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