Walking In Wuhan

Went and saw the Chinese women's national team take on a team of FIFA World All-Stars and I managed to learn a few things.

• Though the Chinese national anthem has words, they're rarely sung.
  
• FIFA has its own anthem.
  
• If somebody asks me where I'm from, I can say about any country in Europe, South America, North America or former British Commonwealth and probably not have anyone bat at eye.
  

One of the things I've always wanted to do is see a soccer game in a country like England where people live, die and fight with their football club. So tonight's game was a nice introduction, minus the fighting. The atmosphere seemed good for an exhibition game, with an announced attendance of 31,000. Chinese fans banged giant Tom-Tom drums and emplored their team to score and the soccer was pretty high quality.

I played soccer until I turned 14 and watch it on TV when I pass it on cable, but there are a few things that still make soccer somewhat unwatchable. At the game tonight, they had two teams of four people assigned to carry stretchers. Soccer can be a violent game --a Chinese player got kicked in the face and looked like she'd been mauled by an angry wolverine, but when players started cramping up in the second half, it was like the four guys were running around like a World War I triage unit. Leave the stretcher at home.


The game Saturday night was quite good, with the All-Stars taking an early lead off a header. The teams went into the half tied at 2, China scored in the 90th minute to earn a 3-2 decision.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=424000&cc=4716

Our bus ride home was even more eventful, with two guys arguing, in "hold me back, hold me back" fashion over two RMB (about 20 cents). We then escaped death after our bus driver bottomed out the bus twice on the way home and took every turn about 20 miles per hour over the speedlimit.

Before the game, we all guessed at the game's final score. My guess? 3-2 China.

--MB