Dates: 12-17 June 2021.
Another major tournament, who would have thought? It’s common wisdom that no other tournament would be able to compare with France in 2016, but no Cymru fan would be churlish enough to dismiss any major tournament we qualify for.
Euro 2020 of course was delayed and re-arranged for 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was with the backdrop of the pandemic that UEFA and competing countries reduced the useable capacity of tournament stadia.
With the #WalesAway gang opting not to travel, I was preparing to watch from the sofa too. However, with my brother Mike being very keen to go we looked into the logistics.
The morning of the day before our direct fly from Heathrow to Baku we strolled from Mike’s apartment to a local Covid testing company’s premises and took our PCR tests. The results were due later that day and would be within the 48-hour validity window to board the flight, reach Baku and and enter Azerbaijan.
Thankfully, our results were negative and we duly boarded our Air Azerbaijan flight on the afternoon of the 11th and arrived in the early hours of the 12th, matchday.
Sunrise in a muggy Baku from our balcony:
After a power nap we headed out to find the pre-match gathering at a nearby hotel. Cue bucket hats, cold beer and singing:
Straight into debating the starting line-up versus Switzerland and plotting our route out of the group:
We left relatively early as we were concerned about queues due to the extra Covid and ticket checks, and it was worth it as the atmosphere was great with a genuine feeling of excitement on behalf of the locals who professed to be supporting us against the Swiss!
It was a long walk to the stadium:
Some local musicians struck up a tune on the walk in!
The Baku Olympic Stadium is very sleek-looking:
Just in case you couldn’t see the stadium there were plenty of directional help from volunteers with big foam fingers!
Baku Olympic Stadium on a beautiful – in many ways – day:
We were very early!:
Dylan Ebenezer and Owain Tudor-Jones were tight-lipped on the team line-up when we asked! Rob Page’s debut at a major tournament:
The locals were given tickets which helped boast the attendance. All were eager to chat, take pictures and swap Instagram details, and all spoke better English than we spoke Azeri or Russian:
Mike and I appear on TV whilst singing Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau
As for the game itself, we struggled against an attack-minded Swiss side, looked nervous throughout and deservedly went behind early in the second half.
However, Joe Morrell, playing above his natural level and having a great game swung in a cross in the 79th minute which Keiffer Moore glanced into the net to send us all delirious! We’d arrived at Euro 2020 and it felt amazing!
We survived a scare a few minutes later when the Swiss appeared to score again but VAR intervened. I knew when we qualified for Euro 2020 that there would possibly be a moment like this, agonisingly waiting for a VAR decision. Though I had imagined it would be to rule out a last minute equaliser or winner for Cymru.
Instead, the several hundred of us celebrated as if we had scored when the electronic board signalled Dim Gôl (kudos to the stadium staff for including Cymraeg)!
Match report and highlights here.
A mixture or relief and happiness at the final whistle. You always want to avoid defeat in your opening game:
The local volunteers were enjoying the day as much as us:
The Swiss were philosophical about the result, understandably, but like so many of us, were just happy to be at the tournament:
Time to celebrate with a few cold Xirdalans:
The following day we started late after some much-needed sleep, and just took a relaxed approach to the day, taking in a few local sites. The F1 had been to Baku the previous weekend:
You’ve got to love a major football tournament! Putting Cymru on the world stage:
We joined some fellow Cymry in fine, if slightly drunk, voice back down in the cheap bars:
The next day we managed to rise a little earlier and explore further afield, thanks in part to some electric scooters. I’ll never tire of this view from the promenade:
They were keen to help get our scooters up-and-running to the point where they created a WiFi hotspot so I could download the app!
Much banter, mutual attempts at Azerbaijani and Cymraeg, and photo-taking ensued. A lovely bunch of kids:
Scooter time:
The view from the Alley of Honour, near the Flame Towers:
Panoramic:
Grilled meat was very much the order of the day for the whole trip. Which you’ve got to love! A much-needed pitstop:
The day before the crucial Turkey match we took a trip out of the city to see the mud volcanoes, the petroglyphs in Gobustan, and the burning mountain; places I visited back in 2019 but was more than happy to see again with Mike.
Being off-season we effectively had a private tour and got picked-up at our hotel. We headed west out of Baku and as expected switched to a local driver and a Lada Riva in the village near the mud volcanos. After the predictably rough ride over dirt tracks we reached the volcanos where, apart from two locals taking a mud bath, we had the place to ourselves:
If I ever visit again, I’m taking swimwear and actually getting in the mud – there’s a fresh water lake a few minutes away to swill off! Here are some mud bubbles and a clip of the lunar landscape.
An oil lake on our way back to the village:
On to Gobustan National Park to take-in the petroglyphs, where we inevitably bumped into the ever-roving Ian Johnson!
