A stadium

They call it Casablancaise, it sits between Centre Ville and Maarif in one of the few green parks that Casablanca can claim to have. The stadium is full of trash, sports a dirt 300 m track and reminds me of what urban degradation would look like if done by American Eagle. Remember those sweatshirts you could buy, when you were 14, from any of those stores (insert name like Halister, Abercrombie and Fitch etc)? They would be a navy or maroon faded color, with strategically placed holes and shredded ends, as if the entire garment had been rubbed on coarse cement. Then the words Physical Education sewn on the front or back. This is what the stadium looks like now. A photo shoot waiting to take place.

It wouldn't be that depressing if you didn't know what Casablancaise used to be. I have heard stories, of championship African track and field events, full stands, crowd screaming, award ceremonies and medal distributions. It was were many of Morocco's most famous track and field athletes (men and women) started their careers as teenagers. Strangely enough, despite it being forgotten by government and private sectors alike, it is still used. It is free to use and at any moment during the day, you see an incredible cross section of Moroccan society training there. Women wearing the hijab or full niqab, young boys and girls training for a team, old men and women stretching...I could keep going.

This blog entry will start a small series on this stadium, its past and its future. I am currently trying to do a radio documentary on the story behind the area and hopefully try to get enough people to mobilize and get the government to revive it. Partly because I like the ambiance there and think it is truly a very special place and partly because I am tired of seeing Lady Fitness everywhere.

Headscarves, again

Not sure if anyone has been following this controversy but Fifa just won't leave this alone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/14/AR2010081401219.html


Personally I think Sepp Blatter sounds like an idiot and those who ruled that the hijab was not only dangerous during play but also unacceptable because it made a political and religious statement are making a very powerful statement as well: because a woman happens to be born in a Muslim country or to a Muslim family or converts and chooses to wear the hijab for personal reasons or must wear it because of political reasons cannot participate in a sport on the international level. Should we start fining players every time they make the sign of the cross when enter the field or score a goal?

Our friend Sepp said it best, that, "It is very important for football, that football be played by and in all cultures. Especially at this level of the youths, and the Olympic idea, I think it's very important."

According to FIFA, the best way to do this is by making restrictions.

What I did find interesting is that FIFA allowed them to wear these "caps" or what looks like a winter beanie. It in a way put these women in uncharted territory, trying to negotiate between the demands of FIFA and the Islamic codes of Iran, or rather in this case, what constitutes a hijab in Islam. I'm sure that was a controversial topic, case and point when the Iranian woman, Marzieh Akbarabadi, who is in charge of all women's sports, marched off the field at the unveiling of the new "caps" in protest.

Again it is funny to follow FIFA's reasoning in all of this. Wearing a hijab is making a religious/political statement as well as poses a danger to the player or another player but as soon as you uncover the neck, the danger disappears and the players no longer are visually Muslim.

In the end, you have these girls who want to play and most likely don't care much about the politics around it all. Whatever your personal thoughts are on the hijab, the victims here are these young players who are good enough to play, want to play, and can't for absolutely no reason, pure discrimination and against every Olympic and fair play principles which actually, I have realized, are rarely ever present in any sort of Olympic event or FIFA sponsored event anyway.

Guest Post by Lisa Matuska: If only cars had no horns

Playing a pick up soccer (football) game in Morocco is like entering into a contract. I didn’t realize this the first time I was in Rabat with my sister and we saw some guys playing on the beach. We had an hour or so until we were suppose to meet some people for dinner so I said, “let’s kick the ball around.” Nicole being the eager-to-please hostess, knew very well those words, “kick the ball around” didn’t exist in the football-loving country, but we played anyway.

Three hours later, my feet bruised and my toes bloody, we stopped because someone was hurt badly enough that he couldn’t walk. So this is a pick up game. You arrive at the beach, kick the ball and linger until you identify some opponents (prey you could say, depending upon how serious you are) and give a quick whistle or indication you want to play. There’s lots of negotiations and arguing about numbers, goal size and other things that I can’t understand due to language barriers, so I usually just wait.

