Had a badly needed gorgeous day for soccer. Birmingham Legion is a USL team (tier 2, just under MLS) that plays in a gorgeous 5,000 seat stadium, lot of amenities, etc. Yesterday was a "friendly" (preseason game) with the MLS team, Atlanta United, a perennial power. Birmingham Legion signed an 18-year old ex-teammate of my son this week, from Houston (family in Dallas, but I think he was playing for Houston academy), so that was an unexpected treat. My son came in from college to go to the game (he's not that far away, less than 4 hours, but it's an unexpected pleasure to have him visit.) The whole thing gave me a chance to try out a "new" old camera, the Canon EOS 40d, with a 28-135mm 3.5-5.6 lens. If I had been by myself, I would've taken more photos, but I was enjoying spending time with my son, so I only occasionally picked up the camera to take some shots. Here are some of them (reduced in size for uploading here).
This is across the stadium from us, the crazy fan group of Atlanta United with their three stripes flag to the left of the Birmingham Legion flag. Pregame photo--stadium filled in nicely, in fact, set an all-time record for the new stadium of 6,722 (a lot of standing room only tickets, with the MLS Atlanta United team having a lot of Birmingham area supporters.)
IMG_1644.jpg
Here's Jaden in pre-game warmups.
IMG_1659.jpg
Jaden had entered the game just a moment before this...the 18-year old kid, directing traffic lol.
IMG_1668.jpg
In action, trying to get a cheap goal off a goal kick (he's # 17). For reference, our seats were good seats, close to the field (2nd row in the stands, which are probably, I dunno, 50 feet from the field?). But we were on the equivalent of like the 10-yard line on our offensive end in the first half. So this shot was a good 150 yards or more away from us. When my son plays soccer in games I can see, I can always get a lot closer than this to take photos.
IMG_1670.jpg
Jaden on the move, playing defense marking Atlanta forward Jake Mulvaney, from Dublan, Ireland.
IMG_1671.jpg
Bookmarks