Hey Guys!

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the UEFA Euro 2016 Final as a VIP guest at the Stade de France Stadium! And I was even luckier when the French football team nicknamed “Les Bleus” the blues from the color of their jerseys – made it to the Final! Wow!

It was a wonderful experience even for a girl like me who isn’t the biggest soccer fan. I have been a several times to the stadium (the biggest in all of France and the six biggest in Europe with 81 338 seats!) but it was for music concerts and even an opera! I had never been to a ball game there before. The stadium is just north of Paris.

I was invited to the pre-game VIP party at the Novotel hotel in the Charles de Gaulles Airport which is close to the stadium. My friend and I decided to Uber it. The Uber App had cute red white and blue cars for the Euro game ! How cute ! If you don’t use Uber I highly recommend it, here is my promo code for a free ride so you can try it out : nadinet3.

The Novotel Convention & Wellness Hotel near the Charlles de Gaulle ariport is a nice 4 star hotel only 16 km from the Stade de France stadium. The pre-game party was hosted in different convention rooms as well as an outdoor terrace.

We were greeted by the staff and provided with goodies to help us support the French team : flags, blue white and red boas, scarves, wigs you name it…

There were in door salons with finger foods laid out for us as well as an open bar of champagne, beer and soft drinks. I immediately decided to head out to the outdoor terrace and enjoy a nice glass of champagne!

If you want to find out how I did my Blue White and Red patriotic mani, check out my previous post !

After a couple hours, a bus was to take us to the stadium, but surprise, we got our own town car and private chauffeur to whisk us away to the VIP Lounge of the Stade de France and continue to enjoy the fun exciting times prior to the beginning of the game!

Hostess gave us our VIP passes and escorted us into the VIP Lounge that was built right in front of the stadium. It’s official name is the Hospitality area and it had an open inner courtyard surrounded by indoor private lounges reserved to certain corporations such as McDonalds’; the French Post Office, Orange etc…

This inner court yard boasted many food stands, bars for beers, or coke, an ice cream stand, a mini football stand to practice scoring goals with your own cute goalie ;).

There was a makeup artist if you needed any help! I already had my Euro 2016 eye make up on! But I thought it would be fun to get a temporary tattoo on my arm!

There was a stage with a live band and singer as well as a dance floor.

White leather couches were spread out accross the lounge for us to relax in the sun while eating and drinking.

They had even put mini baby-foot arcade games for an easy game to those who wanted to have a little fun.

We had our own private VIP Lounge : the Henri Delaunay Lounge named after the Henri Delauney Trophy Cup which is given to the winner of the Euro championship.

Due to security measures with ever since the awful Paris attacks which I blogged about, we had to go through beefed up security first before entering the stadium. I didn’t mind as it actually made me feel safer.

We had category one seats and were directly in front of the presidential seats! So our view was perfect no need to look at the giant screens.

A little less than an hour before the beginning of the game the closing ceremony was held. A giant sized inflated Henri Delauney Cup was brought in the center of the lawn and used as the focal point for the ceremony.

It was a mixture of a band playing music – actually it turned out to be Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, people making patterns on the lawn, and even the crowd was asked to participate! On our seats we were given posters for the TIFO.

In case you don’t know much about soccer, Tifo is an Italian word for the phenomenon of supporting a team. It mostly refers to hundreds of fans putting on choreographed displays in the stands. Upon a given cue, we all lifted our posters to create a mosaic card design for the TV cameras and the rest of the stadium to enjoy. It was quite fun being in on the show even in such a small way!

The grand finale was David Guetta with Zara Larsson performing the UEFA Euro 2016 Official Song – This one’s for you. I love David Guetta and have seen him perform quite a few times, he always knows how to inflame a crowd and make the most of the excitement in the air. His DJ station was located just in front of the giant inflated trophy.

Then the two national anthems of the finalists were played : the French national anthem : La Marseillaise, and the Portuguese National Anthem. The only thing I regret (maybe is my american side, is that there are no signers to interpret these songs as is always the case with the Superbowl for example).

And the moment we had all been waiting for for weeks had final come : the final game started! Let me tell you it was nerve racking escpecially as time wore on and even though the French team seemed to dominate the Portuguese team, no goals were scored! It stayed a stalemate of 0-0 for the entire regular game time! Awful! Then during the extra time allotted unfortunately the Portuguese team managed to score! I do applaud them because they managed this feat even though their star player Ronaldo had to exit the game at a very early stage due to a knee injury. But we were all so disappointed for France! It was such a close call! Sports can be brutal !

I guess a French win would have been pushing my luck, because come on first I get invited to the final when tickets are around 900€! Crazy it’s the price of a high end luxury bag (well the handbag lovers out there will get me). When I learned France was going to play the final I was ecstatic. Then I got surprised with the over the top VIP experience. And on top of all that to have France win would have been so lucky! I’m just very happy for the experience and proud the French team went so far. Maybe next time they’ll be spurred to win the FIFA World Cup in 2018 just like back in 1998! One can dream anyway.

Anyhoo we had the VIP lounge to fall back on and drink our disappointment away. Champagne always does wonders for morale ! haha!

After a wonderful, and excitement filled evening I was ready to call it quits around 1 am (ahem I did have to go into work the next day).

We were given goodies on the way out: the nicest one being a Euro 2016 Addidas football ! I’m not really going to  play with it but I know someone who’ll love to put it to good use.

I was surprised yet again to have the town car take me home from the stadium.

All in all it was wonderful, thanks to those involved for making it possible!

Did you watch the game? and if so what was your experience like?

xoxo

Danetigress

I’d love to chat with you on :

Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – Google+ – Bloglovin’