La Coupe de Bogo

Every year during the rainy season when the kids are on vacation from school and the crops are being planted in the fields, the town of Bogo hosts a men’s soccer tournament for local teams. I don’t know if it’s actually called the Bogo Cup but it would make sense, so that’s what I’m calling it. The tournament, which has been highly anticipated and talked about by many people around town, began this month as the rains (and cooler weather) started to reappear.
So 10 local teams have converged on the Stade de Bogo for what will no doubt prove to be one of the great sporting events of 2009. The teams are split into two groups of five teams, each team playing their group opponents once. During group play teams receive 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss. At the end of the group stage the top two teams from each group advance to the highly anticipated Semi final round. I’ve been training with my local neighborhood squad, “Auxerre,” in the hopes of not making a complete fool of myself in front of thousands of people, and while I don’t want to jinx our chances we are looking like one of the teams to beat!

Group Match 1-

Auxerre 1 Magoumai 1
A cagey match in which neither team really got going at full speed. Magoumai took advantage of an early goalkeeping error to take the lead, but Auxerre battled back valiantly in the second half to salvage a draw. Fans were quite amazed to see some random white guy out on the field for the 1st half, and much to their amazement he didn’t get completely manhandled!

Group Match 2-

Auxerre 6 Clandestine 0
While Clandestine (the local moto-taxi driver team) put in a valiant effort, unfortunately this match was over shortly before it started with Auxerre’s lightning quick strikers bagging three goals in the first 15 minutes. Frustration was evident as two Clandestine players were shown red cards in the dying minutes for a couple of overly aggressive challenges. Early afternoon rain showers brought the temperatures down to a lovely 75 degrees in time for kickoff and continuing cloud cover helped to ensure that Auxerre’s new American midfielder didn’t die of heat exhaustion.

Group Match 3

Auxerre 1 Sarare 0
In the third match of the group stage, the so far impressive Auxerre squad faced off against the defending champions, Sarare. This “match” could be better described as a street brawl, and was one of those games that you check to make sure all appendages are still attached after the final whistle. Between the late tackles, elbows to the ribs and copious yellow cards served out by the referee, Auxerre managed to find the back of the net just before halftime. Sarare didn’t help their cause after the break by having two men sent off for tackles that looked more intended to break someone’s leg than actually take the ball. Not the prettiest of games to watch, but the Auxerre squad will be happy to escape with the 3 points (not to mention all of our toes).

And with that, there is just one more first round game to go and the lads from Auxerre find themselves at the top of their group with 7 points from the first 3 matches. That’s all for now, but keep an eye out for the latest scores as the Coupe de Bogo progresses into the later rounds.