Embarrassment and anger ensued when the Syrian national anthem was played instead of the Lebanese anthem at the start of Lebanon’s 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia. Seeing as Lebanon has a touchy history with Syria, this was a bit of a boo-boo. If you know your current affairs, you’d know that at the moment the country is viciously divided by anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian groups, so it would be a bit like playing the German national anthem for England during WW2.

Sufficed to say the Lebanese players looked visibly angry, and will probably blame it for their loss when they get home.

Its not the first time this has happened: back in November 2007 when England lost to Croatia, the English opera singer tasked with singing the Croatian national anthem cocked up, quite literally. Instead of singing a line with the meaning ‘You know my dear how we love your mountains’ he mistakenly started singing ‘My dear, my penis is a mountain’. The Croatians were however lifted by this, and could be seen chuckling at the error… That’s why England aren’t in Euro 2008! Of course it is…

But all that is insignificant when faced with an error during an African Cup of Nations game involving Zimbabwe. The error itself was minor and probably not even that offensive, as it was merely the old anthem which got played. Nevertheless, the Zimbabwe Information Minister saw it as “a cheap attempt by the organisers to demoralise our boys,” going on to complain about both goals scored against his own (obviously magnificent) team. Talk about sour grapes…

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