Greek Bailout and Grace Jones (Greece vs Ivory Coast – Game 4)

Our lowest key game in terms of football expectations, perhaps unfairly, but there’s anyways something to be seen at the world cup.

But first lunch. A local restaurant just across from the ground, friendly and well at up for local events judging by the great menu, though I did skip the hot drinks.

The order of the day was lots of rice, beans and some serious meat as a couple of the guys ordered the meat feast for two. You can probably spot that plate.

My choice was the local stew with rice and pirao (the waitress could not explain what this was so any insight welcome). A nice chicken foot in there I hear you say (you may have to look hard). It should also be noted that this is a half portion!

Then on to do some quick street business (minds out the gutter) as we sold our spare tickets, this time within a few minutes.

This gave us a bit longer to savour the atmosphere and check out the fans though the larger number by far were Brazilians.

Carmen Miranda

Greeks in togas and knitted spartan hats.

And Ivory Coast celebrity fan Grace Jones.

For full effect. The image consciousness even went to waving people out the way when press or TV cameras were pointed here/his way.

Brief game notes. Greece ran out winners via a dubious last minute penalty but the most interesting thing was watching how intensely the Greek bench felt every kick and tackle in the flow of the game.

Greece move on to the sadness of Cote D’Ivoire.

Tchau