Travels, Rambles, and All Things Useless: Catch Up Week: Day 1

Crazy fans!

Finally went to my first soccer game! It was La Universidad de Chile against Flamengo (Brazil) in the South American Cup. I can honestly say I had no idea what to expect due to the lack of exposure of the sport in the United States. Once we arrived in Santiago, we immediately met up with Sven's cousin and his girlfriend, who bought our tickets. They were both die hard La U. fans completely decked out from head to toe in blue. We entered the stadium about an hour before kickoff, and I was in shock from the moment we stepped in. The stadium wasn't as big as our football stadium in Norman (Aprox 45,000 people), but it was waaaay louder and much less regulated. It was completely full, and the field was surrounded by tons of police armed in riot gear. People brought balloons, streamers, huge flags, flare guns, fireworks, musical instruments, and lots of marijuana into the stadium. All of the crazy fans sat in 3 sections in one corner of the stadium, and we luckily had seats in the very middle of them. These were the cheap seats and you could definitely tell by the amount of "fleites" (ghetto people) around us. It may sound strange, but I was happy to be here. I wanted the real legitimate soccer experience, and that's what I got here. Our section was even surrounded by police and barbed wire fences. I've been to MLB games, OU/TX, and NBA Semi-Finals but none of these could have prepared me for the amount of yelling I would do during a Chilean soccer game. Like OU football, we stood for the entire time, but the biggest difference from any other sporting event is that we sung, chanted, screamed profanities for every second of the game. You literally did not stop at all for 2 hours. The songs ranged from the typical "We are going to win" to the extreme "Fuck the police", "Fuck your mom", "Suck it", "We are going to destroy this stadium", and more. Here is a pretty good example of how crazy the fans are. I couldn't even focus on the game because I was completely distracted by the crazy fans. At one point during the match, 3 kids started a fire four seats over from us, ON PURPOSE! For the next 30 minutes they danced and jumped over the flame. When La U. scored their first goal, I thought I was going to die. The sky was filled with fireworks, flares, and confetti. Someone shot a flare gun at our side of the stadium and it missed us by 10 seats. The worst/best part was the amount of falling everyone was doing on other people. We were all standing on our seats jumping, and I can personally testify that you don't always land perfectly. With the amount of celebrating, you would have thought they just won the world cup. La U. went on to win 2-0 in a game that didn't have much action outside of the fans. We stayed for about 30 minutes after partying with the fans, and then headed out. Everyone should experience this at one point in their life but just know you don't sit, you don't stop singing, and you don't quit smiling. Here are some photos from this crazy night: