Diego's Downfall - Argentina v Germany - Quarter Final

Firstly sorry it's taken me so long to get this blog post done but I've been busy catching up on sleep and generally avoiding all things photographic.

Having covered the first Quarter final in Port Elizabeth and seen the Netherlands overwhelm Brazil in a fascinating match it was back to Cape Town for what promised to be another classic, Germany v Argentina.

We managed to get to our hotel just after midnight following the Brazil game and it was straight to bed to try and get a few hours sleep before the second leg of the monster drive back to Cape Town. 4.45am and it was rude awakening time with my alarm going off what seemed like seconds after I'd put my head on the pillow. A quick shower and it was into Dolly the wonder car and foot down on the N2 to try and get to the media center before midday. Having done the drive 6 times now Dolly knows the road between PE and CT and with minimal input from us drivers she got us safely to Green Point stadium just in time to see... virtually every position pitchside taken! Bloody hell, 4 1/2 hours before kick off and we're counted as late arrivals! I seriously think some people are sleeping in lockers in the media center to get good pitch positions.

I'd agreed with the office that I would try to take Germany attack first half so I settled on a position behind goal on the other side of the pitch to the dug-outs. Not ideal as we were keen to get some Maradona reaction during the game. The little guy has been jumping up and down on the touchlines all tournament like a Tasmanian Devil and it would have been great to have been close enough to capture this, but beggars/late arrivals can't be choosers apparently.

Understandably as the tournament has progressed the number of accredited press has naturally increased, some of the first round games had around 60 pitchside photographers while this game had close to 140. Not only does this mean you have no room to work as you are literally shoulder to shoulder with the guy next to you but it also means large areas of the pitch can be blocked by other photographers lenses, heads, flailing arms etc etc. There is quite a strict (but informal) etiquette amongst sports photographers that enables us to work without getting in others way and conversely others not getting in our way. Unfortunately there is quite a large number of photographers (and I'm being polite here) who don't know one end of a camera from another and have managed to get themselves accredited via some backdoor method, so all bets are off. At one game I sat next to a guy who spent what seemed like the whole 90mins taking photos of his mates in the crowd with a £10K camera setup he'd borrowed from Nikon. While this is such a ridiculous situation it's actually quite funny there is a more concerning side in that a lot of camera gear has been going "missing" from within the media centers. From a purely speculative and unsubstantiated viewpoint I wonder how much of it is going home as "extra luggage" with some of these part time photographers as their countries are knocked out. I hope I'm wrong. I also understand that this seems like an elitist/probably bigoted view and that every participating country deserves an equal opportunity to send it's media, but if you're going to photograph a World Cup.. have a practice first eh!

Anyway, rant over and back to the match. As usual we spent the time during the national anthems getting as much on the managers as we could from infront of the dugouts. I have to admit to being a bit starstruck with Maradona as he really did feature so vividly for those of us who grew up in the 80's. The game kicked off and I was barely settled in my position when Germany opened the scoring, luckily I managed to get a clean shot of Mullers goal and had it wired out within a few minutes. That was about the last lucky thing for me as after that pretty much the whole game played out at the opposite end of the field. The disallowed Argentina goal, Germanys 3 more goals and celebrations and then most of the tears and jubilation at the final whistle... bugger.

So here's some pics from the match, don't expect anything wonderful as I really didn't have a good one but hopefully they're relatively entertaining. Semi final next and I'm planning to do some behind the scenes stuff for you so you can see the chaos and wonder of a World Cup media center in all it's gory glory. Enjoy.

Diego

No blog tonight, too tired. I promise I'll write something properly tomorrow.. promise.

All I really have to say anyway is... "bloody hell! That really is Diego Maradona in front of me"

Quarter final time.. Netherlands v Brazil

Sorry I haven't got time to write much as we're heading straight back to Cape Town for the Germany v Argentina game tomorrow but I thought I'd get a few pics up from tonight's cracker of a quarter final in Port Elizabeth.

The game was definitely the most eventful of my time out here with a fair bit of tension on and off the field. The Netherlands looked good for their win and although it's sad to see the great Brazil go out I have to admit to rooting for the Oranje.

So wish me luck for the lovely drive back through the night to CT, hopefully the crazy drivers will all be tucked up in bed.

