting his name. He eventually came in, and the crowds went wild.