Red Carded For Life

August 24, 2007

We stepped off of the plane and, seemingly, into the middle of Colombia. Within minutes of landing in the country, we were sitting in the middle of Bucaramanga watching Atlético Bucaramanga take on highly regarded Liga Deportivo Universitaria Quito in a contested and passionate football game (That’s ‘soccer’ for us Yanks). Everything relating to soccer in Colombia is witnessed and played with such fervor, that it would make the Pope blush.

The instances of an overzealous soccer culture in Colombia are numerous. In 1994, a defender for the national side, Andrés Escobar, was shot and killed in Barranquilla, by a fan upset at Escobar and the team’s failures at the World Cup, after having scored an ‘own goal’ in the World Cup that summer, thus eliminating the team, and the country, from World Cup 1994 in the United States—the deadly mistake was actually in a game against the USA, one of Colombia’s biggest rivals in the tournament.

A little further back in history, the story gets even more absurd. In 1970, while the England squad was in Colombia for a World Cup warm-up game, star England player Bobby Moore was arrested on charges of stealing a diamond necklace. The charges proved to be totally false, and Moore was quietly released. A few weeks later, while the team was back in Colombia on layover, Moore was arrested again, on the same phony charges and was again forced to spend weeks dealing with various levels of Colombian jurisdiction. Eventually, the charges were dropped and Moore was allowed to return to England.

Our game, hometown Bucaramanga, versus Quito would prove to be no different. The first image I have of the game was a giant pig, being roasted whole, on a spit that was slowly being turned by kids no older than me. The ears and were tail still attached, something that seemed horrifying and degrading. The stadium was packed, and people in the lower levels spilled out right up to the barbed wire fence that surrounded the field.

The atmosphere was intense. Supporters from both sides chanted incessantly, each trying to one up the other in their passion and creativity. Buca was the underdog in the game, Quito coming in off of an impressive league record in their native Ecuador. The match, however, was largely uneventful. The first hour or so was lethargic—each team playing too conservatively to risk moving forward in attack. Slowly, the fans settled into the rhythm of the game and subdued, but the energy bubbling just under their stoic veneer was palpable.

I munched casually on some papas fritas, content to soak in the atmosphere. The play eventually got more contested as the game reached the latter stages. The teams each exchanged two goals; each one for the home team was met with almost transcendent joy, while each one against resulted in a deep, resonant, guttural groan. As the game got closer to the end, the vendors were resigned to becoming spectators.

Water in bags, yogurt in bags and juice, also packaged in clear plastic bags all sat heavily on the trays that the vendors carried around. No one was buying their goods. The game looked more and more like a stalemate. The skillful Ecuadorians were facing fierce resistance from the dogged Colombians. The play was getting more and more physical and the rabid fans resumed their chorus of chanting. And then something terrible happened.

After a nasty collision, a Quito player was shown a red card by the referee, meaning that the player’s participation in the game was over. Incited, the player kicked the referee. Then all chaos ensued. Before I could even blink, the whole stadium erupted. While the history of human rights and sportsmanship in Colombia may be checkered at best, their respect for referees (or maybe excuses to cause all hell) I learned is unrivaled.

The vendors, who couldn’t sell a drink to save their lives, were suddenly overwhelmed with patrons. People were crawling all over each other in a mad rush towards the field. The bags of water and juice and yogurt were being hurled at the Quito players. Men were trying to jump the barb wired fence, and policemen rushed out to beat them back. Everything that could be used as a projectile was being thrown in fits of rage by the incensed fans. Parts of the pig I had seen earlier even found their way onto the field.

Like in a scene straight out of Lord of the Flies, the entire crowd chanced in robotic unison. “Pu-ta! Pu-ta! Pu-ta!” It seemed endless. The puta chants grew louder and louder as more and more people tried to rush the field. Then, from some deep crevice of the stadium emerged the SWAT team, decked out with assault rifles, body armor and heavy shields.

The SWATies, still having to avoid flying bags of juice and water, not only had to calm the crowd and weather the storm, but to break up and massive brawl that erupted on the field as well. After separating the two sides, and letting their scowls and large rifles do most of the talking, they crated a human tunnel with their shields for the guilty player to be escorted off of the field under.

The game, heroically, resumed. The Ecuadorians, now a man down, were overwhelmed. There was pressure from all sides on them, the opposing players, the rabid fans, the pissed off referee. The hometown boys scored a third goal and then a fourth. The final score read 4-2 in favor of Buca. The puta chants never subsided.

The next day the event was all over the news. The guilty player was lambasted by everyone from the ragged children to the president of Colombia himself. Later that day the player was banned for life from professional soccer, much to the delight of the nation.

I later learned that ‘puta’ meant a particularly nasty word and that amidst all of that chaos, I found a deep and lifelong love for the game of soccer. I’ve often wondered what happened to that Ecuadorian guy. I can only hope that he didn’t find the same fate as Andrés Escobar.