The FIFA Club World Cup tournament is an annual soccer championship that brings together the club champion from each of the continents. This year’s tournament hosted in Abu Dhabi, featured local favorites Al Wahda…plus teams from Mexico (our closest home team), Korea, Brazil, Italy, Congo and Papua New Guinea. Lucky for us, one of the two venues used for the tournament is literally across the street from our apartment. Throw in the fact that neither of us have ever seen a professional soccer game in person, we had to go!

Megan scored some great seats for one of the quarterfinal match-ups:

C.F. Pachuca – Mexican team and North American representative
VS.
TP Mazembe – Republic of Congo team and African representative

Of course, we were pulling for the Mexican team, who unfortunately fell short, 1-0. But even with the loss, the atmostphere was electric. A band from Congo played the entire game….Mexican fans waved flags and wore luchador masks….both sides screamed chants to support their team. It was a lot of fun to take it all in.

We’ll be honest – neither of us are huge soccer fans and we didn’t understand some of the calls or finer points of the game. However, the action and skill level was easy to appreciate so we found ourselves thoroughly entertained.

A view of some of the action from our seats

The goalie from Congo had a unique celebratory dance….here is a quick clip.

After the match, the fun continued! Here is a “sideways” game being played on the wall. Yes…they are hanging from wires. First time we’ve ever seen something like this!