A new home for English football?

I watched the first international match at the New Wembley yesterday when England and Brasil were facing each other. After one U21 match, the F.A. Cup final this was, I suppose, the official opening for the new home ground of the English national team. After Germany beat England in their last game at the old Wembley Stadium 0-1 (by a freekick from Didi Hamann) in 2001 it took six years to complete the whole thing.

But what I think is lacking is this special feeling when you watch a game from Wembley. Of course I've never been to a match there. But is was always very impressive to see the pictures of the crowd streaming towards the twin towers. And then the view on the pitch with the track all around the field ... that was Wembley. It was unique. You could recognise it as soon as you saw the picture.

Nowadays it looks just like any other new stadium. And what's bothering me most is that there is this huge gap behind the goals. It looks like there's almost 10 metres of space from the goal line to the seats. I was always in favour of spectators sitting as close to the pitch as possible. There are some German stadiums were theer is a gap as well (Schalke, Hamburg, Frankfurt, to name but a few), still those gaps look a bit smaller. But then again, that's just me...

The match itself wasn't as thrilling as the names of the contestants might have promised. England went ahead in the 2nd half by a header from Terry after a cross from Beckham who returned to the sqaud after a year of absence. But Brasil equalised in stoppage time by a goal from Diego. it was your typical friendly match up with lots of changes in the teams in the 2nd half, so I guess you can't draw any conlusions from it.

Tonight the Germans play San Marino and the tabloids are all expecting a lot of goals. Let's wait and see...