Football

Down here, they take their football (aka: soccer) very seriously. If I want to talk about football as we know it, I must refer to it as American football. Then try to tell them that there's a Canadian football. Watch confusion grow. Moving on: most everyone seems to have season tickets to one of the two city teams: the Rayados (which means 'stripes'), and the Tigers (which means....'tigers'). The rivalry between the two teams is intense, and you are either a Rayados fan, or a Tigers fan. We have been informed by students and peers alike that we will like the Rayados. The reason: the Tigers is the 'working class' team. So I guess if you're educated, you would want to cheer for the Stripes as opposed to the Tigers....but I digress.

One of the longer-term Canadian teachers offered to sell us her seats for last Saturday's game, as she couldn't make it. For only $25 a pop, we figured why not see what the fuss is about?

We went with another couple that we know (US teacher, Mexican boyfriend), and I'm glad because we would have had a much more confusing time if we had went alone. First of all, the stadium is part of the main university. And it is huge. Like, 70,000 people huge (thanks for the stats, Wikipedia). Here's a shot that I ripped off the internet; I put a yellow area to signify approximately where our general admission seats put us (click the photo for a larger image):

It was about that crowded too. Outside the main gates, there was a dour-looking police officer or soldier -- there was no telling which. Other uniformed dudes walked around with dogs, one of which was a very male doberman. We got patted down on our way in, I presume for weapons, as Mexicans uniformly hate drugs (the drug trade is basically destroying their economy). I was going to bring the camera (which is working again!!), but I had been warned that it would have been confiscated. (An aside: it kills me how you can't take a camera into venues, but people can still take their camera-equipped phone in and snap all the pics they want.) Walking through the lower level towards our ramp, we passed open grills with coils of sausage and other various meats (after seeing the 'cooks', we decided not to buy any food), beer vendors, a man guarding a gigantic block of ice on the floor (apparently they break off pieces for the beer pails -- more on them in a bit), and gag-inducing water fountains. I was warned off of the washrooms, so I have nothing to report there.

The lower seats of the general seating area are not seats at all; they are just concrete steps, Roman coliseum style. We ventured up higher, and were pretty much on the edge of our section (you can kind of see the separating fence to the right of my yellow arrow). This area had wooden planks to sit on. On every fifth stair or so, there was a beer vendor.They have these 20L pails of beer bottles and the a fore-mentioned ice. You signal to them, they pour your 1L beer, you give them 60 pesos ($6Cdn), and they somehow scrape together a living. Everybody wins!

Now you can't really see this too much in the picture; you'll have to direct your attention to the right side of the photo. The front-row of the stands are at ground level. There is a little wall (the front of the stands) and then two metres or so of grass. Then there is a moat. Yes an empty, concrete moat, like the type that surrounds the bear cages at a zoo, to protect the visitors. This moat is (presumably) to protect the field/players from the spectators. To add to this, in the end-zone was a black-clad cop with a dog. Because all of this was not enough, along the two metre strip of grass were riot-gear clad police, complete with sheilds. Needless to say, I was hoping for some action.

In the dead-centre of the endzone (do they call it that for soccer?) were the rowdies. You think you know what a loud, excited crowd is like, having gone to a football or hockey game. You don't. About 10 people came in with drums. Giant, blue bass drums (team colours: blue and white). Then there were the flags. About 10-15 small bedsheet-sized flags. They were all exactly the same, and all homemade. These flags flew continuously for the entirety of the 90+ minute game. Oh yeah, and the drums keep going too. And the songs. This team, you see, has about 20 different songs dedicated to them, and everyone knows the words. But what's singing if you're not moving to the music. Everyone in this endzone area was jumping around in time to the music. It looked like waves, or wind over tall grass. Also, twice a smoke bomb went off there too; I'm not sure of the logic of enjoying the game so much that you want to obscure your view with smoke. So there were drums, flags, smoke bombs, jumping and chanting the whole time. I was entertained.

But if they're that excited just watching the game, how about when there's a goal??? Well, when the Rayados scored, I turned to look at my entertainment. I was confused, and not disappointed. It was a human avalanche, I cannot describe it any other way. What seems to happen, is that for some reason they forget about the moat and the riot team and the dogs, and the fans seem to want to rush the field. So there's a flow of humans down onto that little strip of grass. Then the human-tide goes out, so to speak, and they flow back up to their seats, riot-cops encouraging them back up over their little wall. Fascinating.

Every time the team was about to score, everyone jumps up, throws whatever's in their hands, and screams in agony when there's a miss. My American friend received a cupful of beer in her hair a few weeks ago.

I was really looking forward to the reaction when the other team scored. Would there be blood? Riots? Scarified goats? This was the only time I was disappointed. There was nothing. Not even a general uproar (well, they still yelled, but it seemed less somehow). Maybe if volume is their way of cheering on their team, silence is their means of disapproving the opponents.

Half time's event: three obstacles reminescent of Most Extreme Elimination Challange, except there really weren't any safety mats and the contestents consisted of chubby children. Pretty much every one of them face-planted off of a hieght of 6 feet or so. Most amusing thing I've seen pretty much ever.

And about the game itself? I don't even know who the opposing team was, the final score was 2-1 for Rayados, and really, it was just a bunch of men kicking the ball around.