World Cup Final Match U20 Ghana vs. Brazil

Let me preface this by stating that I had zero inclination that I was going to a football match (kurra in arabic, which means ball -- technically the full name is Kura al-kaadim, literally, ball of the foot, but people just use kura, since there is only one sport with a ball in Egypt). Just to make a little more sense of everything, I will be referring to AMERICAN FOOTBALL as american football, and “soccer” as football/kura. I’ve found this is the easiest way to avoid confusion. Often when you’re dealing with Americans and other world people, complications do arise.

But Katie from the University of Wisconsin showed up to review the AUC program for UW. She was nice enough to have dinner with the Study abroad kids and we just talked about life and Cairo and Madison. While I was there, Liz mentioned that “she knew a guy” and we could get free tickets to the FINAL of the U-20 football tournament that has been taking place in Egypt. The final was the next day between Brazil and Ghana. Not only that, she said she knew some other people, and we could get in the Brazil Cheering section.

So thats what happened. We took the subway to the old AUC campus, where we took a pretty long taxi ride (but it was only 15 pounds -- we’re getting good at negotiating fares) to the stadium. We got through security, the girls got their faces painted, and then we made our way to the “first class” entrance. It was really really bad. They’d only let in white people/forgieners. It was the most blaitenly racist thing I’ve every seen by far. We managed to get in 3 egyptian friends by saying they were “Mexican”. We taught them some “spanish” really fast and they got in. It was horrible.

Plus we were with two hot girls, so that helped. Somehow we managed to squeeze our way through some crazy crowds into the “first class” section for foreigners. Liz knew some Brazilians from somewhere who live in Egypt, so we got into the Brazilian section! It was so awesome, right down near the field. It did make me wonder why I didn’t go to Brazil to study abroad -- those ladies are FINE.

The atmosphere was crazy. Most of the fans were Egyptian (obviously), and so they were kinda cheering for whomever, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a good showing for the Brazilians. It was ok. The cheers were great. Lots of people, lots of cheering. When the match starts, the millions of police officers make everyone sit down, so during halftime shit gets crazy because people can stand up and yell and cheer.

The game was all going Brazil's way. They had so many chances to score. It didn't help that Ghana got a red card, so they were playing down a player the entire second half. The Brazilians had a great way of ball control. They basically dominated Ghana in terms of the game, but in terms of physical endurance, and playing hard, the Ghana's played better. In the end, it was 0-0 after 90 minutes. So the game went into OT. The way it works is two fifteen minute halfs. It was really close, but after another 30 minutes -- still tied. Finally, it goes to penalty kicks. They tie that! Then its sudden death penalty kicks, and Ghana manages to capitalize after Brazil misses. Crazy game.