And wait. And wait.

And that brings me to the beauty of this game: one can play in a football match no matter what language they speak- even sign language.

On a chilly and overcast Monday morning, the beach in Casablanca, which is usually filled with footballers, was empty except for a few scattered groups. My friends and I started kicking the ball around and soon my friend Mehdi began match negotiations with a group of guys nearby.

Again, I just waited.

He came back and said, “they don’t speak.” I thought he meant that they were shy, but when we started the game there was something wrong, something missing. Noise. It was a quiet Monday and a quiet game of football. The men we were playing against were all deaf. At first I felt as if we were playing a different game. There was no yelling, no calling for the ball. Everyone on our team could of course speak, but for some reason we followed suit and stayed mostly silent. I thought I was in another world for a while, a silent film perhaps. But about a half hour into the game, people started to push and shove and whine, and I realized that I was actually just playing football in Morocco. The arguments, outrage and debates that dominate every other game were happening here, only with dramatic hand gestures and theatrical reenactments of fouls and bad passes. If someone knocked you down, instead of crying foul from the ground, you had to get up and run in front of them, pointing to the very spot of sand on your leg that somehow represents concrete and undeniable evidence of the foul. And if they disagree well then, you reenact the play, waving your hands wildly. Whoever gets tired and frustrated of these charades loses, and the other gets the ball. In a way it was the only time I could understand what these arguments in Moroccan pick up games were all about. There was no more language barrier.

Even though the group of men couldn’t communicate with their words, they were very good. Their passes were quick, intuitive and difficult to read. They had a different vision of the field, one that replaced the oral communication we use when we play. I could also tell that they played together a lot, like a team, not just a mash up of random talented players. Often times during the game they would talk and argue amongst each other in very dramatic sign language, and my Moroccan team members would look at them like, “what on earth are they arguing about?” Now they knew how I felt, and so while they silently argued we did the only thing we could do- went back toward our own goal and waited.

-Lisa Matuska

Bethesda SC Morocco Tour, 2010

Back again, just finished a really great program sponsored by the US Embassy. I brought over a US girls mixed U-15,16,17 team from Bethesda Maryland (Bethesda Soccer Club, http://www.bethesdasoccer.org/) and we did a huge tour around Morocco. It was a mix of tournaments, games and clinics as well as a round table discussion and a somewhat interesting press conference.

The goal of the program (officially) was to provide an exchange opportunity, allowing American girls to get a glimpse of and experience women's football in Morocco and Moroccan girls to do the same with women's football in America. My personal goal for this program was to give them Moroccan teams a chance to play an American girls team and through the press and attention, highlight and increase the importance of Moroccan women's football. I think that happened (maybe not as much as I would have hoped but more than I expected, if that makes any sense). We had some great press coverage, all over the big TV stations as well as satellite arab TV (thanks to Reuters TV). We were in arabic and french papers as well. The tournament in Casablanca (our first stop on the tour) with Wydad, Berrchid and Sidi Moumen went really well, and was very well attended. Most of the Casablanca women's football scene was there, including the regional president of the women's league from the Federation (which for me really means nothing but added to the importance of the event just by his attendance at the press conference). There were a lot of other people there, faces I see often at games, at Federation conferences, opportunists, names I don't remember. I didn't thank really any of them and they right it off as me being a foreigner who doesn't understand proper etiquette. Little do they know that it is really just because I don't know
their names and have a rule that a "thank you" in front of the press from me requires you actually having done something related to the program.

My Sidi Moumen girls from the Cultural Center came and we played around during half time on the turf grass that Wydad just built (this was the first time these young girls ever played on any sort of surface other than dirt, rock, broken glass mixture they are used to near the center).

