Brighton 2 Atletic Madrid 3
After this game from which, thanks to the incompetence of Southern Railway, I had one and a half hour journey home which could have been accomplished in 15 minutes by road I was more anxious to contribute to the attendance v tv debate than review Brighton’s chances of survival as the campaign begins next week in the Premier.
In regard to the match, the Seagulls were playing a team better than anyone they will meet in the Premiership. Atletico Madrid have won the Primera Liga and have reached the Champions league final. I would place them level with Juventus but behind Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid and ahead of PSG, Chelsea and Manchester City. Under Diego Simeone they have been a consistently successful performer domestically and internationally. They have one of the most coveted forwards in the world in Antoine Griezmann partnered by Torres up front but I was struck most by midfielder Koke, one of those Iberian midfielders with a lovely touch pass and touch, who has played 34 times for Spain and was running the show. It was very much a friendly so Atletico could conserve their energy, avoid injury and still win.
Matt Ryan the Aussie keeper bought to replace David Stockdale made a grotesque error to spill a long range shot to give Atletico the lead. Brighton came back twice but Atletico still won 3-2. For Albion, Shane Duffy and Lewis Dunk coped with Atletico forwards capably, Pascal Gross looked an accomplished offensive midfielder but we will struggle to score. On the wings Solly March and Anthony Knockaert might pose a few problems to defenders that do not know them.
There are two ways to access the Amex stadium, bus or train. Brighton is the least car friendly city in the U.K. and there is not even a taxi rank at the Amex nor a public car park. My neighbours in the stadium, a father and his two children in their thirties have a private car park ticket as part of their package and it’s been known to take us 30 minutes to exit the car park. This season we are trying the train service to Falmer the Amex station from Brighton main station. The journey there was fine and we were installed in our lounge to watch the community final. The journey back was horrendous as there was only one train scheduled one hour after kick off. So we queued and we queued. The train was 7 minutes late. My friend is over 70, none too steady on his pins and was visibly panicking. God knows what it would be like if we had to factor in the cold and the fear of crowd disturbance almost certain with the visit of Crystal Palace. I like Brighton but all of this reflects Green policy of the ex-council and sitting MP for Brighton Pavilion that hates cars but provides no proper alternative, Southern Railway’s incompetence and the club’s failure to provide taxi service and cars with a resource to collect fans.
