Jordanian World Cup Mania

Football Crazy in Jordan

Yesterday, Uruguay and Jordan faced off in the first of a few battles between the two teams to determine which of them will go to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Jordan has never made it this far in the tournament (and beat Uzbekistan in September in a miracle victory), so to say the least people were excited. I went to the game.

Not surprisingly, the game itself was the least exciting part of this adventure. As expected, Jordan got clobbered (5-0), so the fans went from jubilant to quiet and depressed real fast. This post is going to be a really long and detailed account of a crazy day, but I promise it’ll be entertaining.

Three days ago I learned that the game was to happen about 10 minutes walking from my house and that my brother was going. The night before the match, I decided I wanted to go, even though tickets were sold out. When I asked my family how I should go about getting tickets, they repeatedly told me I was crazy and that I should have bought them days or even weeks ago. Thanks guys. I wasn’t aware of that. They assumed tickets that were originally 3 JD would now be at least 50 or even 100. I told them I was determined to try to get tickets.

On the morning of game day, two of my friends and I set out to sports city, right near our houses, where the game was to be played, at 7:30 AM. We walked toward one of the gates, and were instantly met by a large group of young men (shabab—not the Somalian terrorist group, just the Arabic word for young people) wearing Jordanian kuffiyahs (the red and white national fabric of Jordan and semi representative of the Arab world as a whole). They asked us if we were for Uruguay, and as soon as our male friend showed him a matching kuffiyah, we were best friends. They told us to go with them. When we told them we wanted tickets (ENTIRELY IN ARABIC), they, just like my family, told me us we were crazy, blah blah blah.

They seemed to assume we would be chilling there all day, just like them, but I decided to make a move to try to get tickets. In my most pathetic (but emphatic) broken Arabic, I explained just how desperately we wanted to see the game and needed tickets. The guy behind the locked gate made a phone call, and within a few minutes, a guy that worked for the stadium came out, unlocked the gate, and ushered us—THE ONLY FOUR WHITE PEOPLE THERE—in through the gates. The 20 or so Arabs behind the gate were not happy with this development. He told us that he had tickets that we could buy for 25 a pop. We decided on 20 a pop, made him swear on his children, the king, and Allah that they were legit tickets, received them, and went back to our shabab on the other side of the gate. Other Arab men were asking him for tickets, and he was assuring them that there were none left—sorry. He smiled at us, told us to have a great day, and wished us luck. As we were now going to school to take our Arabic final exams. That’s right. We woke up at 6:30AM on exam day to get these tickets. That’s dedication. For the record, I aced the exam and am now done with Arabic classes until next semester.

I took a taxi home, driving right and then walking by the crowd that was already assembling 6 hours before game time and the scene itself. As I was wearing a black shirt and am white, people asked me if I was for Uruguay.  As soon as I assured them I was for Jordan, they liked me more, but they were still skeptical. When I went home, I asked my sister if I could borrow a Kuffiah. She tied it around my neck, and sure enough, for the rest of the evening, there was no doubt for which team I was with.

I left my house to meet up with my friends, and it was clear that excitement was in the air. 

The Arabs gathered for the game were highly amused by the four Americans at the game wearing Kuffiyahs, and wanted pictures with us. A lot of people were wearing anonymous masks, but here is the first picture of me and the three other Americans from my program. Diana, Christian (who also goes ti CMC, and Teresa. 

As we walked along the street, we were relieved to see a huge amount of police presence. We as non-Arabs were relieved to see this. No one expected it to turn out violent, but seeing as Jordan was likely to get its ass kicked, it was good to know these guys were here.

We got the stadium, and by a stroke of luck, ran into our friend Ashraf who is on a different program in Amman. He is from the US, but he has Jordanian-Palestinian family here. Not only does he look very arab, but he speaks very good Arabic. This was very helpful. We took the following photo outside the stadium, and one of mny friends was a little bit irritated, but as at this very moment, photos weren't the most important thing we should ahve been doing. Having said that, this photo turned into the funniest one of the night. When I was showing my photos to my host brothers, the youngest looks at it and goes "that's Baba" (our dad). Sure enough, the Arab man to the left of the photo is my host dad, whose hand is reaching back to hold my youngest host brother's hand. We didn't notice each other...

