Beautiful Women, Beautiful Game

I went to two Women’s World Cup soccer games on Friday night with some friends who were in from Olympia, Washington. It was my first soccer game ever! The first match was between Switzerland and Ecuador. As one of my neighbours in the stands said, “Only Switzerland showed up.” The score was 10 to 1. I still enjoyed every minute. The second match was between Japan and Cameroon. The same neighbour nearly cried in the opening few minutes, “They can play!” He meant Cameroon. While the final score was 2 to 1 for Japan, it was a nail biter all the way through. There were 31,000 people there, the majority of which were fans of Team Japan if the many national flags were any indication. Team Cameroon’s cheering section was much smaller, but equally awesome and much more colourful. The sportsmanship on display during the games was also very moving. If a player got knocked down, an opposing team member would help her up and make sure she was okay. The women behaved so beautifully, that I never once thought about the bad behaviour of the old boys in the FIFA fiefdom.