Morocco Time

Tonight, H and I went to the Wexner Center for the Arts, where Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait was playing.

In April, 2005, video artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno went a step further, training 17 cameras on Zidane for the length of a single La Liga game. The cameras were scattered all over the stadium, and recorded images ranging from intimate close-ups to beautiful long shots that take in the whole pitch; from unfocused collections of colors to more traditional, television-style action shots. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is the 90-minute compilation of those images and, for lovers of the game, it’s awe-inspiring. More an art film that a sports documentary, Zidane is something that must be experienced on the big screen.

Morocco 1

USA 0

And it wasn’t even the first string Moroccan team! Sigh. I think the US is going to get crushed by Italy and the Czechs.

Let us all take a moment to laaaaaugh.

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Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:35 PM BST

FIFA aims to spend $100 million (54.8 million pounds) on 250 soccer development projects in the next four years to stop poorer footballing countries falling further behind a rich elite, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said on Sunday.

FIFA’s “Goal” programme, launched by Blatter in 1999, has already helped 181 national soccer associations to push through projects for technical centres, schools, pitches and administration buildings.

“The projects have breathed life into these associations and improved football,” Blatter said in Rabat, where he was inaugurating a Moroccan youth training centre for which FIFA has contributed $850,000.

Hosni Benslimane, president of the Moroccan Football Federation, said the project would help to revive Moroccan soccer, which is suffering from a lack of funds and an uninterested public.

Fewer than 1,000 people turn out to watch the average Moroccan first division match and all but the top three teams are made up largely of amateurs.

The North African kingdom has failed five times to win the right to host the World Cup and was denied a place in Germany 2006 by arch-rivals Tunisia.

To reverse its fortunes before the South Africa World Cup in 2010, Morocco has launched a drive to train players, referees and coaches, modernise club buildings and lay out new pitches.

“This project to bring football up to scratch should result in a real professionalism in Morocco,” Benslimane said.

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I’m not even going to address the concept of professionalism in Morocco. Obviously, their idea of it is not the same as Western ideals, and that’s all I have to say.

However, some of the other statements in this article are ludicrous. (more…)

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.

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