As we waited at the gate to get in, one of the Shabab from this morning recognized us and offered us free face paint. It was way too hot and we were all too sweaty to accept it, but it was a super sweet gesture. After a few minutes, Ashraf and his perfect Arab sweet talking got a group of about 10 Americans into the gate, and we walked in to see the following line in front of us. 

At this point, it was maybe 1:30. Ashraf asked a security guard something, and we were told to go sit on the side. We then saw a sight I found to be quite entertaining. A group of the young Shabab decided to pray (Muslims pray 5x a day), but they were using the Kuffiyah as a prayer rug. I thought it was such a cool cultural moment. Religion is such an integral part of culture here, and there is no reason that religion should hold a person back from going to a soccer game. I'll talk more about religion and Soccer in a bit. 

A few minutes later, A guy with a press tag around his neck came up to us and said he was from the Jordan times. He wanted to ask a few questions about why we were there. Two of us, including myself, gave him some answers. He wanted to understand why we as Americans felt the desire to come to the Jordanian game, what we expected from the crowd, how we felt football contributes to Jordan, etc. Look out for a quote from yours truly in the Jordan Times. I haven't seen anything yet...

As soon as the line started moving, the guard ushered our group over, telling us to get in a single file line. We were ushered past the whole line in a weird sort of white privilege thing.  I later learned that Ashraf had told the guards essentially, "I have 10 Americans with me. Can you help me get them in safely." It was awkward yet very nice being able to cut the whole line, but I wasn't going to complain. It meant we got in safely and quickly. 

Security screening was very limited. Although we weren't supposed to bring in either food or water, I brought in both without much problem. Seating was general admission, and we split from the other program and found seats for just the four of us. The crowd was already crazy. At this point it was 2 PM. We LITERALLY had four hours until game time. As I started taking pictures of the crowd around us, people started posing for us, laughing at/with us, and being encouraged by the fact that we knew some Arabic. At one point, people around us started chanting "USA USA," but we corrected them to "Ordon Ordon." They laughed at our accents. Here's some of what the crowd looked/was like.  

I had a funny little back and forth with this guy. At first I told him to put away the brazil stuff so I could get a good Jordan picture, but eventually I caved. Jordan wants to go to Brazil. Later, he asked us how much we spent on tickets, and then revealed that we had gotten our tickets for a better price than him. Sucks to suck...

This guy asked to take a picture with us. Americans in Kuffiyahs are funny. 

Jordanians LOVE the king

The four hours of pre-game craziness blended together, so here are some stories/themes that you will find amusing. 

Concession Stands

In the states, people selling food walk around in brightly colored clothing, screaming their heads off, and charging exorbitant prices. Here, the concession stands involved mostly kids standing at the bottom of the crowd, screaming that they had water, juice boxes, seeds, sandwiches, etc. When someone wanted something, they would get the attention of the sellers, who would throw the item over the crowd to the person that wanted it. The person would then throw money down at the kid. I was impressed by everyone's aim. Food was also really inexpensive, which shocked me. 

One of the concession sellers was wearing this really nice jacket. None of us Americans have anything this nice that says USA on it. It was interesting that he chose to wear that jacket to the game. 

At one point, I noticed that kids were walking through the crowd selling a more annoying concession item--cigarettes. I don't know exactly how much packs costed, but I know this young kid made a shit ton of money.  

Making Friends

WIthin a few minutes of sitting down, the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder and in perfect (accent free) English, asked where we were all from. We told him we were from America, and he told us that he had spent about 15 years in Canada and in Georgia. We asked for his name, and he told us Mohammad. We laughed at just how common the name Mohammad is, and then jokingly assumed his friend's name must be Ahmed. We were corrected--it was also Mohammad. For the rest of this post, I will be referring to Mohammad1 and Mohammad2. 

Mohammad1 is a Jordanian of Palestinian descent from Quds. The last time he was in Palestine was 1997. Mohammad 2's family is from Hebreo, Hebron. I asked if he spoke hebrew, and Mo1 said he would kill someone if he heard Hebrew being spoken. Because of how nice this man was, I'm choosing to pretend he was kidding. My sister had told me earlier in the day that many Israelis crossed the border to come to this game. I'm not sure if I believe her, but if it's true, I'm glad Mohammad didn't meet them. 

