The Match

Football is an extremely popular sport for this country. I think I mentioned that whenever there is a game many of my students don't even bother to show up to class. A few weeks ago my students invited me to a match at the stadium. This is the football stadium in Riyadh. We went to watch the Al Hilal team (crescent moon) which is the most popular team in Riyadh. My students tell me that the royal family puts a lot of money into this team to make sure they are the best. There is another team called Al Nasr, I have maybe two students who love this team. They are made fun of quite a bit for that. When one of my students learned I was going to the match he said "don't go, its too dangerous!" My student who said this is afraid of everything though. I call him my superstitious student. I told the students who invited me that one of the other students said it was dangerous. They told me it wasn't, but that I should sit in between them just in case. (Just in case what?) Anyway, I felt pretty safe there. When we walked in the stadium they had laid out the prayer rugs and many people were there praying, wearing their team's colors and facepaint. I asked my students if people pray for their team to win. They said:

Student 1: Yes, some people pray for their team to win.
Student 2: But I think its stupid to pray for that. You should only pray for important things.
Student 1: Well I love Al Hilal so I'm going to pray for them!

Here I am in between my students. Everyone is wearing the colors of Al Hilal. My students bought me that scarf so I would fit in (which I didn't, I was the only American there and everyone was staring at me). A few people who I had never met before asked if they could take a picture with me. Of course I couldn't refuse.

Everyone cheering for their team.

Here comes Al Hilal. When the 90 minutes finished it was a tie: 2-2. But Al Hilal managed to win the game in a shootout. Everyone was extremely happy, it was like they won the most important game in the season. Here is the shootout below.

It was close. Everyone thought they would lose and people were leaving, but they came out on top.

My students and I after the game. Afterwards they took me to Mac (McDonalds) with two of their friends. It was a good night.