FRESHERS WEEK IN THE EUROPA LEAGUE
Maybe the heat’s getting to FourFourTwo. It’s 35 degrees in Luxembourg, the dehydration is kicking in and some sort of weird hallucination has presented itself: a load of students holding a press conference in front of a massive wasp.
We’re inside the Stade Municipal in the sleepy town of Differdange, a couple of miles from the border with France. The wasp is livid and peering over the students’ shoulders, staring FFT straight in the eye. All while holding a football underneath its arm.
Thankfully, it isn’t real – not least because wasps don’t actually have arms. It’s a giant club crest of host team Progres Niederkorn, and it’s serving as the backdrop for a piece of history. The students are from Cardiff Metropolitan University, and they’re about to become the first British university team to play in the Europa League.
Sadly, that hasn’t attracted journalists in droves for the pre-match media briefing, 24 hours ahead of the preliminary round first leg tie. There are four representatives from the club – three players and boss Christian Edwards – but only three from the press.
Two journalists from Luxembourg ask one question between them, we chip in with a few of our own for politeness, and the conference comes to a rather premature end.
didn’t need to bombard the players with questions at the press conference. We’d just spent the afternoon with the very same people at their hotel in the centre of town – arriving in Luxembourg after an epic nine-hour car journey from the UK, via a Dover-to-Calais ferry
