Cop
11-03-2005, 01:15 PM
Goal.com- Twenty-two players, overwhelmed with excitement, ran on to the field.
200,000 eyes focused on the pitch, mouths wide open and screaming, eyes teary and minds completely occupied with a game. And millions were watching on the tube.
This is the game men play and all enjoy. This is the battle that is waged twice a year and we all identify with.
The fall season had arrived and the slow breeze was blowing on the field. Enough to make the players shiver and show their nervousness until the match begins.
I was lost in the match being played on my TV set and amazed with the beauty of the pitch, the scene and was savoring the moment.
That was 30 years ago … and I was only 13.
Nowadays, on the other side of the waters, those oceans separating the memories of the past from the reality of the present, we sit and talk and discuss and care, yes still care, about the REDs and the BLUEs.
We, the Iranians of the world, look for a reason, an excuse to find each other, find our home and in our hearts and minds, with this match we make our twice a year journey back to home. The older generation, the ones spending a couple of decades in the west, wherever west is, have the good old rivalry of the Old Esteghlal (Taj) and Perspolis to talk about.
The newer generation, teenagers and twenty somethings, somehow have learned to not only love football of the motherland, but also get into the color argument that is some forty years old. To see an 18 year old young man born outside of Iran showing emotions and passion about Esteghlal and Perspolis is amazing yet not uncommon. Well, there is a better word for that charged emotion; Heartwarming.
The game is usually played before sunrise California time. This year, it will begin at 3 AM on Friday, November 4th. Many of us, the eastern gypsies of the west coast of the United States wake up that early. The only time we are up at 3 AM is when Iran’s national team play or Perspolis and Estghlal march on the screens of satellite TV some thousands of miles away from Azadi Stadium.
In one corner, we have Persepolis, the Reds, wounded and hurt yet still proud led by Ali Parvin, the embattled self proclaimed “Sultan of The Red Land.”
In the other corner, Esteghlal, the Blues, enter the ring, led by a young coach named Ghalenoi, known as the Blues General, who seems like that he just hung up his football shoes last year. The Blues are better equipped, more talented and have better chance to win the season crown. They know how to score and can lighten the scoreboard when focused.
Yet, this is not a match about who is more talented or better paid. This is a match about pride, history and “Korkori” (talking trash).
In each side we have tens of millions of passionate, energetic, football loving men and boys and women and girls living in every corner of a country as old as the civilization itself.
This side of the globe, where football is still soccer and the game is played and popular by the youth and not as much the adults, the crazy football lovers of Iran, up at 3, 4, 5 or 6 in the morning, depending on the zone their times fall into, wake up, turn on the TVs, if not dressed in red and blue, think red or blue and for 90 minutes, become a part of an old tradition.
For 90 minutes, we join and become as one with 70 million hearts and souls living in Mashad, Esfehan, Shiraz, Tehran, Araak, Tabriz, Anzali, Sarri, Khoram Abaad, Hamedan and my beloved Khouzestan.
For 90 minutes, we join the celebration of a match that is so much a part of being a “youthful minded Iranian” and the fabric of our society as apple pie and baseball are in the U.S. Knowing full well that the qualiyy of the play on the pitch will probably disappoint us, we still like to watch the match and analyze how tenth placed Perspolis or Esteghlal in fourth deserve to have half of the national team players and to win the IPL.
We scream at the TV sets, as if the players on the other side of the world could hear us. Yet, in some strange way, our energy, transforms and travels over the mountains, deserts and waters, gets channeled into a football match, into that game, and then finds its way to the other side of the world and we become as one; as one as Reds and Blues could become.
I will wake up at 3 AM on Friday morning to watch my beloved and wounded and ripped apart team and I will have a broad smile on my face when they celebrate an impossible and unexpected victory on that fall afternoon in Tehran.
As a fan, I can always dream.
Kaveh Mahjoob
http://www.goal.com/NewsDetail.aspx?idNews=98250&progr=0
200,000 eyes focused on the pitch, mouths wide open and screaming, eyes teary and minds completely occupied with a game. And millions were watching on the tube.
This is the game men play and all enjoy. This is the battle that is waged twice a year and we all identify with.
The fall season had arrived and the slow breeze was blowing on the field. Enough to make the players shiver and show their nervousness until the match begins.
I was lost in the match being played on my TV set and amazed with the beauty of the pitch, the scene and was savoring the moment.
That was 30 years ago … and I was only 13.
Nowadays, on the other side of the waters, those oceans separating the memories of the past from the reality of the present, we sit and talk and discuss and care, yes still care, about the REDs and the BLUEs.
We, the Iranians of the world, look for a reason, an excuse to find each other, find our home and in our hearts and minds, with this match we make our twice a year journey back to home. The older generation, the ones spending a couple of decades in the west, wherever west is, have the good old rivalry of the Old Esteghlal (Taj) and Perspolis to talk about.
The newer generation, teenagers and twenty somethings, somehow have learned to not only love football of the motherland, but also get into the color argument that is some forty years old. To see an 18 year old young man born outside of Iran showing emotions and passion about Esteghlal and Perspolis is amazing yet not uncommon. Well, there is a better word for that charged emotion; Heartwarming.
The game is usually played before sunrise California time. This year, it will begin at 3 AM on Friday, November 4th. Many of us, the eastern gypsies of the west coast of the United States wake up that early. The only time we are up at 3 AM is when Iran’s national team play or Perspolis and Estghlal march on the screens of satellite TV some thousands of miles away from Azadi Stadium.
In one corner, we have Persepolis, the Reds, wounded and hurt yet still proud led by Ali Parvin, the embattled self proclaimed “Sultan of The Red Land.”
In the other corner, Esteghlal, the Blues, enter the ring, led by a young coach named Ghalenoi, known as the Blues General, who seems like that he just hung up his football shoes last year. The Blues are better equipped, more talented and have better chance to win the season crown. They know how to score and can lighten the scoreboard when focused.
Yet, this is not a match about who is more talented or better paid. This is a match about pride, history and “Korkori” (talking trash).
In each side we have tens of millions of passionate, energetic, football loving men and boys and women and girls living in every corner of a country as old as the civilization itself.
This side of the globe, where football is still soccer and the game is played and popular by the youth and not as much the adults, the crazy football lovers of Iran, up at 3, 4, 5 or 6 in the morning, depending on the zone their times fall into, wake up, turn on the TVs, if not dressed in red and blue, think red or blue and for 90 minutes, become a part of an old tradition.
For 90 minutes, we join and become as one with 70 million hearts and souls living in Mashad, Esfehan, Shiraz, Tehran, Araak, Tabriz, Anzali, Sarri, Khoram Abaad, Hamedan and my beloved Khouzestan.
For 90 minutes, we join the celebration of a match that is so much a part of being a “youthful minded Iranian” and the fabric of our society as apple pie and baseball are in the U.S. Knowing full well that the qualiyy of the play on the pitch will probably disappoint us, we still like to watch the match and analyze how tenth placed Perspolis or Esteghlal in fourth deserve to have half of the national team players and to win the IPL.
We scream at the TV sets, as if the players on the other side of the world could hear us. Yet, in some strange way, our energy, transforms and travels over the mountains, deserts and waters, gets channeled into a football match, into that game, and then finds its way to the other side of the world and we become as one; as one as Reds and Blues could become.
I will wake up at 3 AM on Friday morning to watch my beloved and wounded and ripped apart team and I will have a broad smile on my face when they celebrate an impossible and unexpected victory on that fall afternoon in Tehran.
As a fan, I can always dream.
Kaveh Mahjoob
http://www.goal.com/NewsDetail.aspx?idNews=98250&progr=0