Joga bola, tee iha (playing football, shit happens)

The Timorese do like their football, and it’s probably the most widely played sport. At the weekend I played football with a load of WaterAid staff and guys from our NGO partners HTL and NTF. Enough people for 10-a-side which was pretty good going. It was a great laugh, and some pretty good skills on show too. Kudos to the guys playing in flip-flops, though it does inhibit sparkling runs up the right wing when you lose your footwear every 5 minutes.

No skills on my part unfortunately, as anyone who’s seen me play football will know. Maximum points for effort and tackling, minimum points for skill on the ball. This is why I try to stick to sports without balls, like running and cycling, where effort and stamina matter but hand-eye coordination is not required.

Anyway, moving on… the Timorese do like their football. The only other team sport you really see people playing is basketball (mostly on courts newly built with ‘Pakote referendum’ money, massive budget overestimations leading to tidy profits for the contractors, but I digress). The Timorese national team isn’t so high in the FIFA rankings yet (currently 7th from bottom), but give them time… they only affiliated to FIFA in 2005. Wikipedia has a pretty good page on the national team. If there’s anything that’s holding them back, it’s that they have to stop playing every 20 minutes for a cigarette – virtually all Timorese men smoke like chimneys.

As in most developing countries, it’s popular to support English teams – the penetration of the Premier League never ceases to amaze. You’ll see little kids running around in knock-off Chelsea shirts, taxis emblazoned with Man U colours. When you see football related graffiti, it's always extolling the virtues of Nani, Ronaldo or other Portuguese players, like some I saw in Bebonuk the other day. Less common to see Rooney, though the similarity in temperament leads me to suspect he may have Timorese ancestry.

As soon as I tell guys I’m from the UK, they proudly state their allegiance to Liverpool, Arsenal or whoever, which (naturally) dates well back into the 90s and they (naturally) have a very good reason for supporting them. This is actually pretty useful, because the only time I really followed football was in 94-95 when collecting the Panini stickers at primary school and then 96-97 when we were all playing Championship Manager 2. This means I can look really clever by knowing bizarre historical details about their chosen team… (“ah Liverpool, yes, Grobelaar, McManaman, and wasn’t Graham Souness the manager then? Such great taste in moustaches back in the day…”).

Of course, the next question is “who do you support, then?” so I have to make some excuse about not really following football any more (“Oh, If I had to support someone it would be Coventry City, near where I’m from. They’re not very good now, but they did win the FA cup in 1987 you know…”)

There are quite a few pitches around Dili. We were playing at a place called Tasitolu just out of town. On the plus side, our pitch was by the beach with a beautiful view of Atauro island. However, that didn’t outbalance the fact that the pitch was far from “open defecation free” (to use some sanitation jargon) due to cows/goats animals roaming nearby. By the end of the game, most of the 20 or so cowpats had a couple of footmarks in them… tee iha (shit happens) I suppose. Hopefully these games will become regular, as it’s a good way of getting to know partner staff outside work as well.