Two Americans Take PSG
My first European football game was exciting but I didn't know what to expect going into the game. A friend who was attending the game with me even looked up "Beginner's Guide to European Football" and the French national anthem so we could sing along with fans. We were both also warned that no alcohol was being served in the stadium, but we laughed it off as if it was a bad joke. The first thing we learned is there are a LOT of leagues, and after learning that we gave up trying to understand the rules to the game because that was going to be hard for us newcomers. The only time I've watched soccer was as an excuse to drink with friends or if a guy I was dating was obsessed with a team, of course I played along as another die-hard fan.
After doing some research, we ran over to Champs Elysées where the big PSG store is located, to get all our fan gear for the game. We decided to just buy the teams hats to play it safe, in case it wasn't one of those games where everyone's faces are drenched in full face paint of the team's colors. Walking out the store with our PSG bags we immediately felt like we were targeted as tourists.
When we arrived at the stadium we walked laps around the entire stadium looking for our gate number to get in at the Parc des Princes. Out of breath, we made are way to a long line where the food stand was. To quench our thirst we bought two beers to help ourselves really get into the game.
Two people in neon vests stood at the entrance to seating section and one of them asked if we needed help finding our seats. Feeling embarrassed and somewhat lost we said apologetically replied "Yes." and the woman's face went from bored to appalled that we would actually need help. She rolled her eyes and quickly took us to our seats, hoping to get rid of us as quickly as possible. We gave her a heavily-accented merci and sat down with anticipation. We pulled out our phones to take photos of the field and felt stares coming from every direction.
We immediately realized we were sitting with a serious group of fans who were in the process of making fun of people in front of us taking photos, so we slowly put down our phones. We started sipping our beer, before realizing that we were the only ones with beer. This was puzzling because at most sporting events I went to back in the States, everyone of age had a beer in their hand.
We hummed along to the national anthem and the players ran onto the field. The game began and we became fast fans, despite the fact that we had no idea what was going on. All we knew was that if PSG had the ball it was good. As players from the other team dramatic rolled around the field pretending to be injured we booed along with the rest of the audience. When PSG scored we jumped up to scream with the fans. At one point, a player missed a goal so I instinctively commented, "Oh no, so close!" provoking the people in front of us to turn and stare. Turning bright red, I kept my comments to myself for the rest of the game.
When halftime came, we went back to the food stand to get re-fills of beer where the woman informed us they are only non-alcoholic. We quickly stared at each other and started laughing uncontrollably, feeling like the sort of idiots who would be drinking non-alcoholic beer. We tried ordering popcorn, but everything we asked for was all out, so we ended up walking past the lady who took us to our seats carrying our two bags of barbeque Lays, giving up our American identity. We continued laughing all the way back to our seats and wondered why the other team was on our side, forgetting that the teams switch after halftime. In the end it was a fun game, ending with PSG winning against Caen 6-0.
