KS Cracovia (Poland) vs Shakhtyor Soligorsk (Belarus)
21st June 2008 – Krakow, Poland

It was our first visit to Poland and we ended up saying that it was one of our best trips so far! We arrived in Krakow via Munich and after booking into our hotel we went for a light training session at a stadium nearby. We had a very relaxing evening; we dined at the hotel watching the EURO 2008 quarter final match Croatia vs Turkey.

On Saturday morning after the UEFA scheduled meeting, thanks to our liasion officer who happened to be our fourth official Mr Radoslaw Siejka, we went for a guided walking city tour of Krakow.

Apart from being the native city of Pope John II, it’s a city of great history and impressive architecture. Not to be missed!

We arrived at the stadium at 16:30. We had our normal pre-match preparations and the game kicked off at 18:00. Around 5,000 spectators were present and they kept chanting Cracovia Cracovia till the final whistle! Being a small stadium they really made a great atmosphere in there. The first half was full of action in which the home team went ahead in the 25th minute. However some minutes later they received a huge setback when one of their players was sent off. The player ‘scored’ with his hands! Joseph Attard spotted the incident and cautioned the player and as this happened to be his second yellow card he was sent off.

During the second half, the Belarus team surged forward and playing with 11 men against 10 they turned the result in their favour winning 2-1.

On Sunday, thanks again to our liason officer we had a once in a life time experience in visiting Auchswitz, the war time Nazi concentration camp where thousands were put to death.It was really a touching and emotional visit as we saw with our own eyes what we had read so many times in our history books