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Monday, 19 Jun 2006
I have to say I underestimated the effect that having some of the Ghana players runing around the field waving the Israeli flag would have on the egyptian and arab psyche. Hell, I even laugehd a little when I read BP's post about it. I thought to msyelf: Who cares? If anything, the people who have the right to be upset are the Ghanaians (is that a word?), not us. Right?
Well, I stand corrected. Many egyptians were apparently rooting for Ghana since it is the African team, and since we are an arab, african islamic country, our people root for all african, arab, or islamic teams, and having the Israeli flag waved at the end of the game was akin to a slap on the face for many of them. Suddenly everyone is rooting for Ghana to lose. They are even writing articles about it, and coined a phrase for it: Anti-Ghana-ism (english translation here) . Some are even calling for the saudi or Tunisian teams to start waving the palestinian flags after every football game that they win "in retalliation". We are all in Kindergarden apparently!
God bless Football!
June 19th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Even if every player in the Saudi and Tunisian teams waves the Palestinian flag after each game that they win, there’s unlikely to be much Palestinian flag waving going on. Who do they think they’re going to beat?
June 19th, 2006 at 8:45 am
The English translation of the article is very interesting. God bless automatic online translators everywhere..
Read the comments by the way. Lots of them are nothing but hilarious drizzle.
And people wonder why I’m anti-football sometimes
June 19th, 2006 at 9:04 am
I loved that translation. Anything can look interesting after it goes through an automatic translator. Poetic, even.
Anyways, this thing is so blown out of proportion.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I think the world is pretty accustomed to seeing Palestinian flags being waved. It’s kinda unusual to see Israeli or American flags that aren’t on fire though.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
http://fr.sports.yahoo.com/18062006/1/photo/photo-photo1-ghanaian-defender-john-pantsil-l-and-emmanuel-pappoe.html
June 19th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Ghanaian Player Waves Israeli Flag In Celebration
While celebrating a stunning 2-0 victory over the Czechs, a Ghanaian player triumphantly waved the Israeli flag.
June 19th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
How would the US react if an American player waived the Iranian, Saudi or god forbid Palestinian flag after a goal ?
June 19th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I think a better question might be how the world would react if we had mass demonstrations in the United States where Americans were burning those flags, R. Steele. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
June 19th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
This is more than amusing, b/c it puts the Egyptians in the position of cheering for the Great Satan against Ghana on the 22nd. Oh my.
June 19th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Who in the world will they root for in Thursday’s match?
June 19th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
That question was going on through the comments section of a couple of sites I saw.
I was too lazy to register just for the sake of telling them to stop being stupid for crap’s sake..
June 19th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
nice to see the israeli flag so much for israeli racism a total hoot in my mind.
maybe the ghanaian player will get Israeli citizenship and play on there w.c. team 4 years from now. hehehe
June 19th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
It was beautiful to see the Israeli flag.
I was watching that match live.
June 19th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Yochanan, that Ghanian player playes for TelAviv apparently.
June 20th, 2006 at 12:39 am
Celebrating goals
John Pantsil, a Ghana defender who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel Aviv in Israel, pulled out and waved the Israeli flag to celebrate each of the two Ghana goals that saw his nation defeating the Czech side on 18 June 2006.
…
June 20th, 2006 at 1:25 am
When I saw that I was shocked, only because it seemed so out of place, I mean this is the National Stage. The last thing I would expect to see is a Ghanian player waving another countries flag. My first thoughts were, there must be alot of angry arabs right now. I made some phone calls back home, aparently I was right!
June 20th, 2006 at 4:26 am
Beautiful and brave!!
June 24th, 2006 at 5:19 am
LOL, some of you are so silly. The player was waving the flag because he and two or three of his teammates play for an Israeli club. It would be like Appiah whipping out a Turkish flag for his club Fenerbahce after the game (although their supporters don’t need it; he already does enough interviews for Turkish TV).
Also, those of you Islamophobes suddenly supporting Ghana because one of their players waved an Israeli flag, just remember: you are supporting a team that represents a nation that is 33% Muslim with Muslim players, recognizable names including Habib Mohammed, Ghana’s rightback, etc. Also don’t forget that wonderful moment when Draman, Habib Mohammed, and a few others performed sajdah (part of a Muslim prayer) after scoring the first goal against the USA, in the same match which resulted in the USA getting eliminated.
June 27th, 2006 at 3:08 am
Pantsil is my hero–the only thing that would have been more impressive would have been if he waved the Danish flag.
GO GHANA GO!!!!
July 28th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
[...] His popularity at Hapoel Tel Aviv just went up…. and Update on 6/19: It looks like, among some other African Nations, his popularity has plummeted. [...]