Football Crazy! (Not the naff Nokia kind)

The Raiders had a great weekend. We drew 1-1 with the Saints, our rival European based ex-pat team in Saigon. The record was this: we had not beaten or even drawn with Saints for two years. Raiders have had a rocky time of it but fortunes are definitely turning around, as proved by our last two games. The league will start in September with at least 6 foriegn based teams participating.

On other football; the World Cup in HCMC brings with it a few tales. First, the only English commentary avaliable is from Super Sport, an excellent feed from South Africa. However, there is a delay of a few seconds between this channel and HTV, the Vietnamese state owned channel covering the same matches, hence I can hear the ooo's, ahhhh's and downrights waaaa's of any goalmouth action before it happens. This audio warning comes from the congregation of local guys who crowd into the little roadside coffeeshop just 2 minutes from my house. They are certinaly loyal, be it Brazil, England or lowly Angola, they give the same number of decibels to a goal. And yes, they are out there until the last ball is kicked around 3.30am.

The WC has also brought out the patriot in all of us. Here at school, all my Korean students are right behind their team. My German friends have erected two huge flags from the top of their house, and also on their motorbikes. Indeed at the Raiders we have a fair few WC nations represented; Germany, England, Switzerland, Sweden and France (and for the record, non WC nationalities of Singapore, Vietnam, Ireland and Denmark). There are lots of Aussies here at the school as well, although they aren't so happy this morning after their defeat to Brazil. Chi was happy to fly the St George's cross from the back of my bike on the way to the Trinidad game, but the winner so far was Rink, an exteremely tall Dutch guy who looked like he was on his way to the stadium, not Bar Number 5.