Mohammad1assured us that if things got crazy, they would do anything to protect us. He said that if we left with the crowd, there was a good chance that we would get touched innappropriately, but he and Mo2 would do whatever they could to keep us safe. We told him that we were always amazed by just how nice Jordanians are, but he said that he much preferred the people in the states. In Jordan, people try to take advantage of you for personal gain all the time and aren't straight with anyone in business. In the states, at least people are honest in terms of business. Wasta culture is real--the man has a point. 

We made another friend with the man in front of us. I forget his name, so I'll call him FM, for front man. He and his friend were wearing the tackiest tourist Petra hats we had seen, but it's OK. He also spoke perfect english. Within a few minutes, we knew that he owns a sanitary paper factory, he had given us all business cards, and he had offered us a tour of his factory. I don't know why he was so enthusiastic about this, but he was. 

Crowd Chants

As the crowd chanted, Mohammad1 helped us out by translating some of the chants. For the four hours before the game, there were about a million different rounds of what seemed like a million different chants. Here are some of the ones I remember:

"The crowd wants our respectable Abu Hussein." Abu Hussein is another name for King Abdullah. I should mention that the Royal pictures at the stadium were different than those everywhere else in the country. I should also mention that this is the first picture of seen of Prince Hussein (on the right) as a post pubescent person. He is a 22 year old student at Georgetown, yet a picture of his 14 year old self is plastered in nearly every establishment in the country. Poor kid--no one should have to relive their awkward phase that much. 

With this chant, there was a lot of interplay between the two sides of the stadium. People went crazy yelling for Abdullah. 

"Everyone who is Jordanian jumps" At this point, everyone starts jumping up and down. We asked Mo1 if we should jump, and he said that we were a part of them now. It's true. We are very proud of our Jordanian-ness.

Something that translates into Allah loves Abdullah.

This guy was leading amazing chants for the crowd. He literally got thousands of people to do a repeat after me thing with hand motions and everything. It was quite cool to see the power he had over everything.

Prayer Time Part 2

Later, we saw people start praying in the benches in front of us. Music was blaring, the crowd was being loud and crazy, and yet, prayer time means prayer time. Just as before we got into the stadium, some people were using Kuffiyahs as prayer rugs. Others, though, had brought their rugs to the game. One of the riot police security guards was using his vest as a prayer rug. Some people started their prayers without anything to kneel on, so men from the crowd rushed at them with Kuffiyas or even rugs for them to use. They were rotating through to make sure that everyone had something to kneel on. It was beautiful to see. 

FM is the guy leading this prayer

Mo1 is leading this group; Mo2 is in the blue sweater.

While the group was in the middle of praying, I heard a large chorus of boos erupt through the stadium. The fans from Uruguay had started to file in. In the beginning, there weren't many of them, but by game time, there was a strong contingent of blue. 

The people that were praying, though, didn't bat an eyelash or move their heads to look at what the crowd was booing.

After everyone was done praying, I found out that Mo1 and 2 had very little respect for FM. While FM was praying, his butt crack was showing, which is SUPER haram. Mo1 thinks that people like him give Islam a bad name because those images circulate the internet/western media and make muslims look stupid. He thought FM was drunk because of how he was acting, which makes the fact that he was praying that much more problematic to him. In the Koran, it prohibits going to prayer while drunk (which is why Alcohol is Haram in Islam), so this action, plus the immodesty in it makes it that much worse. I didn't think he was drunk, but whatever. Mo1 told me that his group waited for FM's to finish praying because two groups can't pray at the same time, and they refused to follow this man. 

A Casual Trip to the Restroom

About an hour and a half before the game, I had to go to the restroom. I asked Mo where it was, and he asked about 15 people and still didn't get an answer. Mo2 stood up and told me in Arabic to follow him. He asked an officer where the bathroom was and got an answer. I had just seen him pray, so I assumed he was religious. As soon as we got out of our tiny section, though, he reached his hand back for me to take. Walking hand in hand means you're married; being married means no other man will say anything to you. Because I am white, having an Arab "husband" kept me safe. When we got to the restroom, I was shocked by what I saw. There was (unsurprisingly), no women's room, but rather a large open room with four urinals on the back wall and four stalls on the right. The room was as gross as any bathroom I've ever seen. He told the guard waiting there that a woman wanted to use one of the stalls and everyone froze in sight, surprised. I walked to the next open stall, and found a turkish toilet that was GROSS AS HELL. Whatever. Desperate times call for desperate measures. When I was done, Mohammad2 took my hand and we went back. I thanked him as Mo1 asked me how it was. I told him it was like a 5 star hotel. He laughed and assured me that it was for good reasons that all Arabs go before they leave for the game and wait til after--public restrooms are gross. 

