Vamos River Plate!

After months of trying, I FINALLY went to a futbol game. Of course it was for River Plate (my adopted team). The game played out like this:

10:30a- Walked to Estadio de River Plate with Meredith, Christina and Rune to buy our boletos. No more of the cheap populares left. Crap. Oh well, we are going so let's spend the $50 (pesos not dolares) and get tickets anyways. Unfortunately our Colombian friends can't come now.

11:00-17:00- Run some errands, and mostly eat Danish food (my frist time) and learn how to be Danish. It was highly entertaining to try and learn to speak Danish. About the only words I understood from them all were numbers.

17:00-19:30- PASS OUT due to the incredible amount of food I managed to shove into my stomach. Rested up for the game. I was awoken by the cheers and sirens from the busses filled with the Hooligans (fan club) arriving at the stadium.

20:45- Be told by police that we could not walk our normal way to the stadium because of the section we had to enter in. Cut over a street and still walk that way anyways.

21:10- Find some seats in the lower section and begin to be amazed by the madness of the fans. I can't even begin to describe the energy and excitement they had. Sparklers and smoke flares being set off everywhere. Singing and jumping. I can see why they don't serve alcohol at Futbol games. The energy and enthusiam they have sober is more than enough. They would be TOTALLY fuera de control should they drink.

21:15- River Plate v. Arsenal begins. Unknown to me, this is the Semi-final game for the Copa Sudamerica. River Plate is the only non-brasilian team left in the running. Needless to say this is an important game that River Plate must win.

21:16-23:06- Learn a few Argentine futbol cheers. Mostly I could only understand the ones that were composed of three or four words. Now it's your turn to learn them:
Cheer 1: Vamos Vamos Vamos River Plate. Vamooooooos River Plaaaaate.
Cheer 2: Soy de River. Soy de River.

There was also some playing going on during this time. River had a few really good opportunities to score, but alas failed to follow through. There was also a point near the end of the second half at which one of the players for River got a red card and was ejected from the game. Rune explained it had to do something wtih him taking down the furthest offensive player on the field, ruining their chance to score.

23:16- Game ends tied at 0-0. Because this was a Semi-final game, it couldnt' just remain a draw. We thought it would go into overtime but the rules of this tournament put them straight into Penalty Kick time. Sweet! Everyone is very tense and excited. There is a guy infront of us who repeatdly makes the sign of the cross and keeps praying. Obviously this is one of those times when Divine intervention is a must.

23:16-23:33 Penalty Kick time. First goes Arsenal. They score. Then River. Score as well. Arsenal's second is blocked as is River's. Game now tied 1-1. Arsenal scores again as does River. Still tied. Arsenal scores. Now 3-2. River's kick is blocked. Arsenal scores again. 4-2. Game over. River loses. Damn. God must have had it out for the guy who kept praying for River to win. My guess is he's dealing with other issues (world hunger or unrest in the middle east to maybe name a few).

23:33-23:52- Almost deafining SILENCE. I was amazed at how quite thousands of Argentines could be. Me being the non-sports person I am, was smiling and joking with Meredith. Until she mentioned that now was not a time for laughter but for sadness. River is out of the Copa Sudamerica. We should all be grieving. We had to wait for all of the Arsenal fans to be let out and reach saftey before turning out the thousands of upset River fans. Probably not a good time to be wearing Maroon and Light Blue or to be a River player (esp the keeper of the ones that missed their PK's). I was wearing brown so I felt pretty neutral and safe.


Overall it was a great experience and I'm so glad we finally went. I was already blamed this morning however by a River fan for their loss last night. I assured them I would never root for River again in hopes that they perform better next time. Maybe to get back into their graces I'll just cheer for Boca in hopes that I have the same effect on their outcomes as I did on River.