Click any picture to go to the full galleryThe day started early at 06:45 to get downstairs and have breakfast (battling with the world's most useless sandwich toaster) in time to get the first media coach to the stadium at 07:40. I had locked my Peli case to the office chair in my room, but done it rather tightly with the steel cable so I couldn't actually see the combination on the padlock to unlock it. Idiot. After some grappling I forced the chair onto the floor and contorted myself so I could see the damned numbers.With that done it was onto the coach and away to the stadium. Sao Paulo (SP from now on) is no better in the daylight unfortunately. I'm not a fan. Perhaps I haven't seen the best bits? The journey to the stadium was a bit of a guilt-fest as we crawled past people who were sleeping on the streets who woke up to see this flashy FIFA liveried air conditioned coach with lovely comfy seats, a fridge and a toilet, with passengers with their laptops and £000's of photography gear, drive past their under-bridge carboard home. You can see why people here aren't that enamoured with the whole World Cup thing.On arrival at the stadium I decided not to venture into the rather austere environs, and headed straight to the media centre. Being first in, I thought I'd be well placed to get a good slot in the position picking fun to follow. I found that in SP they have clearly got fed up with photographers causing chaos and now have a system whereby on arrival you get a ticket with your queue number on it, and then at 12:30 in today's case you assume your allocated queue position. Very good, and very effective as I was #1 in the first group. The advantages of getting up at stupid-o-clock.Then it was into the queue to get a spot in the loan gear queue. I decided to go for a 1DX again, with a 400 2.8 this time, leaving my own quite old but very sharp 400 in the locker. It's free so why not - the new one is so much lighter and the 1DX continues to impress as a fast, sharp piece of kit. I didn't go for the 200-400 this time as I found myself getting into a bit of a fix about when to change from long to short cameras. With the 400, you change when play gets close enough to beabout to fill the frame. With the 200-400, you can zoom back all the way to 200mm by which time it's too late to change to your 70-200 without missing some of the action. The 200-400 is a dream lens though, really nice.With that sorted out, I went out to get some "colour" i.e. fans jumping up & down. It was quite a fruitful mission, with a good selection of bonkers individuals available and willing to be photographed. I found some England guys and got them to pose with some Uruguay fans, which was very funny as loads more Uruguay fans came in and swamped the poor brits. All in good humour though.I then tried to sneak my near-full bottle of Coke Zero through the security cordon. You aren't allowed to take in any food & drink, even if it is from sponsors Coca Cola. FIFA rules. We all need to go through a metal detector and our gear through an x-ray before being allowed in, and they detect the liquids just like an airport (though I did manage to smuggle a small, horrible, chocolate nut bar in). I'd bought the Coke from the FIFA canteen INSIDE the media centre, but I couldn't take it back in. Loathed to leave it, I slid it through the barriers so I could retrieve it once inside. However, my ruse was spotted on retrieval and I was made to go all the way out and back in through the scanners, to the amusement of the scanner operators who clearly thought I was an idiot.Then, quickly onto the pitch to figure out a spot. With first choice (after the big agencies already grabbed their spots of course), I decided to go in the corner behind the goal on the manager's side on the right as the TV cameras look at it. This is because the supporters of the 1st named team (i.e. the "home" team) tend to be placed on the left, and the away team on the right. I picked the manager's side as everyone seems to be heading that way for celebrations so far this world cup. In the event I had seat 245 which gives you an indication of how many seats there are (250 plus the tribune up in the stands).2 hours before the game we are allowed into the pitchside area. This seems like a long time but it goes in a flash. I was going to try using my ASUS tablet as my primary transmission device, but after fannying about for over an hour it just wasn't being consistent enough. When it worked it was great, and I could carry it in my pocket with the card reader sticking out and send pics wirelessly around the stadium. Anyhow, I relegated it to backup and set up my laptop.I've got to say that using a mini wifi router is proving to be an excellent option as it keeps my laptop wire free, and give me wired-LAN speeds from my own connection that doesn't slow down like the stadium wifi does at peak times.With that sorted out, the teams came out