Sharing Snacks

In America, sporting events are a communal affair, but to a limit--food stays within groups that came together. In Jordan, like everything else, food is shared. Mo2 offered us M&Ms, and late in the game, he handed us each pieces of gum. FM offered us packaged desserts, biscuits, and kept me fed with a stream of sunflower seeds. I was a little weirded out at first, but then I realized that all of these men were muslims devout enough to pray at a football game, and that I had watched Mo2 share his prayer rug with his younger brother at the game. These guys were trustworthy.

The Handicapped Section

In American stadiums, there are specific sections for people in wheelchairs. In this stadium, this section didn't exist--so the group of people in wheelchairs was literally on the track

The Football Part of the Post

As soon as the Jordanian team walked out onto the field, the crowd exploded with excitement. The team came to midfield, bowed to the crowd in a big line, and took in the scene. When they came back out a half hour or so later to warm up for the game, I remembered why I miss soccer so much. Watching the goalie doing his drills made me so happy. I haven't played organized soccer in over 5 years, yet it's something that will always have a soft spot in my heart. 

Starting lineups were announced in three languages. Arabic, then English, than Portuguese. The crowd booed all announcements made in English and Portuguese, because they wanted it to be an all Arabic event. Having said that, half of the apparel worn by fans was in English, none of the sponsors on the field had Arabic on their logos, and most people had english on their clothing. 

FM knew a lot about the Jordanian soccer team. He predicted a 2-0 Uruguay victory, but I thought he was nuts. He told us about the team: for this game, both the star goalie and forward were out because they had gotten 5 yellow cards already in World Cup qualifying competition. I played soccer for my entire childhood, and I've never seen a goalie get a yellow card. The fact that this man got 5 amazed me. I asked how, and was told that he is known for just straight up tackling forwards and not going for the ball. Though Jordanians are non-violent, their soccer team is VERY violent.

Funny things that happened during the game

• It was announced that the Prince was there right before the game started. The crowd went crazy, and everyone raised their Kuffiyahs above their heads to show their Jordanian pride. The cheers were still all for the king. 
• For the first 20 or so minutes, the crowd was on their feet going nuts. Then Uruguay scored their first goal. It was all downhill from there. The crowd lost energy and went really quiet. As M1 joked, the best way to shut up a crowd is to score a goal. 
• At one point, the ref made a call that people really disagreed with. The crowd started chanting something I understood perfectly well: "Fuck you, fuck you." It was SO funny.  
• During soccer games, the only things that are said over the loudspeakers are generally goals and substitutions. However, about a minute into the second half, it was announced that His Majesty King Abdullah (may he reign forever), was there. The crowd promptly forgot that a game was being played. The cheers were deafening. I couldn't see him, but I was within 100 meters. Does that count as being with the king and queen? I'm going to say yes.
• In the second half, the crowd was losing energy, and people in our section wanted to sit down. Unfortunately, for anyone to be able to see, the person in front of them also had to be sitting. The peer pressure exercised on those of us in the front was really frustrating. Seeing as I was a part of the maybe 2% of the crowd that was female, I didn't mess with it too much. 
• I really feel bad for the riot police. At about 3 PM, I saw one motion to ask what time it was to another. The second raised three fingers, and the one that asked had a look on his face suggesting that it was going to be a really long evening. Sure enough, these men were standing in the same place for about 6 hours, and while a game was going on behind them, they weren't allowed to turn around and look. They had to watch the crowd react and never know why. Their focus was not quite there by the end:

We left with fifteen minutes left in the game as to avoid the rush, and we got out with no problems. Even though the game itself was quite embarrassing for Jordan, the experience of being with the crowd was worth it. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, as it took me about two hours to write.

The best, Becca