That sound …
UAE World Cup hopes slide away
New coach cannot avoid a third successive defeat for the national side but the FA president is still hopeful despite a 2-1 loss.
UAE women's coach expects tough final against Iran. Read article
UAE women's team taking just one game at a time. Read article
That astonishing sound seemed to ricochet through the short halls of the small edifice amid Sultan bin Zayed Stadium on Monday night, and to epitomise want and effort and fatigue and crestfallenness, the whole bale of losing-side sporting sentiment.
It came from the gallant football players of a Jordanian side mourning a 3-2 defeat to Iran in the semi-finals of the West Asian Women's Championship, and as the sobs of several rose to the level of an uncommonly resonant wail, it upheld at least one old coach's adage.
A vivid and rollicking American basketball coach named Nolan Richardson used to say that, when out recruiting players, he would cock an eye toward talented guys upon losses, because if he saw them bawling in a corner he gleaned a sense of how much it mattered to them.
Well, even if you saw a thousand athletes cry the admirable cry over a thousand defeats in a hundred places, none could match Jordan on Monday night for honest, unwitting statement.
This thing mattered.
With the whistle they had toppled to the ground and remained there motionless while Iran's players charged from the bench to the pitch to exult all around them. Haltingly they had risen but with the tears unstoppable enough that some covered faces in shirts as helpers walked them off. One gave a cathartic boot to an unsuspecting paper cup.
Then they strode on inside and closed the doors and began comprehending ...
"They are used to being the best team so they are used to winning," said their manager, Hesterine de Reus. "Last time they took second place so this time they were really, really eager to do it again" - reach the final - "and to win it. So this really, really hurts."
And that sound …
And that curious sound came from the single stadium grandstand, and while it varied, it always landed somewhere between surprisingly exuberant and surprisingly loud.
In the opening semi-final as the UAE defeated Bahrain 4-0, a young Emirati man of considerable talent held an amplifier and led the crowd in a match-long series of chants and songs, giving the game a welcome backbeat. Then for Iran-Jordan, the stand just about filled with people and noise.
Iranian fans gathered steadily and soon one handed out flags from a steep collection. Teenaged lads arrived with painted faces and, in at least one case, painted stripes superimposed over clothing.
One brought along one of those hand-held horns, which then consigned untold spectators to eardrum damage during latter years. It seemed a place-to-be, young fans arriving all through the first half until, all told, they outnumbered a smaller, but sturdy, Jordanian contingent that made a good din early, when the compellingly fast Shahnaz Jebreen went ahead and scored in the third minute and sent the Jordan team cruising halfway back down the pitch in united celebration.
The majority chanted for Iran throughout, even right on through some of Jordan's glaring chances in the balance of the first half, and through Maryam Rahimi's hat-trick, and in fact chanted right on afterward, first when the players gathered in front of them to thank them and then as the players exited, the whole procession streaming out with a few horns honking and a few flags waving.
It promised a good scene for the final tonight as Maryam Irandoost, the Iran manager, said of the bout with the UAE: "We have a very hard match."
And that sound …
And that telltale sound came right from the pitch, where Iran's Niloofar Ardallani brought down Jordan's Jebreen during the 70th minute and the latter, peeved, let out a sort of a shriek as she kicked upwards at her aggressor during her topple. Both received yellow cards.
It told of the ruggedness of a match that for a spell of the second half featured Jebreen on captivating counterattacks, the defenders so befuddled with her - and so often surpassed by her - that they lapsed into a desperate turn or two.
"They were all so eager to win," De Reus said, "and emotions are very high. It's always like this. I think that happens when you are so fast. People try to stop you in another way."
Of course, the counterattacks usually followed some sort of dominance from the player who scored all three Iranian goals, Rahimi's size and strength so clear to the eye and haunting to the defence. Her finishing from the right on the first two goals that overcame the early deficit would qualify as emphatic.
"She's very young," Irandoost said, "and she's only on the team for one year, and for us and she's" - the manager grinned now - "like our Messi and Ronaldo."
She said that through an interpreter, but she needed no translation for those proper nouns, "Messi" and "Ronaldo" coming through clearly from Farsi to Arabic to English to all else at yet another heartfelt event in the world's loudest game.
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