Today I decided to get the Rio metro to the Maracana rather than a taxi to a FIFA media hotel then the media bus. The first media bus arrives at the stadium too late for my liking as I wanted to be there before the media centre opens at 08:30 to get a decent spot in the queue to get in to get a good position in the queue to get a spot for the queue for the allocation of pitchside positions.First the metro though. I got to Botafogo metro station which was very clean and nice, and found a touchscreen machine with a big Union Jack flag button on it, which I pressed. All the metros work with prepaid cards, one of which I didn't have, but after feeding R$10 (£2.50 ish) into the machine it spat out a card for me loaded with R$10.Then that was me straight onto a very nice clean train.Of course, it was the wrong train. 2 different lines go from the same platform in Botafogo and halfway along the lines split, a bit like the Northern Line in London. My train was not going to the Maracana. I only knew this after having a chat using the now typical waving hands method with a couple of very nice older ladies next to me. They were very helpful, and helped me get off at the correct stop and then wait for the next train which was going the right way. A few trouble-free minutes later and I was in the massively corporate branded Macana station.So that was pretty trouble free. I've no idea how much the journey cost, other than it must have been less than R$10. It was all clean and efficient, with multilingual announcements, and I hadn't been shot or stabbed.Arriving at the media centre after queueing in for a bit to get through the gates I sat down with some others of the "brit pack" and heard a tale of a couple of photographers who had been well and truly scammed when their car had a flat tyre just as it left the stadium and while they were trying to get it fixed all their gear was nicked. Pretty horrendous and they didn't find out until they got to their lodgings and opened the boot to find it empty. Obviously a setup job by the sound of it with someone waiting outside to do the nicking when the car was stationary.It just shows that you do need your wits about you here.Onto the game. Click any of the match pics to see the whole gallery by the way.I ended up with position number 188 which is on the far touchline on the right hand side, so Germany attack in the 2nd half. I knew it was going to be in the sun, so slathered factor 30 on top of my plethora of mosquito bites, got my hat on and got set up. There was a bit more space than along the goal lines, but not much.I had borrowed a 1DX and 200-400 again after queueing in the Canon loans queue. I do like this lens, but today it showed a distinct lack of contrast although the lighting was extremely challenging. Shooting into very bright sunlight with a strange sort of haze across the pitch was always going to be a bit tricky.As you can see from the shot above, even after a bunch of contrast and clarity was added its still somewhat washed out. At least my exposures were constant though as I was shooting into shade.Using the 200-400, with the play moving over halfway toward the far end I flicked the lever to put the 1.4x extender into place so I could get decently far into the other goalmouth - at 560mm. It takes the max aperture down to 5.6, so the lever action was accompanied by slowing down the shutter speed by 3 clicks (one stop) from 1/2000th to 1/1000th. When the play came back my way I reversed the process. It was quite nice using it from the side rather than the goal line and I think I took 99% of my shots with it during the match.It was baking hot in the sun. I had my sleeves rolled down to keep the sun off my arms, and my hat pulled down low to shield some of my face. The guys that kept bringing cold water around were brilliant. The guy next to me was having a bit of a tough time and with 10 minutes left in the game he was saying how he really hoped the game would finish and not go to extra time. I have to say I was thinking the same.The game itself was a bit rubbish really. A quite tight and awkward affair, with the one goal (at the wrong end again) winning it for Germany. I spent a bit of time getting headshots of the German players as I reckoned that they would win it. Thomas Muller was my favourite today.When the final whistle signalled an end to the whole affair, and the prospect of cooling down a bit in the media room, I did what I could to get some happy/sad pics of the Germans and French respectively. The French never really looked in it from where I was sitting, and I thought the Germans should have had a couple more goals at least.Still, it's bye bye France and Germany are the first team into the semis. Overall not the best of days with regard to my output, but not the worst either.