The World Cup

So I am not going to lie- I really looked forward to being in Europe during the World Cup, and so far my experience with watching this amazing competition has not disappointed.  Four years ago, it was somewhat tough for me to watch the games, since many of them would air around 5AM, especially during the group stages.  Also, the games would be played on some random channels like ESPN46 or Comcast Sports Network Alternative, or something crazy like that.  Luckily, Macedonia has its priorities right and airs the games on their national networks, so it is very difficult to miss a game here.

At first I thought that we would have a big fan base for the World Cup among the PCVs, but so far the level of excitement experienced during the Super Bowl has not been reached for a World Cup match.  But each match is aired throughout Prilep, and it is comforting to hear the commentary from the matches bellowing from each bar from within the center.

The World Cup also helps to accentuate how international Prilep becomes during the summer time.  As I mentioned in earlier posts, there is a group of five EVS (European Volunteer Service) volunteers in Prilep.  Three are from France, one is from Italy, and another is from Romania, so each became die-hard fans when their respective nations played in the World Cup (as for the Romanian, she studied in Portugal at one point, so she put her weight behind that team).  My host brother also recently returned from Poland for the summer, and he brought with him his friends who herald from different countries (one is Polish, the other two are South African, and today another woman from the Netherlands will come to Prilep).  Thus, not only is the World Cup building on the international aura of serving in Peace Corps, but over the past three days I have sat in rooms while people had conversations in English, Macedonian, French, Polish, and Afrikaans. 

Just before the World Cup began, I was curious to see whom most Macedonians would support for the competition.  Unfortunately, Macedonia did not make it out of the qualifying rounds for the World Cup, but I thought that maybe the HCNs here would be supportive of one or two teams for some arbitrary reason (ie. just as I support the Germans, due to my German ancestry, when/ if the Americans are knocked out).  However, Macedonians have no clear choice when supporting a national team.  Two former Yugoslav states were playing in the World Cup (Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), but despite their former ties, I have heard little support among the Macedonians for their Southern Slavic neighbors.  Two of the main scorers in the Swiss team are ethnically Albanian, so it is possible that the ethnic-Albanians are supporting the Swiss national team in their feat.  And while I am somewhat surprised that there is not a national “choice” for a World Cup team here within Macedonian, I am not very surprised that hardly anybody here supported the Greeks (given the political strife between Macedonia and Greece).

Today, at 10PM local time, the US national team will play, and I really hope that I will be able to witness a win from our boys at least once during this World Cup.  But either way, it has been a privilege to experience the most exciting sports competition on a continent where soccer (here, football) reigns supreme.