Sunday, September 24, 2023

Match 9 -- France v. Namibia

Thursday, 21 September 2023

My ninth match, and the eighteenth of the tournament, was France v Namibia in Marseille. I had seen both of these teams before, but this was my first match in Marseille.

I thought I was following the signs and the crowd out of the subway, but I ended up taking the long way around. The entire crowd walking from the subway to the stadium got stopped by a police line for five or ten minutes to allow the team busses to go down the street. That seems like a design problem -- having the team busses use the same approach as the crowd. For my next match in Marseille I'll either try a different subway station or a different route from the station to the stadium.

Outside the Marseille stadium

I got some slices of pizza from a vendor in the tailgating area outside the stadium. It was good, but nothing to write home about. [Wait. Isn't that what I just did?] Another aisle seat, just behind the dead-ball line this time.


I count this one as architecture

Before the game started there was a guy in the row in front me standing on his seat. Even so, he was still shorter than the friends on either side. I was contemplating using Google Translate to figure out how to say "Sit down, Napoleon", but he sat down just before kickoff so I was able to avoid the potential international incident. [He was standing, although not on his seat, as the second half started. He noticed me leaning from side to side in an attempt to follow the action. He apologized and sat down as soon as he realized. I'm glad I wasn't a jerk.]
 

National anthems

I'm not saying Prince Harry was in the row in front of me. But I'm not saying he wasn't.

It was all France. 96-0. The big story was that France's captain and star scrum half, Antoine Dupont, left the game with a fractured cheekbone in the second half.  He got hit in a head-to-head tackle by Namibia's Johan Deysel. ([ had "John Doe" in here as a placeholder until I had a chance to look up who the Namibian player was. I was oddly close.] Deysel got a yellow card, which was later upgraded to red, for the incident.

Dupont had successful surgery the next day, but it is still unknown if or when he will return to the tournament.

...doug

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