U20 FIFA World Cup

Egypt hosted the U2o FIFA Men's World Cup this year, and I had been dying to go see a game because I have been so soccer-deprived ever since I've arrived here. I had been playing pick-up soccer multiple times a week during the summer with Mallory and some friends back at home, so it has definitely been difficult to not be playing at all!

Two of my other NSLI-Y friends, Izzy and Sam, that live in Heliopolis organized an outing to the championship match last Friday, October 16th. My host mom was hesitant about letting me go because she said it wasn't safe, but she finally agreed after warning me multiple times to "take care."

We were planning on going by ourselves, but we ended up going with two Egyptian guys whom Sam knew. I am very glad they were there because getting through the gate into the stadium was way more difficult than it should of been because the security guards kept saying that various entrances were closed. We made it eventually, but we walked in surrounded by hundreds (actually thousands) of soldiers dressed in brightly-colored sweatsuits that made them look like prisoners. Apparently they had been shipped in for every game to fill the stadium because Egypt wanted to break the overall attendance record at the U20 World Cup. They all sat on one side of the stadium and probably filled about 15,000 (of the 80,000) seats.

Egypt decided a few days before to open the gates for free so they could attract as many people as possible, so we didn't even have to pay, which was amazing! I thought for sure that tickets would be hard to get, but since Egypt wasn't playing, most of the country wasn't interested.

Hungary beat Costa Rica in penalty kicks for the third place game. The match was not very exciting except for the last thirty minutes or so, but I was glad to be there anyway. The championship match, however, was a lot of fun. Ghana beat Brazil in penalty kicks, which was a lot of fun to watch because most of the crowd was cheering for Ghana. Some sections of the stadium were dancing, beating drums, and cheering, but the atmosphere was not as "fanatical" as I had expected, which was probably because Egypt wasn't playing.

We were at the stadium for about seven hours, which was a long time to be outside in the VERY polluted Cairo air - I could barely see the low-flying airplanes overhead because it was so hazy - but as I said before, I had a great time and satisfied (temporarily) my hunger for football!