and I remembered to shoot the team group this time :-). Then it was game on. I adjusted my lucky baseball hat. I was wearing it because if it rains the peak stops rain drops from going on my glasses, and also stops glare from the floodlights. Sometimes I wear it backwards because when you hold the camera in portraint mode the peak gets in the way.It was getting cold. I had a t-shirt, shirt, Domke vest and my Goretex jacket on. Rain threatened but never arrived thankfully. The atmosphere was amazing - a lot of English supporters, but most of the crowd was rooting for Uruguay as you can expect. The noise was fantastic, and the start was electric as both teams went for it. Uruguay attacked my end in the first half.Suarez scored as you know. I had 3 nice sharp frames of the header on the 70-200, and tracked the dream destroyer as he ran straight at me. Good lad - he must have seen my lucky baseball hat. A big celebration ensued which I shot a bunch of frames of, then marked them on my memory card, took the card out of the camera and slotted it into the card reader. My laptop ingested them and sent them in double quick time, and THE EDITOR back at Focus HQ had them cropped and sent off to the papers in no time. Superb!!! A cele right down the barrel is a wonderous thing believe me.Halftime - a chance to rest a bit and drink more free Powerade. I was a bit wired by this point. I had a quick Skype with THE EDITOR who was well on top of everything in London. I even had time to update Facebook and email Mrs T. Then onto the second half, at which point something odd happened and my ingest program stopped ingesting. I had to tell it to forget which drives to monitor, then reinstate those drives, and it started working again. Phew! My laptop was in front of me today as I was far enough towards the corner to not be behind the advertising boards so I could see what was going on.If only England would score and the cele to come straight at me as well. Thanks to my now very lucky hat, Rooney did just that. I got the goal strike and the cele as well, marked the decent shots on the back of the camera (well, I just marked the whole sequence as I had an EDITOR to do the hard stuff) and got them sent off double quick. I've got to say that after the initial teething trouble in Manaus, today remote editing worked like a dream.Onwards - I kept trying to get shots of player reactions. The happy/sad thing, while also getting the action. Tricky as you can't miss anything. The Suarez scored at the other end. I missed his goal strike by a tenth of a second, but got the ball going in the net and the cele at the other end, but to be honest there will be a lot better pics from that end than my long shot from the "wrong" end. Rather than follow Suarez I focused on the reaction of the England players which was pretty gloomy.As full time approached it looked like England were going to lose. At this point I started thinking of desolation images, but still had to watch for action at my end (of which there was a lot). The final whistle went. The heads went down. I searched for key images, focusing on Gerard as the skipper and Rooney as a key figure. Snap snap snap. Once they had gone back indoors, I moved my attention to the fans, looking for dejected England supporters which was a bit tricky as a lot had gone and the main group was off at the other side from me. However, I got what I could, and got those uploaded for perusal by THE EDITOR.Finally, after another bottle of Powerade (does it do anything bad to you? It's BLUE!) I packed my gear and went into the media centre, returned my loan gear and Skyped with THE EDITOR, whereupon we agreed it had been a top night and we not only had some excellent shots, but we moved them out to the papers extremely fast. We must be able to give the big agencies a run for their money when we're working like this. Bang bang bang goes the shutter, and moments later the pics are in London, and moments after that they are on the picture desks. Marvellous. All that remained was me to repack and jump on the comfy expensive bus for a trip through the dark, quiet streets back to the hotel, and on the way edit any pics that I hadn't sent so I could send them from the hotel - mainly headshots and stock player pics (i.e. man and ball).In total, 1500 frames shot on 3 cameras. 224 sent to the papers. I'm writing this with a cold beer after having a curious buffet dinner of fish, chicken and beef, with some unidentifiable vegetables and something that could be a risotto. It's a buffet and you know what I'm like with buffets.Today has been momentous. The biggest game for England by far, and arguably the biggest game for Focus Images. The most pressure. The best results. The fastest editing and distribution. I feel like a hurdle has been hurdled and a bit milestone achieved. Shame the result was bad for England, but at least I won't have to spend any money on a ticket to Recife!