The Africa Cup
This was really an amazing experience. I saw a lot of matches, but there are two worth mentioning: the first, and the last.
In Egypt, movie tickets have specified seating, while football games don’t. So we had to line up hours in advance to make sure we could all sit together. (It might have to do with Egyptians being late all the time: it makes sure everyone goes way early to a football match so they can get good seats; but at movies, people will come late anyway, so you need to impose some order on that)
The first had an amazing intro, which even Mubarak attended:
but the match itself, Egypt vs Libya, was such a rout that there weren’t even any photographers at the Egyptian goal. This is what makes soccer so boring: there’s no minimum level of action.
Nevertheless, it was remarkable simply because of the sheer energy from the crowd. I find football mostly a pretty slow game, and this one was just dull, but I found myself cheering and shouting and going crazy.
But overall it was a crappy day because the match actually sucked and I lost my Razr phone, a graduation gift from my uncle (first time I’ve lost something significant in 10 years) so instead let’s talk about the Final.
It was pretty surprising that Egypt made it that far, but after an upset or two (the one good thing about soccer: because it doesn’t require constant performance in the same way as tennis or basketball, upsets are common and much more sudden), we were watching Egypt in the final:
The match itself was one of the most tense and exciting I’ve ever experienced in sports. SO many close calls, and it even came down to a shoot-out at the end. Yet the Cairo crowd response was what made it really memorable, even the subject of numerous international news reports:
This all made very little sense to me. So many people in the streets “celebrating”, but a lot of them actually standing around doing nothing. Hell, I can understand rushing the field, and mob violence, because there’s some action there, but standing around in Cairo just waving a flag weakly for hours?
Makes more sense when you realize that this is one of very few chances that Egyptians take advantage of to really feel proud of their country. They could have a lot more…
In Egypt, movie tickets have specified seating, while football games don’t. So we had to line up hours in advance to make sure we could all sit together. (It might have to do with Egyptians being late all the time: it makes sure everyone goes way early to a football match so they can get good seats; but at movies, people will come late anyway, so you need to impose some order on that)
The first had an amazing intro, which even Mubarak attended:
but the match itself, Egypt vs Libya, was such a rout that there weren’t even any photographers at the Egyptian goal. This is what makes soccer so boring: there’s no minimum level of action.
Nevertheless, it was remarkable simply because of the sheer energy from the crowd. I find football mostly a pretty slow game, and this one was just dull, but I found myself cheering and shouting and going crazy.
But overall it was a crappy day because the match actually sucked and I lost my Razr phone, a graduation gift from my uncle (first time I’ve lost something significant in 10 years) so instead let’s talk about the Final.
It was pretty surprising that Egypt made it that far, but after an upset or two (the one good thing about soccer: because it doesn’t require constant performance in the same way as tennis or basketball, upsets are common and much more sudden), we were watching Egypt in the final:
The match itself was one of the most tense and exciting I’ve ever experienced in sports. SO many close calls, and it even came down to a shoot-out at the end. Yet the Cairo crowd response was what made it really memorable, even the subject of numerous international news reports:
This all made very little sense to me. So many people in the streets “celebrating”, but a lot of them actually standing around doing nothing. Hell, I can understand rushing the field, and mob violence, because there’s some action there, but standing around in Cairo just waving a flag weakly for hours?
Makes more sense when you realize that this is one of very few chances that Egyptians take advantage of to really feel proud of their country. They could have a lot more…
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home