Englistan vs the Big Hearts
Last night, a miraculous event occurred in the rural outposts of Afghanistan – I watched my first ever soccer game (and sadly, Australia weren’t even playing. I missed their match against Japan, but am determined to watch the one against Brazil, although I think that may put me off soccer again for the rest of my life!) No – on Thursday night (which is our ‘Friday night’ here – our weekend is Friday, Saturday, although actually, it is just Friday – we work six days here…) I was out in the zones with a couple of the staff who live here and the Zone Manager was determined to watch the England match. And I soon became interested as I heard a little about the Trinidad and Tobago team and BBC showed us some of their supporters (I wanna party with those guys – they were wicked and had these awesome drums they were playing!) Do you know Trinidad and Tobago invented the steel pan? And they still use it as a musical instrument! Kewl hey? All their fans were so excited to just be there, and one of the guys who had traveled to Germany was saying, “We are a small country, but we have a big heart. Smallest country, Biggest heart.” Well, right then and there I started barracking for them!
Getting the World Cup here has been no mean feat. I was out in another zone when it began, with a Brazilian girl who spent two days frantically fighting with the television to try to get coverage. That effort failed and she was limited to news updates until we came to this zone, which is a little bigger. There was still not coverage, but we managed to somehow shift the satellite dish over to get local stations as well (I say ‘we’, like I had anything to do with this, beyond watching from the sidelines and being irritated when it interrupted my French Open final viewing!) So now we watch the World Cup on RTA Kabul, a local Afghan station – complete with coverage in Dari. And I started cracking up a few minutes into the game last night, when I realised from the commentating that the Dari name for England was Englistan!!! I loved it every time they said that – made me giggle. I wondered what the Queen would think if she knew her country was actually a ‘stan’! I don’t think the commentators knew any of the players except David Beckham (who still managed to have half a can of gel in his hair, even though he was playing in the World Cup – glad to know he doesn’t let his standards slip), Dwight Yorke and somebody Crouch, which they pronounced with a guttural sound that came out like “Ghhhhrrrrouchhhh”. We spent the whole game thinking Crouch was useless and should actually be playing basketball as he was so tall, until he came through for Englistan near the very end. As you probably know, the mighty Trinidadians did not prevail in this particular encounter, much to my disappointment. Hopefully they have kept their big hearts though.
I am not sure that I am about to dump Aussie Rules in favour of soccer. A game where you go nine-tenths without a goal seems a wee bit pointless to me (and am now waiting for the protests of ‘but the skill involved’ yada yada). I actually went and ran on the treadmill through half time and half of the second half (managed to be back for both of Englistan’s goals) so I don’t think I could fall into the category of hooked yet. Plus – I just didn’t understand half of what was happening…”wait – what does that flag mean?...what is offside?...well – that’s just silly – why can’t it be a goal – it went into the net?...” You get the picture… Went only slight better than my first (and only!) American gridiron game, where I went with a bunch of the foreign students and we were relying upon the Indian who had been to one game the previous week to tell us what was going on! Geraldine (my French roommate) just gave up and started watching the ‘pom pom girls’! We left at half time, bored to tears. So I guess soccer has made a better start with me – I stayed fairly interested. Maybe because you can actually see the players – they aren’t hidden under helmets…
Anyway – roll on the Socceroos – I may need another team to barrack for, given how Essendon’s season is going this year :-(
Getting the World Cup here has been no mean feat. I was out in another zone when it began, with a Brazilian girl who spent two days frantically fighting with the television to try to get coverage. That effort failed and she was limited to news updates until we came to this zone, which is a little bigger. There was still not coverage, but we managed to somehow shift the satellite dish over to get local stations as well (I say ‘we’, like I had anything to do with this, beyond watching from the sidelines and being irritated when it interrupted my French Open final viewing!) So now we watch the World Cup on RTA Kabul, a local Afghan station – complete with coverage in Dari. And I started cracking up a few minutes into the game last night, when I realised from the commentating that the Dari name for England was Englistan!!! I loved it every time they said that – made me giggle. I wondered what the Queen would think if she knew her country was actually a ‘stan’! I don’t think the commentators knew any of the players except David Beckham (who still managed to have half a can of gel in his hair, even though he was playing in the World Cup – glad to know he doesn’t let his standards slip), Dwight Yorke and somebody Crouch, which they pronounced with a guttural sound that came out like “Ghhhhrrrrouchhhh”. We spent the whole game thinking Crouch was useless and should actually be playing basketball as he was so tall, until he came through for Englistan near the very end. As you probably know, the mighty Trinidadians did not prevail in this particular encounter, much to my disappointment. Hopefully they have kept their big hearts though.
I am not sure that I am about to dump Aussie Rules in favour of soccer. A game where you go nine-tenths without a goal seems a wee bit pointless to me (and am now waiting for the protests of ‘but the skill involved’ yada yada). I actually went and ran on the treadmill through half time and half of the second half (managed to be back for both of Englistan’s goals) so I don’t think I could fall into the category of hooked yet. Plus – I just didn’t understand half of what was happening…”wait – what does that flag mean?...what is offside?...well – that’s just silly – why can’t it be a goal – it went into the net?...” You get the picture… Went only slight better than my first (and only!) American gridiron game, where I went with a bunch of the foreign students and we were relying upon the Indian who had been to one game the previous week to tell us what was going on! Geraldine (my French roommate) just gave up and started watching the ‘pom pom girls’! We left at half time, bored to tears. So I guess soccer has made a better start with me – I stayed fairly interested. Maybe because you can actually see the players – they aren’t hidden under helmets…
Anyway – roll on the Socceroos – I may need another team to barrack for, given how Essendon’s season is going this year :-(
posted by Kate | 3:59 pm
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