Gaaoooool!

Chu

ka, the Nigerian striker, dashes up to the opposing goalkeeper, neatly wrongfoots him, and unleashes a scorching shot, nearly ripping a hole in the back of the net. It's his third goal in 10 minutes—a rapid-fire hat trick. He slips off his lime-green shirt and runs, roaring, to strike a pose in front of his countrymen. Carefully, almost reverently, he places the shirt on the turf like an offering to the faithful. His fans bang bongos and clank cymbals and bellow right back. But hold on—aren't Nigeria's Super Eagles out of the World Cup, first-round casualties, winging their way back to Africa and ignominy? Not in Thailand, where they have firmed as favorites after a 6-1 trouncing of Japan in last week's opening match of the 1st Klong Prem Central Prison World Cup.

This is Asia's other World Cup—an odd, institutionalized assembly of confined fans cheering on confined players. Thailand's director general of corrections, Siwa Saengmanee, organized the alternative tournament to boost morale among prisoners at a time when the World Cup is on the minds of everyone—even society's pariahs. "Football fever has broken out in Thailand too," says Siwa. "So I thought, why not have a prison World Cup?"

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But a football match is a football match no matter who plays it, and Thailand's jailhouse version has all the ingredients of the genuine article: passion, pain and simply the opportunity to exult in the beauty of the game. "This is our chance to salvage some national pride—and some pride in ourselves as men," says Jovenal Prince, Nigeria's strapping midfield general and team captain. He's 35, and has spent more than a third of his life behind the bars of Thailand's biggest prison. "One day starts to feel exactly like the one before," he says. "You start to feel like a caged animal. So our World Cup is the most exciting thing to happen to us for a long time."

The last time the gates of a Bangkok jail were thrown open to journalists, it was to watch a dozen or so drug runners each get a bullet to the back of the head. That was almost two years ago, at Bang Kwang, the infamous Bangkok Hilton. Thailand was in the grip of a methamphetamine binge, and the authorities hoped the bloody scenes would dissuade people from dealing in these "crazy medicine" pills. When Klong Prem's gates creaked open last week, it was to celebrate another kind of madness—where the only shots fired would be on goal.

Bang Kwang was ruled out, says Siwa, because of the lack of a decent pitch and a paucity of expatriate inmates. Klong Prem is different. When the knockout tournament began (the final is on June 18), the prison boasted 1,158 foreigners—out of a total of 7,218 prisoners—from 56 countries. And while some of them are serving sentences of up to 30 years for crimes like armed robbery and murder, there aren't nearly as many hard cases and unregenerate desperados as you would find in Bang Kwang.

Teams of seven, with three substitutes, were chosen by prison staff to represent Nigeria, Japan, the U.S., Italy, France, England, Germany and Thailand. Games comprise two 20-minute halves on an approximately half-sized pitch. Only inmates nearing the end of their sentences, in good health, with sound behavior records—and some ability with a football—were considered for selection. The winners won't be granted anything as extravagant as their freedom—merely jail-bragging rights and a passable copy of the real World Cup trophy made of wood in the prison workshop.

At a briefing in the prison's outer section, Siwa explains the rules to a motley media circus. "Remember, this is a maximum security prison," he says. "Leave your mobile phones, bags and wallets in the lockers provided. Interviews with prisoners are forbidden except with my permission. You will be body searched." He smiles. "And if anything goes wrong, I hope you can run fast." After the promised pat-down and a trip through a metal detector under the scrutiny of granite-jawed guards clutching M-16s and big wooden sticks, the reporters are ushered through two sets of tall steel gates, past drab cellblocks and neat hedges. On bleachers beside the pitch, more than 1,000 inmates await the opening ceremony under flags, bunting and banners sponsored by Coca-Cola and local sportswear makers.

And what a carnival of otherwordly weirdness this alternative World Cup starter turns out to be. Think costumes by Vivienne Westwood and stage directions by Salvador Dali. Each of the teams is led out by the silicone jiggle of a "ladyboy" (Thailand's English term for transsexuals) to the off-key oom-pah-pahs of the prison brass band. Stubble shows through sweat-beaded pancake as the transsexuals teeter in stiletto heels on the turf. Miss Nigeria has an Afro wig, Miss England a ball gown and crown. Miss Japan is mincing in a kimono. Miss America has a jerry-rigged hula skirt that threatens to fall down. A thick papier-machE chain is snipped with giant scissors, and its two halves waft skyward, borne by rafts of balloons. It seems an unnecessarily sadistic bit of symbolism in a prison, but no one is paying much attention. With the Klong Prem World Cup officially under way, the teams take the field, looking as uneven as the turf. Most of the Nigerians are a full head taller, and probably twice as heavy, as the Japanese.

In the movies, the inmates would be getting ready to make their escape, or to whip a team of bullying screws. But Siwa has no time for the shenanigans perpetrated by prisoners in films like Victory or The Longest Yard. Guards flank the field, sticks unsheathed. But there are carrots too: inmates are allowed to watch live broadcasts of the real World Cup, provided they don't brawl or gamble.

The boss wants this story to abide by his script; an orderly fable about the redemptive powers of sport. And the men seem happy to cooperate. "I'm not supposed to talk about what I did to get put in here," says a sweat-streaked Prince at halftime. He says he still has "a few years" to serve behind bars. "You can start to lose hope in here. But training for this tournament the past few months has changed the whole mood in the prison. It's been good for the men."

Ten minutes or so into the second half, the journalists are told it's time to leave. Prison rules forbid visitors after 4 p.m. As the last of Nigeria's six goals is hammered home, a plane roars low over the prison, reminding these caged Super Eagles that their wings have been clipped. In the bleachers the chanting slows, becomes more plangent. Only then you realize what they've been singing all afternoon: "We want to go home, home."