Estádio do Dragão

«Ragu» and «Dragao.» One of them is perhaps the sh**tiest pasta sauce company you could ever imagine. You may as well spoon feed sugar mixed with squished tomatoes down your throat. Whereas the other is a palace of football. You don’t come here for Drag-​ao Racing. Nor do you have to Drag-​ao your friends here, because they will come here willingly… it’s just so spectacular.
This is review #2,004 for me because that was the year I first came to this stadium.
Dragao is the home stadium of FC Porto in Northern Portugal, in a city that is known as «Porto» or «Oporto.» It was rebuilt a couple of years before the Euro 2004 tournament. It is one of the most beautiful stadiums I have ever seen. The name means «Dragon.» If you’d like to see my dragon, message me your number and we’ll go from there.
Things changed quickly for me. In 2000, I was a teen living homeless in Los Angeles. By 2002, I was an older teen living semi-​comfortably back in Buffalo. By 2004, I was in the middle of my undergrad degree in Northern Virginia, and coming back to Buffalo for the summer, flying over to the UK to see my family, and then driving all over Europe with my girlfriend in a rental car.
We first headed for Portugal, where the European Championships 2004 were being held. What a fantastic tournament that was. It was the first time either of us had gone to an international soccer tournament, so we took my childhood best friend Stefan, and my brother who was at Cambridge, along with me. They only stayed for a small portion of the tournament, whereas we stayed in Europe for a couple of months and saw every country, or thereabouts.
In football terms, the highlight was the Estadio Do Dragao in Porto. We watched Italy v Sweden in that stadium (both my gf and brother were enormous fans of the Azzuri, the Italian national soccer team), and what a wonderful magical night it was. We’d all eaten fantastic bowls of Arroz De Marisco a few hours earlier close to the stadium. The view from this brand new, bright-​white, space-​age stadium on the hill was magical. You could see all of the neighborhoods of Porto in all directions, and what a beautiful city it is. It was one of the most beautiful stadiums I ever saw.
We watched Italy and Sweden battle to a 1 – 1 draw thanks to Ibrahomovic and his genius backheel-​goal. Del Piero scored for Italy. It was a thriller. Thanks to the ineptitude of UEFA, Italy were later eliminated on a «mini league technicality» that allowed Denmark and Sweden to play out a 2 – 2 draw to mutually progress, but that’s just the facts. The truth is, this was one of the most special summers you could imagine.
Since this is a review of the stadium rather than my life history, I will suffice to say that it is one of my favourite stadiums in the world. It had recently been rebuilt for that tournament, and what a marvellous and spectacular job they did. It worked, too, as FC Porto, the home team, became Champions League Winners under Jose Mourinho just months before we were there to watch Italy play in the same stadium.
Next time I go back — probably summer 2016 — I am looking forward to trying to find the little shack that served us the best Arroz De Marisca I ever had.
If I don’t find it, it will be a «Drag», and will hurt my soul… «Ow.» As in, Drag, Ow.