Les Grand Rivals Sportif

Lille won La Coupe de France, and then the very next weekend, won the league!

Needless to say, la folie (craziness) ensued!


I took the video with my digital camera without any additional lighting at night. Please turn up your screen's brightness for optimal viewing.

My favorite part of the video is the close-up on the soccer jersey of a fan.

It says, "Anti Lensois. 59."

There is a bit of a rivalry between the two regions in the department, Nord-Pas-de-Calais. There is the Nord, where Lille is, represented by the number 59, and then there is the Pas-de-Calais, where I worked as an assistant this year and where Lens is, represented by the number 62.

In France, each region is represented by the first two digits of its postal code.

Although the rivalry between the regions can be seen elsewhere (for instance we 59ers say that the people who live in 62 can't drive...), I think the rivalry is mostly based on the fact that each region has its own equipe du foot (soccer team).

This guy's soccer jersey pretty much confirmed that for me.

This year, Lille totally outshone its rival. While we celebrated numerous victories, Lens morned for its loses. They have fallen from division 1 to division 2.

But since we're so far ahead now, is it even fair to consider them as rivals?

Allez le LOSC!

Lille Olympique Sporting Club

Saturday night was the big game. Le LOSC (Lille Olympique Sporting Club – Lille’s football team) played PSG (Paris Saint Germain) for the Coup de France.

FBF and I met up with a group of friends at a bar that had a projector and giant screen in order to watch le match.

The game remained zero - zero until the last minute, when, finally, Lille scored! Suddenly everybody was jumping up and down, shouting, and spilling beer.

Lille won the game, one to zero, and as soon as the game was over, everybody took to the streets to celebrate.


Just after le match, right outside our bar, people were singing, cars were honking, and everybody was celebrating.

After celebrating in front of our bar, we decided to head over to La Grande Place. Everywhere we walked, we encountered our fellow Lillois waving le LOSC flags, singing victory songs, and cheering.


At La Grande Place.

We walked in a giant circle, ending up where we had started. Cars were trying to pass, but finding it a rather difficult task with all the pedestrians in the street.

Suddenly, there was a police car in front of us. They weren't as patient as their fellow drivers, and within a minute of being blocked in the street, rolled down their window and stuck a weird black object out of it.

Suddenly FBF grabbed my hand and started pulling me away. Seconds later, wet mousse shot out of the police car.

Immediately my nose started to burn and I started coughing. We had been sprayed with anti-riot chemicals.

After that, we all parted ways back to our respective houses. But even being attacked by the police couldn't dampen the spirit of the city after our victory. I continued to hear cars honking and people cheering into the wee hours of the morning.

Allez Lille O.S.C.
Allez Lillois, allez!

Olympique Lyonnais

I feel like I need to start this post off with an obligatory “Allez Lille-OSC!”

That said, Lyon’s football (soccer) team bus was parked outside my building all day yesterday!





So of course I paparazzi-ed them from my window. They finally left their hotel and walked to the bus around 19h, just in time to go and play my honorary home team.





FBF proceeded to tell me that one of the players on their team is known for his good looks and every French girl wants to do him. We sent text messages to his friends and made them all jealous.





My dark and blurry papparazzi picture of Yoann Gourcuf doesn’t really do him justice, so here he is in all his glory:



I think FBF strategically waited until after the team left to show me a photo of this guy on the internet.