The 2018 World Cup winners, “Les Bleaus,” were playing a crucial match against the last Euro victors, Portugal.
Six French soccer fans managed to get tickets to the Euro 2020 tournament to see their beloved national soccer team in Budapest, Hungary. However, the fans missed seeing the game in person because they mistakenly traveled to Bucharest, Romania, instead, the New York Post reported.
The 2018 World Cup winners, “Les Bleaus,” were playing a crucial match against the last Euro victors, Portugal. However, the fans must have not seen the fine print or got the cities confused and ended up 500 miles away from where French superstars Kylian Mbappe, N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba were playing.
“It’s like we’re in the movie ‘Home Alone,'” one of the fans told Romanian outlet Jurnalul. “This is the first time we have traveled to this part of Europe. And, to be honest, for me, until today, there was no difference between Bucharest and Budapest. We need to learn more about Europe.”
The fans arrived in Bucharest and spotted what they thought were Hungarian fans who could lead them to the stadium to watch the match. However, the fans turned out to be Ukrainians waiting out the days in Bucharest between games against North Macedonia and Austria, Sports Illustrated reported.
"We never thought they were Ukrainians," one of the French fans told Jurnalul. "Now I realize we couldn't even figure it out. We don't know Hungarian either, and we don't know Ukrainian or Russian. They are just as foreign to us."
The six men are reportedly coworkers at an IT company and have traveled to many different countries together, but not since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The friends made a pact that once the restrictions were lifted they would go on a trip together and the best way to celebrate life after lockdown would be to watch the national team play in such a major tournament, according to the New York Post.
However, fate had other plans.
The fans noticed their plane tickets and realized that the airline gave them three tickets to Budapest and three to Bucharest, the Post reported. Once the travelers caught the mistake, they tried their best to sort it out with the airline but had no luck.
“They blamed us because we don’t know the difference between Bucharest and Budapest,” another fan told Jurnalul.
The six stranded fans made the best out of the situation by staying in Bucharest and hanging out in the city to learn more about the culture.
And one French fan found an out-of-this-world way to watch the match. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet watched from the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth.
France tied Portugal 2-2 in the thrilling match with two goals from French striker Karim Benzema, who scored at that same time in both halves of the match at 46:44, ESPN reported. In the same match, Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice, tying the all-time record for most international career goals which has been held by Iran’s Ali Daei at 109.
France has qualified for the next round, and their next game against Switzerland on Monday will actually be played in Bucharest.
