On Thursday, 21st October 2011. the day after Viktoria Plzen played a Champions League match in Nou Camp against FC Barcelona,  I returned to London. I lived an incredible football dream which must have been envied by not only Plzen supporters, but perhaps by any football fan around the Globe. I was asked by UEFA to be a part of the UEFA Magazine crew filming a special video about Viktoria Plzen trip to a great city of  Barcelona, where the Czech team would face mighty FCB team.

I flew to Prague on Monday before the match. A taxi waited for me at the airport and took me to Plzen,  where I stayed with the team and the UEFA crew in the hotel Courtyard.  Producer Steve was waiting for me in the reception. I briefly unpacked in my room and then we headed across the road from the hotel to have a nice dinner and a few pints of the local PRAZDROJ beer. As we chatted about football and other matters, we also drew a plan of our forthcoming filming and started to formulate questions for our interviews. I suggested that we should use the immortal pronouncement  by the famous Czech character Švejk. He shouted: NA BUDEJOVICE (Budejovice, here I come). in one of his train journeys depicted in the novel Good Soldier Švejk I adapted it to our interviews to NA BARCELONU!

Next morning, after the breakfast, we walked to the stadium located very near our hotel. All players and the backroom staff were preparing there for the departure to the Prague airport. While the players and coaching team were boarding the bus we started filming any interesting bits and conducted a few interviews. Then we ordered a taxi and travelled alongside the bus to the Prague airport. We went behind the bus, side by side, in front of it, and even stopped on the motorway so that we could make good shots.

At the Prague airport we checked-in together with the team and then made a few interviews before players boarded the chartered plane.  The team sat in the front section, sponsors, family, friends and us, sat in the rear section. We didn’t do any interviews, cameraman Gary filmed a few interesting scenes and sceneries, I took a few pictures with my own camera.

After 2 hours flight we landed in Barcelona. We didn’t have to go through customs. A special bus with the police convoy was waiting for us and escorted our bus to our hotel Rey Juan Carlos, located very near the Nou Camp stadium. Player David Limbersky in one of his interviews said that he had never stayed in such a beautiful hotel before.

After settling down we gathered in the hotel lobby to draw the next filming plan. We had to involve Plzen press officer Pavel Pillar because everything we intended to film had to be officially agreed. For one of our filming scenes we wrote a script for player Venca Pilař. He was to invite us to his room, show us around, introduse us to his player-friend Jakub Hora, etc. We had to make a few re-takes.

On our evening agenda was going to Nou Camp for Viktoria Plzen training and for more interviews. I interviewed captain Pavel Horváth on the pitch, then Venca Pilař and David Limbersky in  a FLASH ZONE.

After the training our colleague, producer Steve, invited me and Gary for a meal. He knew the right place to take us to as he used to live in Barcelona in the past. After an excellent meal in a tapas bar TXAPELA (Euskal Taberna) we headed to a cosy pub off Rambles (main Barcelona street).  There we met some Czech football suporters. We didn’t do any filming, we just socialised with them.

In the morning, on the match day, we staged a few more  interviews including coach Pavel Vrba, and then we travelled to the training ground to do more film shots. Once there, we were filming and also being filmed by the Czech television. Steve and I offfered interviews which were televised on the Czech TV in the program called PLZEN IN BARCELONA. We interviewed our trinity stars Pavel Horvath, David Limbersky and Venca Pilar.

After the training I had a few hours for myself. I went to the Nou Camp stadium to do some souvenir shopping and from there I contacted a friend from Prague who came specially for the match. He said that he was waiting for me at Katalunya Square. I hailed a taxi and went to meet him there. After a nice lunch and a few drinks I said good-bye and headed to my hotel for the final rest before the match.

A few hours before the match Steve, Gary and I went to the stadium to do more filming, this time the theme was Vox Pops (talking to football fans). When we finished we went back to the hotel to film Plzen team departure to the stadium. When that was done, we finally headed for the BIG match. Stadium was already buzzing with crowds of both teams. We popped in to the UEFA office to collect  necessary equipments for our jobs. Also, we got a goodie bag with meals, drinks, etc. Boys stayed at the pitch and I headed upstairs to my UEFA Magazine desk.

I watched the match from my desk and a few minutes before the end of the match I descended to the Flash Zone for the very final post-match interviews. As ususual, the people I interviewed were Pave, David, Venca and coach Vrba, Steve interviewed (in Spanish) FCB player Pedro.

Sometime later we joined the team and all officials in the hotel bar to analyse the match and to socialise. Unfortunatelly, Steve and I couldn’t stay till the end of the social gathering as we had to get up very early to fly back to London Heathrow, from where we were despatched by taxi to the London studio to process our material. It had to be finished the same day to be ready for the Saturday’s program Champions League Weekly (ITV 4). This program was shown around the whole Europe including the Czech Republic.