The tournament was not talked about very much in Cairo until the very end. Many AUC students took the opportunity to attend the final between Brazil and Ghana (and also the consolation game held immediately before the game between Costa Rica and Hungary. Hungary won that game in penalty kick's. Overtime was not played before PK's however because the final game between Brazil and Ghana needed to start on schedule. We did not go to the Costa Rica v. Hungary game, but it was apparently a very good game).
We began our adventure into sports in Cairo with a cab ride to Cairo International Stadium. It was about twenty minutes away from our dorms, about half way between the dorms and school. Cairo International Stadium is very nice. I didn't realize it at the time, but when they announced the attendance at the game of over 67,000 people, I realized that it is about the size of (or maybe a little smaller than) Notre Dame's Stadium, which holds about 80,000.
Entering the Stadium was a much different experience than in the US for several reasons. First of all, you need to choose before you enter what side you want to sit on, Brazil or Ghana. We chose Ghana. I'm not sure if this is an Egyptian thing or a soccer thing (because we all know soccer games can get ugly as far as crazy fans are concerned). After passing through some metal detectors we were approached by some Egyptian men seemingly doing some sort of car promotion out of a booth by the stadium entrance. We weren't quite sure what they were doing, but a part of their gimmick was a game where if you kicked a soccer ball though the window of a cardboard car cutout, you won a free hat. (I tried and my kick was a good height, but a little to the left). One of the boys we were with was successful in doing this. You would have thought he had just cured cancer or solved the problem of world hunger. The Egyptians freaked out. They started yelling and passed out hats to all of us, made us put them on, gathered us in a group, and took at least 5 pictures of us (both by ourselves and with them) on all of our cameras and a camera of their own. They took even more pictures when we told them we were rooting for Ghana. That seemed to be the general sentiment in Egypt. African unity, I assume. They made us hold our fists in the air for these pro-Ghana pictures. It was all very exciting!
Finally we entered the Stadium. Seat assignment was not really an issue, at least we don't think, but we probably were supposed to sit in the correct level. However, we didn't understand out tickets, so we sat in the lower level, where tickets should have been more expensive. No one reprimanded us for this. Come to think of it, no one checked our tickets at all. This could have been because the Stadium was not full. The fact that we were American probably had a lot to do with it also. That's something we're still getting used to. You would think it would be flattering, and it is and it also has it's benefits clearly, but it also makes you feel awkward sometimes. It's interesting.
At first we choose to sit in one section of seats. Behind a sort of fence close to these seats, a few thousand men in various neon colored jump suits and identical shoes were seated. This was quite a sight. They stared at us as we came in, and we were clearly staring at them. Not thinking, I took a picture of them, just because all the neon suits together looked cool. This really sent them over the edge and they started calling to us and making kissing faces and noises. After this, we jumped to the conclusion that they were probably prisoners, and we became a little uneasy about our predicament. We ended up moving seats, not far, just over a little so that we were a bit removed from them. Our safety was obviously never in jeopardy. Again, we are American and we were a group of girls and boys. And, here's the really kind of funny part, it turns out that they were the military, not prisoners. It was not smart for us to think that they would be prisoners. First of all, Egypt does not have enough laws to have that many people in prison. (I'm joking...kind of). Secondly, and seriously, I don't know why we thought all these prisoners would be brought to a soccer game and left to sit there, in about an entire quarter of the stadium, unpoliced. Either way, it was relieving to find out that they were military and not prisoners, though it didn't make it any more comfortable that they stared at us the entire game. I think they were confused by a group of American guys and girls sitting in the middle of the Ghana section.
The Ghana section was the right choice as far as the crowd goes. The Brazil section across the way waved a lot of flags, but the Ghana section had some incredible cheers and further down in our section they even had a band of sorts with several drums and instruments. It was a fun to just watch the crowd sometimes.
As for the game itself, it turned out to be amazing. The game itself was a little boring. Everyone was expecting Brazil to win, and it was clear that they were in dominant team within the first ten minutes. Everyone definitely thought it was over for Ghana when, after about the first twenty or so minutes, one of their players was given a red card, meaning he was ejected and Ghana would have to finish the game playing one man down. The player slide tacked from behind. From where we sat, behind the play, I didn't think it warranted any kind of penalty, well, maybe a whistle and free kick/inbounds? (I'm actually not sure of the proper procedure and/or terminology in soccer. In field hockey, a similar infraction would have warranted a free hit at the spot where the infraction on the field occurred). Some of the boys we were with said they saw it as a yellow card-able offense, but everyone agreed the red card was going to far. Though there was not much argument from the Ghana coach. I guess this is because there's a general idea in FIFA that it's wise not to let these games get out of hand. And with such young kids playing, I can see the logic in that.
In any event, this forced Ghana to play a defense only, or definitely a defense first kind of game. They obviously didn't have many scoring opportunities, but they did have a few surprising drives. And Brazil surprisingly didn't have as many drives as might have been expected. The high point of the game was when the Brazil coach, mad about something (I'm not sure if it was officiating or his players or a combination of the two) angrily kicked a cup of water in the direction of the Ghana bench. The Ghana coach took some offense, and the ref keeping time (I know he has a special name, but I don't know what it is) had to come over and make the Brazil coach apologize to the Ghana coach, which he did. I really don't think he meant anything by it. It was pretty funny though. Also, it was interesting that the Egyptian announcers though it was completely appropriate to announce the attendance record (which was confusing in itself because it was a record for the whole tournament, not just that night's game) with about two minutes left in regulation. It was clearly not the time to do something like that, but it was a great reminder that, yes, even though we were having the luxury of being at an internationally run event (where things started on time and had a basic general idea and order to them), we were still in Egypt. We were saying to each other that the FIFA administration is probably giving themselves a HUGE and well deserved pat on the back for having pulled this tournament off in Egypt!