After Casa we traveled to Amzmiz and held clinics in Amzmiz with Sana and her group. Of course we had an amazing welcome, the group of boys and girls were there. We didn't get as many young girls (because it was ridiculously hot, summer, and many parents didn't want their daughters outside), but eventually we had enough girls and added some curious boys and did a good hour and a half of drills and games.

After Amzmiz was Fes (we played Abdi's team from Khenifra) and then had an amazing program in Oujda. The clinics went way better (partly because now the american girls knew what they were doing and partly because we had way more little girls and a nice field with equipment). Then we did the round table and then the game at night. It felt good to be in Oujda just because there are some really great girls there, and no league for them to play in. Oujda is a border/frontier town right next to Algeria in the north east. It apparently was a a bustling economic hub when the border was open but now is sort of a dead zone and just really far from all other Moroccan economic and social hubs. This also makes it hard for the girls team to enter the league. Not enough teams around them to start a regional league and too far to be affordable to travel and play in the other regions. So they are just stuck, traveling and guest playing with other teams but eventually, will have to give it up, get married and have nice memories of playing a game they loved.

After Oujda we finished up in Sale against a sort of national select team, Bahia's doing. Bahia is a great force in women's football and I think, of all the women and even men I have met in the domain, has good intentions rather than wanting a political post or some sort of money. We will see.

We had the ambassador come as well as the Mayor of Sale, lots of media again, and a nice reception.

Not the most sustainable of programs and a lot of money dished out by the embassy for just one week but I also would not have done it if I hadn't thought that the impact on women's football in Morocco would be big. I think it was. Hopefully through this team from Bethesda we can continue contact and get some donations to the teams and programs here. Maybe there are other ways for collaborations. Will continue thinking of things.

My next project is grassroots coaching training for women mostly. Still int he planning stages and looking for money of course.

Salim's prediction

My prediction for this cup is Argentina or Ghana because a little boy told me that Messi is God and mama Africa will always prevail. I think this little boy, whose name was Salim, thought that Messi played for Ghana because he was quite adamant that Messi and Ghana would win, both. I tried to explain that you can only have one winner but he wouldn't have it. We never reached an understanding.


Also an interesting application from France 24...
The Foot-o Booth is now available on facebook. This World Cup special application lets you show support on your facebook profile for your favorite team by painting the team’s colors onto an uploaded photo. Foot-o Booth on facebook is now up here : http://bit.ly/dB9YXd . How-to video here : http://bit.ly/9eOQ2R .


In addition to showing support, participants’ photos are broadcast daily on France 24. All fan photos submitted to Foot-o Booth are arranged in a World Cup 2010 Mosaic broadcast around the world during France 24’s international World Cup reporting. Check out an HD version of the current mosaic here : http://bit.ly/cvR1v4

Women's national team vs. Senegal, March 20, 2010

coaches from the Sidi Moumen Nassim team


The game felt a lot like the day they played France two years ago on Women's Day: a lot of anticipation, then a slightly below average performance followed by again, the squashing of any hope in playing in the African cup or reaching an international tournament.

This game, on March 20, was against Senegal, the return game at a Sale turf football field (for the life of me I cannot understand why they would play on a turf field rather than a real grass field, yes Morocco has quite a few, and should be opened to the women's national team). I made the trip from Casablanca, considered painting my face red but settled on a national team jersey and a green hoodie. Again, girls teams from all over Morocco came, in buses, grand taxis and trains. There was a 50 person brass band, journalists on each end, the junior Moroccan men's national team as well as a modest VIP area which I imagine was reserved for president of the women's commission and anyone else he managed to drag to the game to elevate its importance.

There is not much else to say. The spectators watched and cheered and yelled insults but mostly just came to catch up on women's football gossip. Senegal fielded a strong, tall, big boned team with speed and a slightly better than average touch while the Moroccans were slow, heavy and constantly pushed off or beaten to the ball. As the game was nearing its end, the journalists and photographers who normally should have their cameras pointed at the net or focused on strikers lit their cigarets, layed their cameras in their laps and leaned back on the grass.

