First, baby step

It's days like this that a certain song crosses my mind, a Ricardo Arjona (Guatemalan) song, titled “Hoy es un buen día para empezar”, “Today is a good day to start”. Start what? Something I feel I should have started a heck of a long time ago, when I was still traveling abroad to cover football matches for newspapers I used to work for, or even in 2007 when I watched my first ever football match outside of Europe (Vasco da Gama – Grêmio, in Rio de Janeiro), making -soon- watching football one of my top priorities while traveling, no matter if I found myself in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or the Far East. So, start what? This very blog...

Today I'm just making a baby step, feeling that if I leave it for another day, if I... miss the golden opportunity the first day of a new year gives for a fresh start, to do something I've been working on in the back of my mind for quite some time now, then... most probably, knowing myself, I'll end up not starting it at all. As in, never. So, I chose a title, a cheeky description (“cheeky”, because I feel I'm sounding full of myself, boasting for the 114!! games I have watched in 33!! countries, as if there aren't out there countless other football nuts who have watched innumerably more matches in considerably more countries), I'm adding two-three little paragraphs and a photo, and basically I'm... experimenting, finding my way around blogspot, before... getting down to business, sharing my “football (and not only) tales”.

“ESTADIO VICENTE CALDERON, 15-10-1997”

The “entrada” and “palco prensa” seat I was given by Atlético Madrid for their home game against Mérida. My first ever mission abroad for a newspaper (PAOK, Thessaloniki's biggest team were playing against Atlético a few days later), game number 1 in my “matches attended abroad” list

One thing is for sure, the matches I have already watched will be “covered” super superficially, partly because soon I will have my hands full sharing new stories. Before the end of January I'm leaving Greece (where I have spent very little time the last five years) again, for another six months' journey, which, this time, will find me watching football (and just having plain fun, hopefully, along the way) in Turkey (just three games during a long weekend), and mostly in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil again, where I'm dreaming of catching a minimum of ten World Cup matches in June and July. Have I bought tickets for all those matches? Eeeeh, nnnot exactly(...).

The first day of a super promising year, es un buen día para empezar indeed...