It was so peaceful:
As well as the mud volcanos, the burning mountain near Yanardağ were two of my 2019 trip highlights so I was happy to go back with Mike:
A video clip of the fire in action.
There was a small museum on-site which I hadn’t visited in 2019. It also had this odd thing where your shadow is projected onto a wall as flame – great fun!:
The trip ended at the Heydar Aliyev Centre with its wonderfully weird art installations:
Match day two and the accompanying nerves of knowing that realistically a win was required if we were to progress to the knockout stage due to Italy looking impressive in qualification and in their opening win over Turkey.
As with the first game, the locals were just as excited about the game as us, with a key difference: they were hoping for a Turkey win due to their country’s “brotherly” relationship.
After taking our Covid PCR tests in the designated UEFA testing bus (in what was meant to be the fan zone before the pandemic hit) we grabbed breakfast at an overly-expensive waterside café. We then headed to a coffee shop in the old town. I had been contacted the previous day to do a radio interview, unfortunately, the café’s internet connection wasn’t great so the interview didn’t last long.
As we were about to leave, a local TV crew turned-up and a pretty Azeri journalist asked me and Mike some questions on-camera which was quite amusing as we weren’t convinced she understood any of our answers…! We then watched the crew ask the exact same questions to a few other Cymru fans before moving on to some Turks having breakfast and shouting outlandish predicted scorelines at anyone who’d listen.
With our Euro 2016 merch on we attracted attention from every local football fan and journalist in the old town centre as we wandered around soaking up the atmosphere. Celeb status had been established!
Mike attempting an album cover pose outside our adopted base camp, the Hairy Lemon:
Naturally, the Turks outnumbered us for this game, and they were in fine spirit:
Another long walk to the stadium with the band playing and the atmosphere building:
The Turks were confident of victory, which sort of shook my confidence if I’m honest:
A beautiful evening for it…:
The Baku Olympic Stadium, take two:
“Ni byth yn dysgu”, as us Crows fans always say:
Lucky pre-KO selfie:
Nerves…
We were clearly the better side in the second half, not really giving Turkey a glimmer of hope, but as the game wore on without a second goal there was a collective nervousness in the stands. This was exacerbated when Gareth Bale fluffed a penalty kick!
The miss didn’t affect the players though and the Turkish players became more and more frustrated. Thankfully, a fantastically cheeky move from a corner saw Bale tee-up Connor Roberts and he slotted in to send us all into dreamland! 2-0 and almost guaranteed a place in the second round – we couldn’t have wished for more!
Match report and highlights here.
Pure joy:
Looking good:
A beautiful night for a celebration:
On our way to the game we spoke with a Dutch TV crew and told them on-camera that we’d win 2-0…and guess who we bumped into on our way out of the ground…? Yep, they loved it when we went over to tell them we knew what we were on about!
I mean, they could have put our colours up like in Paris, right?:
Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to use the metro system to get back to the city centre, and information regarding buses that had been put on for us was sketchy at best, so we flagged down a taxi and made the classic mistake of not confirming a price…we were sure he said 14 manats…
Predictably, seeing how high demand was, he wanted 40! Mike and I debated between us whether we should give him the 20 manat note I had and make a run for it. It was quiet and he was a fairly unhealthy and overweight looking sort, but we played it safe, much to our collective chagrin, and paid the balance with a card.
But we soon forget about that and concentrated on celebrating back at the Hairy Lemon:
Temporary Covid laws meant that bars and restaurants had to close at midnight. Thankfully, our promise to be quiet and buy more drinks got us a few more hours of fun:
We returned home as the sun began to rise, tired but extremely happy:
After grabbing a few hours sleep we got a taxi to a local clinic to collect our PCR test results. To our relief we were both negative and the rest of the journey home was trouble-free. Unlike Ethan Ampadu’s girlfriend and her entourage… We couldn’t help but smile as they all struggled with the passenger locator forms whilst the rest of us all sailed through, including Robbie Savage!
Euro 2020 was never going to be like Euro 2016, for so many reasons, not just the pandemic and the multi-city format. Nevertheless, Mike and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. We spoke with many people who showed as much interest in us as we did in them, which is so often the case with #WalesAway trips.
We missed the usual #WalesAway crew who make these trips what they are: an exercise in camaraderie, exploration, and beer consumption, but fully appreciate that not everyone is fortunate enough to be in mine and Mike’s position.
Unfortunately, our trip ended here as we were unable to get to Rome, though we know a handful of people who did make it via about six different countries to get past the various quarantine rules. Similarly, we risked arrest if we had tried to travel to Amsterdam for the ill-fated second round match.
Unlike in 2016, there was no profound feeling of loss or that something that will never again be felt had come to an end, just a happy feeling that we’re lucky enough to be living in a golden age for the Cymru national team, and for that we are truly grateful…
Postscript:
Mike and I were interviewed by BBC TV during and after the Italy match, here are the interviews:
Notes From The Road 