I spoke with my friend Hassan, a journalist with Radio Mars, who agreed with me that the coach had no idea who he was playing on the field. Apparently, he is new, and benched some players that should have been playing. Frankly, I am not sure if it would have made a difference.

I did see my old team ACDA, a couple of the girls, who more or less looked the same. It made me think of Rabat again, and Abderahman the coach, and Megan and filming and playing on the Oudaya beach.

I caught a ride back with the Sidi Moumen team in their bus, half listening to one of their coaches talk about the problems of women's football in Morocco and if the federation had just consulted him in building the national team and the league, then maybe things would be different. Again, I doubt this.

Spirit of Football, Spirit of Sidi Moumen

It has been a while since I updated but just wanted to share (since they have updated their blog with their visit) a special visit Sunday, February 21, by Andrew and Chris from Spirit of Football.

Their project is pretty amazing, check out their blog at http://theball.tv.

They are basically traveling from England to South Africa for the World Cup, through Africa, with one ball. It serves as sort of a torch, and everyone along the way has the opportunity to sign it. They stayed a couple of days in Casa and Zaki, a friend a technical director at Wydad, hosted them here. They came to Sidi Moumen and we organized some drills, got the Tacharouk football club kids to come as well. All the kids were able to sign the ball which was great. Andrew and Chris also visited L'Heure Joyeuse, another great association that works with street kids in Casa. They have a dancing shantytown program where kids from slums learn break dancing and hip hop dancing, sponsored/funded by Nike I believe. We wish Chris and Andrew luck as they head south. Check out their blog as well, you can follow their journey to South Africa. The idea of everyone signing this ball is great because no matter who you are, from famous players to street kids, everyone signs with the same markers on top of eachother and all the signatures at one point fade as the ball is kicked and handled. It is such a temporary thing, a moment that everyone participated in, in exactly the same way fundamentally but uniquely at the same time (if that makes any sense). One way is not more important or more unique than the other. And that is what football is essentially, fundamentally the same game around the world played by millions of professional and non professionals. The same game, taken and made their own, played in an utterly unique way. Millions of moments that are the same but not. Okay, I am done.

Women's soccer specific stadium!

(Empty wasted garbage filled space which could be cleared and turned into a field in Sidi Moumen...one example of many)

I know this is not news from North Africa/Middle East but rather from Kennesaw, Georgia, but roll with me.

The new expansion women's pro team in Atlanta is building a soccer specific stadium in partnership with Kennesaw State University, a $16.5 million, 8,300-seat stadium. They are saying it will be one of the only women specific soccer stadium's in the world (which may or may not be true, not sure) and if true, then it is pretty exciting and could work, particularly in the states because of the women's game's popularity.

Perhaps we can convince the mayor of Sidi Moumen to build a field for Nassim, the women's team. There is enough empty space filled with nothing but garbage, I'm sure they could clear a bit of land, help the environment as well as local women's football. No, actually, what we need more are apartment building too expensive for inhabitants or some new sort of INDH center that stands empty most days but is a great impressive notch on the local governments CV demonstrating their ability to, as superficially as possible, help local citizens.

Federations, Ministries, Rabat oh my!

For those with even a small familiarity of the way ministries and federations work here in Morocco, then the read below will be enjoyable. This comes from Lisa Matuska, foreign women's football correspondent extraordinaire on her attempt to get even the slightest amount of information from the Moroccan Women's Football Committee. I will leave out names but no one knows who is in the committee anyway, not even those involved in Women's football in Morocco so it doesn't matter too much either way. Enjoy!


Federation interview

Rabat Morocco

Royal Moroccan Football Federation Building, 3rd floor



We entered into a meeting with seven people. I explained I was a university student doing a project on women’s football which I began in 2008 in Oak Brook Chicago and now I was working with a radio station in Chicago to continue this project on womens’ football in Morocco, profiling some girls that came back from Oak Brook and the teams they play on here in Morocco, as well as the status of women’s football in Morocco.

