in the summer of 2007 i had gone to live and study in spain for a little under two months. it was my first time out of the united states and it was my first chunk of serious traveling. needless to say i've had wanderlust every since and am much happier on the road. spain is a beautiful country, with beautiful people and something new on every corner. i was studying in sevilla, right outside of malasana, and my host family lived in the northern part of the city. they just so happened to be about 10 blocks away from the futbol stadium.
i've been playing soccer since i was in the first grade. it's something my dad got me (and the entire family) into. most weekends and weeknights were spent driving to and from practices and games. it's truly an amazing sport and i spent a good amount of my time up through high school on the field. i've won, i've lost, i've shouted, i've cried, i've got scars, i've got memories, and i've got stories. when i arrived in madrid it was the last three weeks of their premier leagues and the points were close. i followed the games closely and going into the third week fc barcelona and real madrid were tied in points for the championship.
for those who have never been to spain, or europe for that matter, trying to explain the tension, excitement, and anticipation of a game, not to mention this game, is extremely hard. castillians and barcelonans for the most part have an extreme distaste for each other. barcelona is on the coast in the catalan region and there are a fair number of loyalists (and even separatists) to this area. they speak catalan, a combination of french and spanish, and are extremely prideful of their city, their people, their culture, their lives. many of the locals in this mindset view madrid as a lavish, narcissistic city. a city that doesn't deserve to be the capital of spain with arrogant and ignorant people. on the flipside castillians think much of the same of the latter. this is what i learned from conversations with locals in both cities. so needless to say, this game was the end all be all of spanish futbol and often repeats itself as both teams are consistently strong. to add to the matter fc barcelona had been in the lead in points until early in 2008 when they started playing poorly and real madrid took over. real madrid still had gonzalez and still had beckham (before he sold out even more) and barcelona had ronaldinho but was missing star strikers messi and eto'o to injuries. superstars are all over.
a few days before my flatmate and i discussed trying to get tickets, but quickly discovered it was virtually impossible. the leagues offer memberships that grant the chance to buy tickets a few days before they go on sale to the public. unlike american sports however, there is no cap on how many tickets may be purchased. so many of the inner-city and lower class kids pool money together to buy an account for one person, and then purchase tickets for all their friends. scalpers were out of the question, as you were looking at thousands of euros (moreso for a championship game). so we decided to walk down to the stadium pregame and go to a pub to watch the story unfold.
fireworks and airhorns and cheers had already been going on all day but once we got down there it was complete disorder. riot police lined the streets and it took a good twenty minutes to walk the block the stadium was on. it was a sea of white and blue jerseys and yellow and red flags. dancing, singing, drinking were all in full affect. my roommate and i decided to watch the sea of tan-skinned locals as we ate at a restaurant on the second floor of a building. after food we traveled back down to the street, bought some bufandas, and wandered under the shadow of the grand stadium that was santiago bernabéu.
and then just like that everyone was gone, the street was empty, the game was about to start. the streets were completely littered with trash and there were two men wandering down a lonely side street with food and alcohol in tow. a police horse wandered off and the riot police talked and joked. pubs spilled out into the streets with people all trying to catch a glimpse of the TVs inside. my roommate and i took a quick metro to malasana hoping the crowds wouldn't be as bad. but they were.
and so we stood in a pub, standing room only, everyone with a pint in their hand, their hand in a fist, their eyes glued to the television. both real madrid and fc barcelona games were close and it was half time.
about this time my flatmate gets a call from another girl we know saying shes in the metro and a bomb went off. we rushed outside and after some more phone calls and some realizations she comes to the conclusion it was just a large firework that had gone off, lit by some pranksters or hooligans rallying for their home team. we wander to a pizza place with a tv and finish the game. even this place was packed.
so slowly but surely real madrid came back from behind and fc barcelona, though winning, couldn't clench the top spot with a win from madrid. a couple miraculous late goals later real madrid was winning and a short time later it was all over. the streets once again became a sea of people and we weren't even back at the stadium.
a metro ride back over to santiago bernabéu and the scene was surreal. never in the united states outside of a few historic baseball games and rivalries would anyone ever see anything comparable. disorder turned into mayhem as the roar of real madrids rally song echoed through the concrete stairwells. the roar flooded the street. flags were being raised as high as possible and fireworks were going off in every direction. car horns and car alarms were going off as people danced and sang and cheered. my flatmate was a little overwhelmed.
being the photographer i am i had my camera out taking photos of everyone and everything. and just as i brought my camera down from my face a spanish kid, obviously younger than me, came running towards me yelling (you can actually see his face in the blackness in the left of the header of this blog).
he pretty much told me in spanish that if i didn't put my camera away he was going to break it and beat the shit outta me. this is a bad situation for any non-native white guy in spain. and so i look to my right and his fellow inner-city friends, decked in flags and jerseys and bad tattoos, are all eyes on me. then off to the right i catch a glimpse of a group of hooligans who have taken interest, sensing violence could be one wrong word away, staring me down hard with skinned heads, boots, and braces. a friend of the local yelling at me comes up and tells me in very broken english that he was sorry but they 'do not like american journalist'. i told him in spanish i understand and that i'd put the camera away and to have a good night celebrating. and that was that.
my roommate went on about how 'we could've taken 'em dude'. i ignored him and continued to take photos as the stadium erupted into a flash of white fireworks and explosions echoed off the buildings. he really didn't understand this sport and why its so important here and everywhere else in the world. most of the kids at these games, just like the one who got in my face, will live their entire life working mundane jobs and providing for their current and future families. but these teams represent who they are, their city, their culture, their pride... who they wish they could be. they've been playing with coke cans and rocks in the street since they could run and followed their stars goal after goal, year after year. its that sorta passion i love to see in people anywhere in the world whether it be sports or politics or religion or life. it takes a certain amount of experience, heart, faith, loyalty, etc. to be that fervent, regardless of a positive or negative outcome. and i think its part of the reason i miss europe so much, because everyone here is so apathetic about everything they do. everything. i hate to think what would have happened to me that night if real madrid had lost.
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