World Cup - Moroccan style

The atmosphere at this year's World cup is electric. The place is the cafe in R'cif, in the Medina of Fez and several hundred Moroccan men are crowded into every possible space in front of the huge plasma screen. The noise is as loud as the smoke is thick. There are fans to clear the air, but I suspect they gave up sometime in the 1950s.

To get a seat requires arriving at least half an hour before kick off. Essentials are a cup of coffee and a bottle of mineral water. As match time approaches, children crowd in and soon it is standing-room only. France are playing Portugal and it is clear that the crowd would not be unhappy if their former colonial masters got a thrashing.

It was not to be. Yet, with every shot on goal, every foul, every trip, dive and free kick, the crowd goes wild. In the build up to a corner, the clapping starts and builds to a crescendo.

Yes, they are shouting for Portugal, the ironic fact that they are sipping French-style coffee and eating the odd millfeuille, seems to escape them. However, at halftime the atmosphere changes. France are one goal up and things are getting serious. An old man enters the cafe and starts calling loudly and waving a white plastic bucket.

Next to me, an American Sufi scholar explains to an Irish accountant, that the man with the bucket is a bit of a comic and that if we want a little bag of highly spiced, boiled chickpeas, we must not use the correct Arabic name for them. If we do that he will simply refuse to sell them to us. No, we must ask for them by the man's nickname for them - M'seeka. We do and for most of the second half our lips are on fire from the spices.

France wins and Portugal doesn't - such is life. On the way home, the young children are back in the street playing football. Now they don't call each other Ronaldo or Figo - but Zidane.

Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news