Catching a Game

My roommate Daniel is a huge soccer fan. He played in high school and college, and since then he has found it very useful for developing relationships in his time abroad in Brazil, Vietnam and France.

My experience has been similar. When I learned how to talk soccer, door after door began to be opened. I can't claim to be nearly as talented as Daniel or to possess his knowledge of the sport, but the desire is there.

So, last night, I readily consented when Daniel asked if I wanted to go to a cafe to watch the Barcelona - Zaragoza match on TV. We set out intending to look far and wide to find a cafe showing the game, but we didn't have to go any farther than the cafe on the corner of our street. In Morocco, the biggest soccer game of the year is the Real Madrid - Barcelona game, and almost every adult male is a rabid supporter of one of the two clubs. So most cafes show all the regular season games on their big screens.

I found the coverage of the game quite interesting. The commentary here is generally in Fusha, the modern standard form of Arabic. So if a Moroccan hasn't completed his education (as is the case with many Moroccans), he can't understand follow it as we might John Madden and Pat Summerall discussing American football.

What was even stranger was the halftime show. The main commentator spoke in Fusha, but the guest expert was actually Spanish. He responded to the questions in Spanish and his responses were dubbed over in Fusha. I have no idea if he was reading a translation of the questions or if he spoke Arabic or what. But it gave the halftime discussion a really strange dynamic, like a much more boring version of an old Jackie Chan movie.

Barcelona was up 4-1 late in the game when one of the Moroccans near us leaned over and struck up a conversation in English. His English was not perfect, but pretty good. We tried to say a few things in Arabic and French, but mostly we talked in English. The last twenty minutes of the game or so, we talked about soccer and Meknes and traveling (he claims that he is the only Moroccan ever crazy enough to travel to Algeria for a vacation; not only is it a dangerous place, it also has very poor relations with Morocco). He also mentioned a soccer league that he plays in around town; Daniel sounded very interested. As we left the cafe after the game (Barcelona won 6-1), we discovered that he lives in the building right next to us. In typical Moroccan hospitality, he said that if we needed absolutely anything we should just let him know.

In the next few weeks, I think Daniel and I will be taking him up on his offer and asking more about that soccer league.