By nlgyon
I went to a Columbus Crew game once when I was a kid, and that is the only exposure to live soccer I've ever had. From what I recall, there were plenty of seats around us (who would've thought?), stakes were low and the crowd's enthusiasm was mild.
On September 6, the Jordanian national soccer team played Uzbekistan in the fifth round of the Asian Football Confederation's 2014 World Cup Qualifiers at the King Abdullah International Stadium in Amman. The winner would go on to challenge the fifth place South African Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) team to attain a berth in the 2014 World Cup Finals in Rio next summer, which I've heard is kind of one of the more important tournaments or something. I, in a moment of pure genius, realized that this game would be more popular than other soccer games, so I should probably head down to the stadium early. Nothing gets past you, Nick.
I left my apartment an hour and a half before kick-off, like some sort of idiot. I think I left earlier than that to go see a Redskins game. And it was preseason. And I'm not even a Redskins fan. Needless to say, the stadium was full by the time I got there. What is not needless to say, however, is that I was greeted by an anxious group of Jordanians denied entry to the stadium by a line of riot cops, geared up in helmets and vests, armed with batons.
Unsure if Jordan had a law similar to the Egyptian law against photographing uniformed officials (it doesn't), I spent the next 20 minutes navigating the crowd and trying to surreptitiously capture the strong will of the crowd, the dogged persistence of which I attribute to the group psychology of a people who I have found to be (refreshingly) direct in nature. They seemed quite comfortable remaining put, waiting for the guards to prove that they were indeed trained to disperse an unwanted gathering. Which they were. And they did. It was like a weird, very one-sided game of red rover where no one called any of the cops over but they all came over. With armor and nightsticks (which were never used, I should add).
The evening ended in the familiar warmth of welcome I've felt since the day I arrived. In the sea of rejected locals trying to find a way to a cafe to watch the game, my camera and I stuck out pretty bad. This prompted lots of “!صورة” (A picture!) from the people around me (the Jordanians are not camera shy). Each of these exchanges ended in a smile and the phrase I've heard every day: “اهلا و سهلا – Welcome to Jordan.”