So here we are about to head off early tomorrow to Marseille on the 4th and final away trip as part of the group stage of the Champions League.
The table currently looks like this
There are two matches remaining and the aim is to end in the top 8, to avoid having to play a knock out round in February. We definitely need at least one win, possibly two, from our remaining games to achieve that. Failing that we need to be somewhere between 9th and 24th to play in the knock out round. Any lower than that and we are out altogether. I’m reasonably confident that that won’t happen.
All European away trips are fun (if you don’t count the actual football game itself) but this one is extra special on several counts
Firstly Anna is coming on this trip. She can’t make a lot of the trips as she has to work so just doesn’t have the time available. I miss having her on the trips with me and judging by the number of times I get asked where she is everyone else misses her too.
We also have Clive joining us on this trip. Clive is Welsh and more into rugby than football. But having read my blogs from previous trips he decided he wanted to join in and be part of the story.
He is travelling on the same flights as my brother – they should meet up at Heathrow although they’ve never met before so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for them to recognise each other from the photos I’ve sent tbem
Clive also had the small issue of sorting out his ticket today, having lost it in the depths of his mobile phone when he downloaded it while his VPN was still running. Despite his best efforts and a couple of communications with the LFC support team nothing had been resolved by mid morning. I wasn’t too worried as we knew he had a legitimate ticket and we still had a couple of days to go. But I decided to have a go at downloading it onto one of my spare phones (“burners” – I like to think I’m a drug baron). Hey presto that worked immediately so I packed the phone ready for Clive to use in Marseille
That gave Clive time to research some restaurants for dinner in Marseille and be does seem to have done a very good job
So as far as the football is concerned we are all now good to go.
Aa it happens we have friends – Paul and Angela – who live in the South of France. Once we are done in Marseille Anna and I will be catching the train to Antibes where they will be meeting us. Then we will have a few days with them before returning home. We usually see them for a little city break each September so it is especially nice to be visiting them at their home. Denis is also going to be there- he flies to Nice as we fly to Marseille.
I was planning to potter about for most of the day … along with sorting Clive’s ticket I had to pack, play some bridge, and catch up on some admin as well as helping Denis run a coaching session at the bridge club.
Part way through all that I received news that my mum had had a fall at her line dancing class and had to go to the local hospital for an assessment. After a bit of a mad flurry contacting friends and neighbours and family and speaking to her and the hospital staff we made the call to go ahead with the trip anyway. Paul will be back and able to see her by Friday and before that we have a rota of people to visit her and to look after her house.
Pearl Blog 3 