Europa League | Pearcey's Blog

So a week after returning from Wembley to watch an England game, I decided to capitalise on my new found invincibility and head West from Cardiff to the Liberty Stadium to watch Swansea take on Spanish giants Valencia in the Europa League group stages. I have blogged about a trip to the Liberty before, but on that occasion with only 10,000 people at an international friendly, I didn’t really get a feel for the place so I felt a return was necessary, plus Europa League football for only £15, you can’t go wrong!

An hour down the M4, and then 20 minutes looking for a stadium park and ride that wasn’t actually open, I’d plugged the car on the building site of some new houses moonlighting as a car park, and walked across the world’s wobbliest bridge to get to the Stadium. With it situated right by a large retail park you won’t be short of food if you’re a Swansea fan, but I headed off on my lap of the stadium to find the club shop and probably the funniest moment of the day as a girl asked, in a strong Swansea accent, for a ‘Swansea wansea’, or a onesie to the rest of us. Anyway, after purchasing my scarf and discovering that new Swansea fans knew what ‘AFC’ stood for it was into the ground.

A slightly blurry Liberty Stadium

The packed out club shop

So after squeezing through the turnstiles, designed to make sure all Swansea fans are forced to be thin, although there definitely must’ve been wide load turnstiles somewhere looking at some of the people there, it was into the ‘modern stadium default style concourse’. The only difference in the Liberty Stadium is the menu, on which is noodles, a strange one to say the least! I found my seat, which unfortunately was normally the seat of someone else who couldn’t make it. After facing a number of questions from the people sat around me, firstly that I didn’t work for the DVLA who’s staff had been given free tickets for the game that night, and secondly that I wasn’t a Cardiff fan. I decided to say I was a Newport fan rather than face death, because I am actually a Cardiff fan, which, while preserving my life, meant I then had to talk about how County’s season was going for about 20 minutes.

Who on earth is eating Noodles at the football?

Onto the game and it was 1st v 2nd in Group A with Swansea starting the strongest, even beating Valencia convincingly away from home, but a few draws had allowed Valencia back in to compete for top spot and they were in fact a point ahead before kick-off. A draw would’ve guaranteed both sides qualification to the next round, but no unspoken truce was going to be seen as top spot meant being seeded in the knockouts and avoiding teams dropping down from the Champions League.

Swansea started stronger, keeping the ball better and had a great chance to go ahead when Roland Lamah’s corner was flapped at by Valenica keeper Diego Alves straight to Wilfried Bony but the striker couldn’t get his header on target. However, it was another poor punch, this time from Tremmel in the Swansea goal, that found Barnat on the edge of the box who’s deflected shot fell to Daniel Parejo and into the back of the net to put Valencia 1-0 up after 20 minutes. Valencia then went onto dominate possession leaving Swansea chasing shadows, their misery compounded just before half-time, firstly, by Bony limping off with a hamstring injury, and secondly by a quite bizarre decision from the assistant referee who ruled Vazquez offside when poking home a rebound of Shelvey’s shot, despite the Spaniard being at least a yard onside. Valencia had the best chance of the second half through ‘name of the season’ contender, Sofiane Feghouli, but his shot found it’s way past the post as he was 1-on-1 with Tremmel. Swansea’s late chance came from Vazquez but his shot was well cleared off the line by Ruiz.

The Kick-off pic

Valencia celebrate their goal

Defeat leaves Swansea needing at least a point from their last game away in Switzerland against St. Gallen although (SPOILER ALERT) I’m writing this blog after that game and they did indeed qualify in second place from the group and face Napoli in the next round. I’d imagine the Liberty Stadium would have a bit more atmosphere than it did on this frustrating night for Swansea fans, and maybe some noodles might have to be eaten to calm the nerves!