I put my recorder on which they said was fine, then I asked when the league began. They were confused at what I wanted and unsure of the exact dates. When I said that a general date was OK they said they need to do research to get an exact date because this must be official word from the federation. Someone left the room and then brought a piece of paper that I assumed had the correct information. This man read the paper and said, “oh this says 1998 but I’m sure it was before that.”

I then asked a more general, opinion-based question: “has the league grown since it started?” I assumed this answer, like most answer if something has grown from it’s first year would be yes, of course, we don’t have the exact numbers but blah blah blah. This sent another whirlwind of confusion, stemmed from one man, about exact numbers and official word and they can’t tell me anything. I should send my questions by email and they can get together and put together official answers and then set up a meeting and get back to me.

My last question, which was my last ditch effort, was, “what are the challenges the federation faces regarding women’s football in Morocco,” and of course, once again, Imane and I didn’t understand, they can’t answer, it must be official. As if their titles were not official enough, maybe they needed a stamp or something.


It seems they don’t meet often so this was a long working meeting and I understand we might have been a bit of an intrusion. However, I don’t see anything wrong in answering in general and then sending details later, or I don’t see anything wrong in one person coming out with me and doing a one-on-one interview because I did emphasize the unimportance of this piece of my project, just a few words about women’s football from the federation. But it seemed that the women, who were the friendliest weren’t in control of what would happen and this one man, took over and didn’t think anyone knew the answers so they would all have to confer and get back to me. It seemed as if they didn’t work together much and communication between them was very disorganized as well.

Football's energy finaly harnassed

What a great example of what happens when simple ideas are applied to sports! Check out this story

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/using-soccer-to-supplant-kerosene-use/#more-38859

A group of Harvard students come up with a way to gather energy from the kicking and playing around with a football and use it to light rooms, charge cell phones at night. Free energy combined with one of the greatest, most played and most accessible sports in the word plus a positive impact on the environment because it could (theoretically) reduce kerosene lamp use, and you have an extraordinary product. Their distribution method is interesting too although I am not so sure how much of their US/high income bracket sales will be made because of this ball's attractiveness as a new tech gizmo compared to the attractiveness of "must help out developing countries, particularly through football as the World Cup approaches", but in the end, whatever gets the job done.

How great would it be if they could get the ball to be used in the kickoff of the first world cup game! Hmmm...

Journeys to South Africa, 2010

I was recently visited by a group of Portuguese journalists last week working for one of the biggest papers in Portugal. They are making their way down to South Africa in this pretty intense looking 4x4, reporting on stories about football in each country they pass through from now until the World Cup in June in South Africa. They ended up doing stories on the Sidi Moumen football team as well as the girls down in Amzmiz! Check out their blog (its in Portuguese but still pretty exciting).

http://worldcup.record.xl.pt/

Latin America, Middle East...same uniforms and smiles

Great piece on women's football in Peru and how it is linked to land reform and women's struggle for a place in society on the Global Game blog.

http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2010/01/peruvian-women-in-fulbito-andino-find-light-in-the-darkness/

What stuck me most about this story is one of the pictures, of the Peruvian girls juggling a ball in her skirt and pink uniform top and the other girls watching. Their uniforms, even the smiles on their face as they watch this girl juggle, reminded me of a picture I took in a locker room in Rabat. The girl was juggling and another watching her. The picture has such a feeling of similarity, parallel worlds on the same track. The quote to from one of the women in the article too reminded me of so many things I have often heard here..."The football world beyond our mountains we do not know. We do not know who plays there, who are the best players, what they wear and the rules that everyone follows. We only play in order to have some happy moments, to have fun. Of technique and tactics we do not understand much. But we play with our hearts, with all our will. And that brings us together into a single force. That is football for us."

What else do we need football to be. Something so universal yet for these women, something so isolated, their football, in their mountains, with their rules, their happy moments.