Tal vez recuerdas cuando dije que futbal es vida... bueno, Chile es no excepcion. One of my good friends from work surprised me on Friday by saying "Paul, manana vamos a un partido de futbal. No preguntas." He wouldn't tell me who was playing, or where it was, just that I should wear blue and to be at his place by 4.
I will have to explain later but Friday was a late night, so I woke up Saturday in a rush. I had just enough time on Saturday to eat some breakfast and shower before the match. What I failed to realize is that even though I was being picked up at 4, the match didn't start until well after 6. Where did those two and a half hours go? About 50% went to singing the Universidad Catolica del Norte fight song, 50% went to heckling the other team, and 50% went to drinking. You do the math.
As you can see by the armada, as soon as we made it through the pat down at the gate, we were reminded of how many Carabineros would be joining us for the match. While I had always heard that futbol (or soccer) matches can get out of hand in South America, I remained skeptical until this point.
You can see my friend Ricardo waiting for a picture with his favorite "mascot", whose name was lost in translation. Why is the word "mascot" in parenthesis? Because he's not actually a sanctioned mascot. He's just a die hard fan that has been at every single game for the last 13 years, according to him. I should mention that Ricardo went to UCDN for college and remains a faithful fan to this day, though he has yet to complete his own mascot outfit as seen above.
I wish I could say that this scene was the result of a goal but this was still just the previa (or pre-party). Whatever drinks and drugs that were smuggled past the fence were quickly consumed in anticipation of the match.
You will have to look closely to see the looming Carabineros in full riot gear at the edge of our section. I started to ask one for a picture but my coworker advised against it noting that they had to be pretty tough to get this job. While looking around the stadium I noticed that our section was the only one that was fully encircled by the riot police. Upon questioning Ricardo informed me that we were in the section where the seats were the cheapest, and as a result had a high percentage of people from the bottom class. Even though this caste system is not widely acknowledged outside of Chile, I can attest to the number of people asking for money in our section alone.
Fifteen minutes in, goal!!!! For the other team. We were getting sloppy and had it coming, but there's nothing that can prepare you for the agonizing defeat of losing the first goal. In order to rally the troops you can see everyone climbing the fence and getting out the noise makers. As you might expect, this was discouraged and promptly stopped by the Carabineros.
As the sun slowly set behind the pitch, our heartache turned to sorrow as we watched a second goal against our team with only seconds to go. Alas, 2-0. Depressed as the fans may have been, they hung out for another 30 minutes singing fight songs and talking smack about the other team. When it came time to go it was on a somber note.
