Thursday, November 22, 2007

#143: Euro 2008

As I have said in the past, Kyrgyzstan is a Russia-oriented country (two Russia-based TV stations get the most viewership in the country, ahead of the Kyrgyz National TV, and Putin is probably the most popular politician in Kyrgyzstan, ahead of you know who), we tend to follow the European football closely. We cheer when Russia wins a game. We use the word nashi (Russian for 'our') for the Russian team. With England's defeat to Croatia, Russia got a chance to play in the European Championship in 2008.

Commenting on the Russia-Israel game, Russia's Channel1 news reader said that it would be an interesting game because Israel's coach is a Russian citizen (Russia's is a Dutch) and wondered how loyal he would be to Mother Russia. Plus, the news reader mentioned all the Israeli football fans who had emigrated from Russia. Which team they would root for? Regardless, the Russian team lost to Israel. Shame on the English team though.

1 comment:

Murzaki said...

It was also interesting to see how NTV was showing an interview with Olich (Croatian player in CSKA I think) where interviewer was always asking questions like: "Did you want Russia to win?", "Were you glad tht Russia got in?", "did you recieve the car promised by a Russian millionaire for every croatian player?" etc. I hope Russia's victory won't come up on the campaign Yedinaya Rossiya. :)