Top Mountain Finals

Just got back from the Lesotho Football Association (LEFA) top mountain finals. (Click on the My photos link to the right for the few shots I took.) It's basically the finals for their version of a premier league. The game was in Maseru, actually, I should say the games were in Maseru. They had the semifinals at 10 and 2, then the finals at 4. We showed up at 4:15, and even though I know everything here starts late (a la my last post), I still thought this game was going to start on time. Actually, it wasn't that delayed. Probably started five minutes after we got there.

Maseru has this big stadium, with a really nice turf field (the kind they have in JP where we play Ultimate). However, the stadium itself is pretty gross. The seats were really dirty, and there was broken glass around, but not as if it had been just broken, it seemed to have been there for awhile.

The crowd was way less rowdy than I thought they were going to be. Yeah, it was mostly men, and yeah they were all drinking, but it was pretty tame all things considered. No one was lightly fires or smoke bombs. There wasn't very much cheering or chanting either. It was kind of like being at a high school game. In fact, the level of play wasn't all that much better than a good college team. Maseru pretty much got it handed to them 2-0 by Mohale's Hoek. No really amazing plays, but it was fun to be out at the game, a good culture experience. The guys we were sitting near kept saying things like "Hey, that guy out there is Lesotho's Ronaldo or Lampard or Drogba." It was pretty funny.

As for vendors, there was the usual grilled chicken feet, corn, chips, beer, scone type things, etc. We didn't get anything, but there remnants of styrofoam containers told a different story of the rest of the crowd.

Oh, and we went to the game with Bokang, a friend I made at the gym. He's really nice and waiting to hear back from a grad program he applied to at Brandeis. And he's really into English football, so maybe I'll actually get to watch some games before the season ends.

One more thing. At half-time, this guy that was sitting near us, ran down to the track surrounding the field, cranked some music through the PA and started singing and dancing really dramatically. All his friends were laughing at him, but they started to get up in their seats and dance, too. People here have really good rhythm and they're not afraid to show it.