nicholas "niko" cookerly decided that things were safe back home in la florida (a supposed "colo colo" stronghold) and put his jersey back on after leaving the game and traveling home on the metro. apparently, he was wrong. after trekking up some combination of stairs and escalators, niko exited the station, whilst munching on some fine chilean pastries. outside the vicuna mckenna station were three inebriated, jubilant, fanatic (no other kind exists), "u de chile" fans. the fans of the opposing team did not take kindly to niko's choice of apparel. sadly, niko's spanish isn't quite at the level where he could make nice, even if these chaps were willing to hear it. in all likelihood, they weren't. after berating niko for some time the angrier fellow began demanding niko's remaining doughnuts. niko refused, stating that they were in fact his doughnuts. poncho villa was not convinced and after realizing he was not going to be fed, bitch slapped our hero niko in the frontal mug. the pain may recess, the lesson may be learned, but the knowledge that you may never be able to safely consume a doughnut while carelessly sporting a preference in a fierce, foreign, south american futbol rivalry while obviously being an (see: american) outsider... that wound doesn't heal. no sir.
so "superclasico" is a term used to refer to various prominent rivalries in various futbol adoring nations of our world. or their world i guess, galaxy sucks... even more with beckham i'm told. so regardless, in chile, there's several division one teams, but no greater rivalry exists than the one between "colo colo" (the most popular and arguably best team in the country) and "la universidad de chile" (the second best, arguably, of course). our boy perry "master P-town" hirsh is a fan of "la u" and april 12th was the the first superclasico of the year, so against the advice of most everyone i mentioned the game to, we went.
prior to game day, i received various warnings from locals and other earnest advice to simply not risk my neck by attending a "superclasico." "there's other games" they'd say. "did you say goodbye to your students?" they'd ask. of course, i assumed that 50% of the hysteria was just healthy aversion to any risky situation. since we're stupid gringos, this buffer doesn't really exist. we're more of the "i'll act accordingly after recklessly risking my life" type. so it went.
the game was in "estadio naccional," which, luckily, is the home stadium of "la u," the team we were 'for' and surefire signs of a substantial threat were apparent from very early on that saturday. stores close early, fans were diverted into wholly polarized routes into the stadium and are of course seated on opposing sides as well, a metro station was shut down (apparently) and several streets were closed. while walking to the bus stop it was impossible to not know which route you were on. all of a sudden clamoring chants, drinking beers, smoking pots, and yelling serious, serious obscenities (the c word in spanish!) were totally, way acceptable modes of behavior on a saturday in the early PM. things got even more vibrant on our bus ride to the stadium. after neglecting to pay any sort of fare, a mad posse of us boarded the bus and proceeded to beat the poor things roof to shit while going through a veritable songbook of pro-u de chile chants. the four of us gringos kinda just took it all in because our obliviousness was already so painfully obvious. they seemed happy to have us.
once we began nearing the stadium, the whole war-zone, post-apocalypse, i am legend (based on trailers) aspect of the game became more of a reality. near any police officer (carbineros) around was dressed like robocop and armed with some serious riot gear. to top it off, some creepy holocaust inspired windowless bus crawled up and down the streets waiting for some ish to go down. kind of foreboding, but spirits were unflagging. entering the stadium involved some interesting, uniquely latin american experiences like:1) walking through a metal detector, but not being asked to remove metal objects, thereby beeping, but not upsetting officers of said metal detectors.
2) walking through a veritable field of horse shit (from the caribenors' horses) to get to our gate.
3) feeling concerned for one's safety in a slew of staunch fans, only because we really didn't look like we cared either way.
4) realizing why we chose to sit in the considerably more dangerous "galleria sur" instead of the assigned seating sections in the much safer, emptier middle. the galleria is !!!wherr de party at ya'llz!!!
we entered the galleria general seating cacophony of joy about 40 minutes before gametime and it was pretty much unadulterated insanity until "la u de chile" came out onto the field. then it got real nuts:perry told me there'd be fireworks. what he didn't tell me is that the firework show would be put on by fans in the galleria and not the estadio naccional. i'm talking pretty much cats who brought in a 4th of july's worth of (legal?) pyrotechnics and with the full approval of everyone else in the general seating section, lit them off of their own benches all whilst chanting, smoking, beating on drums, throwing pre-cut scraps of newspaper into the air, stomping on floors, and yelling the worst obscenities chilean spanish has to offer. palabra.
this actually calmed down a bit once the game started, not because the fans' devotion was wavering, but because they, as we, became transfixed by the game itself. i'm sure the colo colo/u de chile superclasico isn't exactly the pinnacle of the sport, but it was some decent futbol nonetheless. not to mention fan reactions were so charmingly universal that just waiting for the next bad call/slide tackle/missed shot is fun in and of itself. the sole goal was scored in the first half by "la u" and it was a pretty ecstatic event - totally makes you understand that whole "treasured goal" argument for the game. the rest of the game of course was spent hoping them other b's wouldn't tie it up, and they didn't. it was a good day to be sitting where we were, a bad one to be sitting on the opposite galleria. approximately four fires were randomly started on the colo colo side of the stadium as they were a little unhappy to be losing to the home team and didn't really have any respect for their house. though it would seem wholly illogical to start fires in stadium seating where hundreds of women and children are sitting, ardent colo colo fans maintained their devotion the the cause... of acting like assholes. not to say that "la u" fans would act any differently in the same situation. i'm just glad i was sitting where i was is all.
after the game colo colo fans were let out first to avoid any street clashes. this is the tradition at games with more heated rivalries, the losing side is let out first, pretty much escorted to buses and subways by somewhat intimidating robocarbineros and then the opposing side is released. while we were waiting to be released, two kids ran onto the field and began playing a pick up game of futbol with a empty bottle of coke. cutest. thing. ever. the crowd totally got into it. something about the beauty of the game.
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