World Cup

I plan my life around four year cycle, such that at the end of each cycle, I am here at home to watch the world cup. This time our home was at the center of it, the place where football fans, family or friends, come to watch the game, this time we had an even bigger audience, for two reasons, the first is that the family had grown bigger, and a lot of the kids who were too young for the previous world cup, are now five or six years old and are enthusiastic football fans, the other reason being the subscription fee for the world cup games. We were quite prepared, we placed the big screen TV in our newly renovated garden, which is a pleasure to sit in during the evening, although it is hard to appreciates its beauty and tranquility , when their are forty or fifty people sitting their watching a football game. We placed a lot of sofas and chairs on the lawn, but even so that was not enough for some games, that drew a big audience, usually the games involving Brazil or Italy, so mattresses where laid on the lawn, where more people could sit or lie to watch the game.

The world cup is big event here, specially in the Arabic sector, my towns have been decorated with flags of the teams involved in the world cup, here we generally have an apathy towards flags, some people have the Israeli flags hanging on their house , but they are not much, and sometimes you can spot a Palestinian flags in public events, but most people don't sympathize with either, the Israeli flag because of the lack of the sense belonging to this state, the Palestinian flag, because they are realistic about their chances of ever belonging to a Palestinian state. The world cup gives the people the opportunity to associated them selves with a flag, with out any of the political baggage, well maybe not, many people support certain teams because they are hated by the Jewish population, e.g. Germany and France, but anyway people feel quite inclined to hang those flags on the roofs of their houses, or the top of their cars, the most popular flags seem to be those of Brazil and Italy, followed by Germany and Argentina, but I seen also flags of France, Spain, Portugal, England and Saudi Arabia, and someone just decided to hang the flags of all the teams involved on the roof of his house, well at least the flags he could get his hands on.



As for me I am not a zealous fan of any particular team, I do have some affection for England because of Man United and Rooney, but then Rooney played only part of the games due to injury, and even when he played he was far from his best, I had certain sympathy with certain teams from small nations, like Ecuador and Tunisia, Ecuador being a country I visited and have good memories from, and Tunisia for being an Arabic country that I kind somewhat sympathize with, unlike the oil rich , religiously extreme Saudi Arabia. But when people asked me what team I was supporting, and I replied Tunisia and Ecuador, there was expression of astonishment on their faces, specially the kids, and they answer would be : "But they have no chance of winning the cup", the notion of supporting a team which is not considered among the world football superpowers, seems perplexing to people here, particularly for the kids, anyway I was quite proud of Tunisia and specially Ecuador, who's performance made a great impression on people here. There are certain advantages to watching a football game as a neutral, as one is well disposed to enjoying the attractive football, with disregard to which team is producing it, if you take sides before the game, and the team you are against is playing the more attractive football, you will not fully appreciate it and enjoy it, on the other hand being a zealous fan of team has its advantages as well, I really envied the fans of the Italian team , when Italy scored against Germany with only two minutes to the end, to steal the game, the Ecstasy the euphoria that swept and elated them , was for me the moment of the world cup, as much as for the dramatic ending of the game, as the mad celebrations of the fans around me , the effect of such jubilant scenes, seen and heard in real life, is way much powerful than when seen through a TV screen, my uncle who studied the Italy, lead these celebrations mad celebrations, when the goal was scored, a big explosion of shouts erupted and people scurried around in joy, and my brother who tends to go inside the house to watch the game on the other TV, when things get tense, burst out of the house to join the celebration, their shouts could have been heard a kilometer away, I envied them for those sensations they were experiencing and I was missing on, of course let us not ignore the other side of being a zealous football fans, their is always a price to pay in these matters, one of my cousins zealous fan of the German team, did not join the celebration, but stayed inside the house, an expression of pain, grief and anger on his face, and when Brazil lost to France on the quarter finals, a few of the kids cried, all football fans know these two sides of the fate coin, as their is no team that always wins.

Anyway I think it was a very good world cup, maybe not great, but all the pre tournament prediction were proved wrong, and we had a final that almost no body foresaw, a final that France should have won, as were the better team, I was stunned as everybody by Zidane's dismissal, this is not the way for the best player in the world in the last decade to bow out of the game, until that dismissal another scenario was developing, a fairytale scenario, I could imagine the next day headlines : "Zidane leads France to the world cup", that scenario was shattered by one moment of madness from Zidane, after his dismissal the French lost their leader, and I had feeling that destiny intended for another scenario to happen, a less romantic one, as Italy did little in the game to deserve the win, but surely Italy won the penalty shootout, the difference being only one ball that hit the bar and landed on the line, Italy steals the cup, in fairness though Italy gave a great performance at the world cup , the final game being their weakest performance.

It is over now, leaving a vacuum is left in my life and those of other football fans, a vacuum I need to fill soon, hopefully by finding a job.