{"id":2098,"date":"2019-07-30T00:48:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T22:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2023-02-17T17:52:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T16:52:16","slug":"game-day-in-reykjavik-breidabalik-fc-v-hk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/30\/game-day-in-reykjavik-breidabalik-fc-v-hk\/","title":{"rendered":"GAME DAY IN REYKJAVIK: BREIDABLIK FC v HK"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sunday, July 7th<\/sup>, 10 pm. We\u2019re leaving K\u00f3pavogsv\u00f6llur stadium, with a name you can\u2019t pronounce that we won\u2019t try to pronounce, and the sun is still shining as it was the middle of the afternoon. The small ground with a capacity of 3,009 and only 1,709 seated saw the clash the whole of Europe was waiting for. Breidablik FC was playing HK K\u00f3pavogur, neighbours from Reykjavik, for the renown \u00darvalsdeild karla, the Icelandic Premier League as everyone knows. With 8 teams out of 12 from the capital city, its specificity also comes from the fact it only lasts 4 months, starting in June and finishing in September. There\u2019s not much of a choice in Iceland to play outdoor activities. Weather conditions are extremely harsh as soon as Summer is gone, with short days and very long nights. Luckily, we\u2019re there in July and at this time of the year, football fans got their revenge on the rest of the year. Remember that, Iceland is the land of the midnight sun, and with 24h of daylight, the locals can spend the night with their family watching football at the stadium, and to stay out the entire night as it was still the middle of the day.<\/p>\n

When Andy, former teammate from Boundary Estate FC<\/a>\u00a0and also good friend who moved to Iceland 8 months ago, asked us if we wanted to come with him to see the game, we didn\u2019t hesitate for a long time. Sunglasses on, we took a seat under the midnight sun to find out what football in Iceland is all about, for this game against the second of the league and the one before last.<\/p>\n

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On the pitch, aside some class moves from the left back of home team Breidablik, the standard is quite poor. Even Paulo Sousa\u2019s Girondins de Bordeaux would seem good enough to come back with a draw. Imagine that. The locals lead quite easily the first half after the first goals, without taking the chance to score more. In the stands the atmosphere is pleasant. We can notice a small group of 12 people waving flags and starting chants that no one else really bother to be singing. At the break, like in China, it\u2019s children who do all the work to get people food and beverage. They were already in charge of controlling the tickets at the entrance of the stadium, and they\u2019re still the ones serving people. The thing is, in Iceland Sunday means Community, especially in the Summer. Kids benefit from long Summer holidays and it\u2019s normal to use this time for Community activities. By consequent, the club youth teams help at the ground on game days.<\/p>\n

Back to the game, we\u2019ve got a different view on the show during the second half. We moved to the other side of the stadium to experience the match amongst fans sat on the grass around the ground. Nostalgic, we watch the away team coming back on the scorecard and taking the lead without any reaction from Breidablik FC players nor their fans. The pace is slow, but we feel happy just looking at the people around us. You\u00a0 can tell they\u2019re upset, kind of, but that\u2019s really not the most important thing for them as they still leave the stadium a smile on their face. Well, at the end of the day, what really matters is that the night after the game will actually still be the day, and it\u2019s going to be a long one!<\/p>\n

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Photography by Jeremie Roturier who realises he should have left everything behind him 10 years ago to try his chance in Icelandic Premier League.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, July 7th, 10 pm. We\u2019re leaving K\u00f3pavogsv\u00f6llur stadium, with a name you can\u2019t pronounce that we won\u2019t try to pronounce, and the sun is still shining as it was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[117,1305],"tags":[930,922,924,918,903,920,928],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DSCF6813-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9eWz2-xQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2103,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions\/2103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcampagne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}