The game went into double overtime. I felt bad for all the players. They were exhausted after 90 minutes. Double overtime was a lot like the game, except slower. All the players were dead. By the end of the overtime period, all their skills and finesse had gone out the window and they were basically just lobbing the ball at each other. So after the overtimes, it went into PK. Each team would take 5 or less than five if that could determine a clear winner. Brazil would go first. After 10 penalty kicks, the score was tied 3-3. There was one point where it seemed like Ghana was done for, but miraculously, Brazil missed and then Ghana made its next kick. So the game went into sudden death PKs. (I think this was what happened. After the attendance record announcement faux pax, the Egyptian announcers either didn't know what was going on (my guess) or decided what was going on was not an important thing to let the crowd know (honestly, they told us about the attendance record, what more could we want?)). Brazil missed and Ghana made their kick! GHANA WON! The Ghana team, tired as they were, went running all over the field and track! It was great to see an underdog victory like that, and it's a great thing for their country. The team and the fans seemed so happy. And it was a great experience watching one of them running with the flag. I've been to one other national sporting event in my life (US v. England Women's Field Hockey) but I have never been to such a high stakes game. It was overwhelming to think that these kids were representing their country. It was a great thing to witness. There was A LOT of high pitched whistling from the fans, which is a very popular form of cheering/crowd noise. The awards ceremony, including Hungary, Brazil and Ghana followed the game, as did fireworks, which were very cool and something we had hoped for earlier in the game but didn't think would be an actual possibility. So that was exciting.
It was great also to be at a sporting event. I miss sports a lot. I was especially missing them on the weekend of the game because that was the weekend that ND played USC at home. I have been waiting for that game since 2005 when I first saw ND play USC. I remember sitting with my family at the end of the game and looking across to the student section and thinking, "in 4 years I want to be sitting over there watching ND finally getting revenge for what just happened." (I'll be honest, I had written off 2007 even then). Not being able to go to the USC game this year was one of my biggest disappointments related to studying abroad. I was especially disappointed because my Mom and Dad were visiting for the game, and I love it when our family is together at ND. I called them while they were tailgating and some of my friends stopped by the tailgate too, which was really nice of them. My parent loved that. It seemed like the atmosphere was great on campus.
We were fortunate enough to watch the game. NBC, for the first time ever, was live-streaming it, and we found a cafe with great internet access. So the five of us and a former ND student who had studied in Cairo in 2005 and who we randomly met because he was back in Zamalek for a few days before finishing up a six month, multi-country research trip in Nigeria and happened to comment on one of our ND t-shirts, watched the game together. (It was great meeting this guy. It was a great affirmation of the ND network that I am so grateful I'll be a part of for the rest of my life). Around the beginning of the fourth quarter, it was starting to get late, we went down by three touchdowns, and our computers ran out of battery, so we headed back to the dorms thinking we had put up a valiant effort but were clearly no match for Southern Cal (they hate it when we call them that). After going up to my room and changing for bed, I got a text message from one of the guys that asked if I had plugged my computer in and was I watching? I said no, why? He called me and said there were four seconds left and we were on the four yard line down by sever points! WHAT? I ran into the hallway and told him to stay on the phone and give me the play by play because Zamalek's boy/girl rules may be even stricter than ND's and I couldn't go watch the end with the rest of the guys. He said, "Ok here's the snap..." then nothing for while, so I said, "What, what?" I was answered by an expletive from several people on the other end of the line. I said, "No, we lost?" They said, "No the internet froze and then disconnected right as the ball was about to be snapped." THANKS EGYPT. So the game ended, or it went into overtime, or we won (we would have never won, no one, not even Charlie Weis, in his right mind would have gone for 2), and we had no idea what happened. So, we did the logical thing and rushed into the dorm computer lab like lunatics in varying degrees of nighttime undress. We effectively terrified the Egyptians in there (who don't sleep, ever it seems) with this move before logging on to ESPN.com to find out that we did in fact lose. On the play we were trying to watch and then another play with one second left on the clock. Oh well. It was a hard fought battle and it was lot of fun to be able to watch (kind of). It's frustrating that we came so close and still lost, but I'll take it. There's always next year and more and more I'm considering Thanksgiving 2010 on the beach in Southern California, if everyone knows what I mean?!
So as the length of this blog shows, I am clearly sports starved! This is compacted by the fact that I am missing the baseball playoffs. As I write this the Phillies are in the World Series and awaiting the winner of the Yankees and Angels, which will hopefully be decided in favor of the Yankees as soon as possible (should have been last night, NY). If possible, and if the Yanks make it (don't want to jinx them by assuming they'll be in), I hope to stay up some night or get up really early one morning to try to catch a game, or at least some of it. There's a good possibility we can find Fox somewhere around here. If not, I guess I'll have to settle for the Egypt v. Algeria World Cup qualifier in mid-November, which we are planning to attend. It's not exactly Fighting Irish football or the fall classic, but it'll be undoubtedly exciting and something I will certainly be able to live with!
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