Brilliant story, showing how football can eve play its part in International Diplomacy. Thanks to our FBB liason in Europe, who plays for a variety of diplomatic teams & received this brilliant email on his mailing list recently! ***** Boys - I have to give you a brief on the hilarious event which took place in Tehran two days ago. One of the patrons of the Iranian FA had organized together with the local UN office, a friendly game between Diplomats and the Iranian MFA. I put on triple knee protection, drank four cups of instant coffee and went out to the National Stadium’s training ground to participate. After having walked into the pitch hand-in-hand with an Iranian child and listened to the National Anthem and a recitation of the Quran. We started a common warm-up in front of local TV and a few hotshots from the Ministry. Below you’ll find a quite remarkable line-up: Diplomat’s team Attack: Burundian Consul – Algerian Ambassador Mid-field: UAE Ambassador – Norwegian Ambassador – South African Consul – Belarusian Ambassador Defense: Spanish Ambassador – UN Head of Office – Yemeni Deputy - Eric In goal: An ex Iranian National team keeper Do I have to say that the pace was rather slow? The Spanish Ambassador pulled his ham-string two minutes in to the game, the UAE guy played in bonnet and long pants (unclear if it was to observe Islamic dignities or cause he thought it was cold), the South African Consul got shot in the face and after that he didn’t move an inch. Having the Belarussian Ambassador on my wing was a little problematic. Not because he was worse than anyone else, he was actually rather alert, problem was I didn’t know if we have re-established Diplomatic contacts with Belarus after our Embassy in Minsk was shut down last year. Would speaking about offside-traps and shouting “man each got damn it” count as a breach of this non-dialogue? Half-time we were losing 3-0. The Belarusian Ambassador took the floor and asked for “reform of the team”. Slightly ironic hearing him speaking about reform. In any case, Coach paid attention and in second half we managed to punch back slightly, although losing 5-3 in the end. No matter the speed of the Burundian Consul and the vigilance of the Belarusian Ambassador, Must say I missed having Ljungblom dribbling in front of me and Thorelli-Sigve to aim for in attack. More on the game here: un.org.ir/index.php/issues-development/issues-health/285-17-november-2013-tehran-diplomats-football-team-in-effort-to-promote-people-to-people-friendship
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:30:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015