Morocco Time

I discovered that the U.S. soccer team will be playing a “friendly” match against Morocco on May 23, in preparation for their World Cup visit. Not Morocco’s Cup visit, that is, since they got beaten in Group 5 by Tunisia. Sigh. Anyway, they’ll be playing in Nashville, Tennessee, and I mentioned this to my husband, not expecting him to collapse in hysterical laughter. After I got him to finally stop honking “America, football, ha ha ha,” he reminded me of the one soccer game I had taken him to in the States. Ah, yes.

The “Columbus Crew” are the MLS (Major League Soccer) team from the beautiful capital city of Ohio. I decided that it would be fun (major error) to take Hamou to see a game, since he’s never watched a professional soccer team live before, even in Morocco. Bear in mind that my husband, like about 80% of Moroccan males, was a former high school soccer star. He was not only a star, he was a striker, which makes him basically insufferable. (I, on the other hand, was a goalie, which meant that I could not play well with others.)

We arrived at the stadium, it was a beautiful day, and everything looked promising. Hamou was very impressed with everything…the radio stations covering the event and doing promotions, the food stands, and the huge and super-clean stadium. When he reached the top of the stairs and looked down on the field, I practically had to catch him, because he took a step back and nearly fell back down the other stairs. With eyes like saucers, he said, “It’s perfect! So green!” We took our seats, watched the pre-game warmup, and then Mr. Competitive blurted out, “Let’s bet. I think DC United is going to win, they look better than Columbus.” I just rolled my eyes.

They started to play, and I thought, “This is weird, they seem really slow, like molasses slow. Especially after watching the Africa Cup on TV. I’m going to keep quiet and hope Hamou doesn’t think the same thing.”

A few minutes pass. Hamou turns to me and says, “Are they still getting ready?” Oh God.

Well, the rest of the game was OK, except that the Crew managed to score a goal against themselves. Yes, you heard me correctly. The final score was 1-0, DC United. Hamou is not a good winner, and I’m a very sore loser, so we argued all the way home.

After we got over that, we had an interesting discussion. Hamou said, “Why aren’t American football players better than they are now? They have everything! Uniforms, perfect fields, balls that have air, money for playing…” We decided that the scrappy conditions that Moroccans (and many football players from poorer countries) are forced to play in makes them better athletes. Imagine playing with a half-inflated soccer ball, with no shoes, on a field that slants at a 20% angle AND is bumpy and full of rocks. Once you finally get to decent playing conditions, it’s a piece of cake! Probably the same concept as baseball players using weighted bats, or runners training at high altitudes.

So, back to the upcoming Nashville game. I tried to explain that it’s the Mens’ National Team, not the Columbus Crew, but he was still laughing. It would have done no good to tell him that the U.S. is ranked 5th in the world, and I didn’t want to mention that Germany just stomped us on March 22, 4-1. When I could get a word in edgewise, I just said, “We’ll have to see. Maybe it will be on TV, and we could watch it.”

Actually, I hope to God it’s not on TV, because that could be the end of our marriage. (just kidding!)

April 4th, 2006 | Category: Sports, Personal, Morocco | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL