Match 22 -- Wales v. Argentina

Saturday, 14 October 2023

My 22nd match, and the 41st of the tournament, was Wales v. Argentina in Marseille. This was the first quarterfinal match.

It was warm, so I decided to try a Lime scooter to get to the stadium. That was ... disappointing. They only allow you to end your ride at certain parking areas, marked with a blue "P" in a circle on their map. But their map doesn't show you where you are. Once I got right up to the stadium and found that the pale blue P's indicate a parking area that already has as many scooters as they want (then don't freaking even show it!), I spotted another one a few blocks away that was not pale. I headed that way. When I got really close, the scooter stopped. No power. Ahh, a little message on my phone -- "you are in a no-go zone". Fair enough, it's a pretty heavily travelled pedestrian way. No problem -- I'll just walk my scooter about 50 meters to the parking zone. Nope! Apparently the "no go" zone overrides a parking zone. (See above about "then don't even freaking show it on the map!") A little pushing and a little riding and a little guessing as to where I was on the map, and about ten minutes later I found a place that it would allow me to end the ride. Only another half mile farther from the stadium. (And they charge by the minute, not by the mile, so they were making money from me the whole time they were jerking me around.)

I still had enough time to walk to the stadium from there, although the plan of getting to the stadium not soaked in sweat was out the window. The security screening went pretty smoothly, and then I started counterclockwise around the stadium heading for gate 12. [What did we call clockwise and counterclockwise before clocks were invented?] At gate 13. the concourse narrowed to about fifteen feet across. And there were about fourteen feet of people trying to turn ninety degrees to get into gate 13, and about a foot of people coming at me, heading from gate 12 toward gates 14 and higher. No way for those of us working our way counterclockwise to make any progress. And then the security folks at gate 13 climbed up high enough to be seen and gestured for everyone to more toward gate 14. Ugh. My only hope was that this is a stadium where the gate listed on the ticket is more of a recommendation than a requirement.

Back to gate 14. Scanned my ticket. They won't let me in. "You have to go in at gate 12, monsieur". "But they won't let me past gate 13 to get to gate 12. Your own security folks sent me this way." He was polite, but not very sympathetic. "There's nothing I can do." [There is -- you could let me in. But I get it.]

So I backed out of gate 14, probably much to the annoyance of the people behind me trying to get in, and starting going the 95% of the way around the stadium clockwise to see if gate 12 was accessible that way. Yep, no further problems. But there will be a problem if I ever meet the designer who thought it would be a good idea to narrow the concourse down that much near gate 13. [Tomorrow's ticket is marked as gate 7, so I can avoid that whole 12/13/14 area.]

I got to my seat with about three minutes to spare before the national anthems. The seat was only about ten rows up, but it was so far in the corner that I had to look at 45 degrees to see the field.

A French mounted patrol outside the stadium

The view pretty much straight ahead

The view toward the field

Despite all this, I punched above my #34 Positivity strength and didn't let it ruin my experience.

Wales got out to a lead in the 14th minute with a try from Dan Biggar. While setting up to take the conversion kick, Biggar asked the referee to pause the shot clock because there was no ball. Hey Dan, maybe you should tell your teammate, Louis Rees-Zammit, to not kick the ball into the stands when you score. I'm still not king, but when I am (or at least king of the referees) I'll crack down on the unsportsmanlike conduct of kicking or throwing the ball away to stall for time. I'm old enough that I played when tries were only worth four points, but back then, the referee wouldn't put up with anyone kicking the ball away.

Wales held a 10-6 lead into halftime.

Halftime selfie

Then it started going back and forth. Argentine kicked a penalty to take a 12-10 lead. Then Wales scored a converted try to go back on top, 17-12. Then in the 68th minute, Argentina scored again to go up 19-17. Wales kept the pressure on and spent some quality time in Argentina's half of the field, but in the 77th minute, Argentina's replacement flyhalf, Nicolas Sanchez, intercepted an errant pass and ran it all the way for a try. Argentina then scored a penalty kick as time expired to win the match, 29-17. As the cliché goes, "it was closer than the final score would suggest".

Argentina goes on to face the winner of tonight's Ireland v. New Zealand match. And Wales goes home.

I walked back to the hotel, stopping at a grocery store for a drink and a snack. And still got back, with no having to deal with crowds, in well under an hour. In plenty of time to watch the Ireland v. New Zealand match on TV. Hooray for finally figuring out to pick hotels close to the stadium.

...doug