Villa the great.. Spain v Portugal

Just finished Spain v Portugal in Cape Town and am now in total awe of Spanish football. With Villa in their squad Barcelona will be awesome next season as the guy just amazed me with his skill, athleticism and general bloody awesomeness. Luckily I managed to choose the correct corner for his goal celebration which helped as I wasn't having a good night up till then.

Rather wonderfully though Nikon replaced the bayonet on my 400mm, serviced it during the game and lent me a brand spanking new lens all for free, I reckon that would have set me back £300+ if I got it done in the UK.. Thanks lovely Nikon people, you're bloody great you are!

Anyway I'm not going to write much as I don't have a lot else to say as nothing particularly exciting has happened since coming back from Bloemfontein.. Sleep, shop for food, go to stadium, watch footballing masterclass.. errr.. that's about it, so here's a few pics.

The horror, the horror - Germany vs England

I'll start off by saying I haven't actually watched the replay of last nights game as I haven't been able to face it. I'm also hoping that I'll fall through a worm hole into a parallel universe where we thrashed Germany 4-1, although I'm not hopeful on that one.

The day started with a fairly tense 500km drive from Cradock to Bloemfontein, which as we managed to leave late (the breakfast was a bit too good) was taken at several times the South African speed limit. Our little Toyota Corolla - or Dolly as she will be referred to from now on - is totally gutless so some of the lorry overtaking was hairy to say the least. South Africans are, contrary to what we had heard, really considerate drivers and seemed happy enough to get out of the way as Dolly careered towards them on the wrong side of the road at terminal velocity.

Arriving in Bloemfontein an hour after we wanted to get there, we checked into the media centre choose our positions and tried to find a desk to work at. The media center was packed and bizarrely the only seats left were sat directly next to Mark Lawrenson.. yep him off of the telly. Before long we were joined by Gabby Logan and Harry Rednap too which was a little surreal.

The tension inside the stadium was palpable and for once the English fans were outshone by the opposing fans enthusiasm. The Germans were there to party whereas the English fans looked like they were there to take their driving test.

I won't go into too much detail about the match as you all probably know more than me about it. I didn't see Lampards ball cross the line, I didn't see Rooneys offside but I did see 4 classy German goals and that was a bloody painful experience.

Today was the epic drive back from Bloemfontein to Cape Town - 1000km all in - which was surprisingly painless. South of Bloemfontein is the Karoo which is a massive plain of tedious scrubland which was a fairly dull and seemingly endless drive (see photo below taken mid-Karoo as the madness set in) but this changes into the stunning winelands area as you approach Cape Town and holy crap is that picturesque. If we hadn't been rushing to get back it would have been a landscape photographers wet dream.

*A big thanks to Paul "The Maltese Falcon" Zammit Cutajar for being an excellent co-pilot and road trip companion*

Anyway, here's a few pics that hopefully illustrate the night a little. I won't pain anyone with German goal or celebration pics, I'll save them for another time.. or never.

Road trip - Uruguay v South Korea

So we're back in Port Elizabeth and have just finished covering the slightly damp Uruguay v South Korea 2nd round knockout game.

Arriving in PE this morning the weather was wonderful with blue skies and a warm breeze blowing off the Indian Ocean, surely we wouldn't need our wet weather gear... surely! Luckily I've been bitten by UK weather so many times during sporting events that sense prevailed and I stuffed jacket, trousers and lens covers into a bag. Just before half time I was feeling pretty smug as the heavens opened over the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium and that warm breeze I enjoyed earlier started blowing the rain horizontally at us. It reminded me less of Indian Ocean and more of Wales!

The game was a mixed bag with a couple of great goals by Suarez and a really entertaining Korean attacking display. I felt for the Korean fans at the final whistle as they've been excellent in their support throughout the tournament and that helpless feeling of having your team knocked out is nasty. I only hope we aren't feeling that tomorrow night.

So now that this game is over we're off to a small town called Cradock a few hundred KM's north of PE where we'll crash for the night before heading to Bloemfontein in the morning for *THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME OF FOOTBALL EVER* between Germany and England. Hopefully I'll be able to write some rubbish from there before and after the game and give you a little behind the scenes view of a World Cup classic (hopefully).

Here's some pics of tonight's game in the mean time.