Soccer is neither only a show of wits and guts nor a playoff between competent players. It is a layered game that involves players, spectators and the general atmosphere of the moment. The dusty sun-baked Sundays and the few heavy showers as the rainy season approaches have rarely ever been of much concern to players and spectators at Addis Abeba Stadium’s Katanga, Mismar Tera, Keman Anisheand DAF Truck stands.

If the start of the season coincides with major teams playing one another, what a mess it will be. Pandemonium and stampedes ensue, stones will be showered by some aggrieved group, and the police come rushing with their cracking whips and lashes. Some people doubtlessly get injured – a sight that has long been tolerated as an occasional episode at soccer scenes.

The spectacle of getting through one's line is another headache. Getting squeezed then breaking through to grab tickets from a person inside a tiny office over a window. By the time one gets through the turnstile, clothes and shoes will be messy if not torn, perhaps with a missing wallet to boot. Yet many inside are all smiles, even if they had to stand in the head-splitting sun for lack of seats.

The matches were enjoyable to many. The passes are impressively smooth; the shots, eagle-eyed; the headers, precise; the goal-keeping, excellent; and the defending, high-octane. Inevitably, emotions, which are plentiful, are expressed in their playful ways. They are not offensive, per se, and neither are they verbally abusive. But they are jibes taken at players and their supporters constructed often through rhymes and echoed by spectators sitting in different stands.

Wisdom of the stadium pundits, I call it. It is often what is more fascinating about going to the stadium, sometimes more than the games. The dress-downs, innuendos, volcanic eruptions of celebrating goals or near misses are what make the stadium experience unforgettable.

Some spectators come to watch a only if they think their team will win; others would not miss a game for the life of them. Sometimes, emotions are too high, uncontainable. Fans fight; there are cave-ins. People could seriously get hurt.