Bulgaria-Sweden

This past Saturday I attended the Bulgaria-Sweden World Cup Qualifier match here in Sofia at the national stadium (same one I played in for the pictures below!). It was a big match because a win would almost guarantee that Bulgaria would be going to the World Cup in Germany in 2006.
I managed to score tickets (about 5 bucks each) and as it turned out, I was pretty lucky because no other volunteers were able to do so. I wasn't sure what to expect for the game but I donned by Bulgarian football jersey and headed out with Eric. Half of Sofia was shut down for the game and we found ourselves in a mob of people rushing to get into the stadium. Our tickets were the cheapest available so we knew that we would be pretty far up... but as it turned out we were actually in the very last row! As we made our way up (translation pushed, shoved and elbowed)to our seats I was confonted by a policeman all equiped in riot gear... helmet with retractable plasic cover included.

"Excuse me, but where do you think you are going?" he barked at Eric and I.

"Well... our seats, we have tickets for this last...."

"Sorry, no more seats."

"What?" I not very surprisingly asked him.

"There are no more seats... sorry, you have to stand here (in the stairwell)... those D#$@ Swedish fans took... mumble mumble... seats... mumble mumble... sorry, nothing I can do about it, I'm just a security guard." Sure, that explanation made sense...

Great. I displayed my displeasure to show him that not only did I speak Bulgarian but I can display Bulgarian expressions of anger and disgust as well. It was a pretty good act I guess, because minutes later... suddenly... out of the blue... 3 empty seats opened up. We jumped at the opportunity and although we found ourselves in the last row, we were able to stand on our seats and had a great view of the "pitch".

There was still an hour till the match but we were all standing, pumping our fists in the air, screaming at... well, just screaming... maybe for our team, maybe against the opponents. I wasn't too sure. The crowd was scattered with Bulgarian flags (Red, white and green)... some the size of pools, all of them glistening and wavering like multi-colored waves crashing down on crowds of ants. The chants began... "You nat-si, bul-gar-i!" "You nat-si, bul-gar-i!" which I was relieved to learn had nothing to do with Nazis... but apparently, according to our well knowledgable neighbor at the game, during the World Cup 1994 in the states... Americans thought it was about Nazis (huge controversy, according to him). Actually, the original cheer is "Vie Nat-si, Bul-gar-i" (Vie = You) which means "You Heros, Bulgarians!" -- but they decided to change the "vie" to english. Makes sense? Nah, not for me either...

But, this was my first taste of international and European soccer and it met all my expectations... fiesty fanatical fans, stoic riot police, smell of stale alcohol, chanting that sounds more like religious humming than any coherent words (the whole time was like "uhhh-ohhh-ummm, oooo-daaa-gooo!"), peanuts, oh.. and lots of national pride... and if that doesn't work... curse the other country for being uneducated animals...

We lost 3-0. D#$@ Swedes.... come on, lets go drink this one off and find us some Swedish fans to beat up.