Copa Libertadores 2010 games in Lima
Dale Uuuu, Dale Uuuu!!
Universitario de Deportes (Peru) vs. Club Atletico Lanus (Argentina)
Wednesday night we caught a cab out to the Estadio Monumental in Lima’s outskirts. It took us a few tries to catch a cab willing to brave the football traffic and to drive the distance, but we ended up with a gem of a driver who carved through the rush hour traffic. He and his Daewoo were a fearless and agile pair, and I would have been applauding wildly if I hadn’t been too busy gripping the back of his seat in terror.
We joined the crushing stream of people heading towards the Popular Norte section, where the most dedicated fans sit. Policemen on horseback paced the length of the line, herding us to where another line of police patted us down. The Policia Feminina (female police) were making girls remove their belts and throwing them into a pile by the entrance. (When we left we later saw a group of street kids sorting through the pile while a policeman stood by, watching). Fortunately my police officer didn’t notice my belt, although she did chastise me about my pen. Before I could tell her I was writing about the game, she handed it back. “You can’t bring this in next time,” she told me sternly.
We’d been to this stadium before, to see Peru play Uruguay in the World Cup Qualifiers, and although there seemed to be less people in the stands, there were plenty more in the 6 levels of boxes that ring the stadium (which seats 80,000).
The crowd was pumped, and quite rhythmically talented. They had a dozen flag-wavers, some drums, and (we found out later) a really good supply of fireworks. The only goal we saw during the game was by the U (we left a few minutes early and missed the second goal—they won 2-0), and it was appropriately celebrated with red flares, eardrum-shattering fireworks, and orange smoke bombs. The cloying mothball smell of the smoke as the orange cloud drifted over us, mixed with yellow confetti and weighted streamers which described lazy arcs over the crowd before the suddenly plummeting.
Despite the crowd’s enthusiasm, the game really wasn’t that good. The people around us quickly grew frustrated with La U’s defensive strategy of “boot the ball really hard and far, even if it’s out of bounds or to an opposing team member.” Scott shook his head. “Juegan tenis, are they playing tennis?” he asked after the twentieth pass in a row from one team to the next. Whatever their strategy, though, it miraculously worked. Dale U!
More of Robert’s photos of the Universitario game.
Hijo de Puta! Hijo de Puta!!!
Alianza Lima (Peru) vs. Estudiantes de la Plata (Argentina)
Rob came home shaken from a pickpocketing attempt when he originally went to Estadio Alianza Lima to buy tickets for this game. [Our advice for purchasing Alianza tickets would be to take a cab to the box office on the south side, have him wait, and return in the same cab. Do not venture to far from security in this part of town.] We’d asked Scott to come with us to both games partly for the fun and as a thank you (he’s been an extremely gracious host here at Tambopacaya), and partly in interest of having a Peruvian with us for a bit of safety. Scott was not excited about the Alianza game, and convinced Rob to bring only my little point-and-shoot camera.
We left two hours early in order to avoid large crowds and the attendant pickpockets that notoriously surround this stadium in Lima’s sketchy La Victoria neighborhood. This meant a lot of sitting, and a lot of little 50 centavo bags of popcorn from the passing vendors. As the Popular Sur section began to fill up with the rowdiest of the famously rowdy fans, though, we were glad to have staked out our seats in a quiet corner.
The crowd began chanting at least an hour before the game started, growing hotter and more compact, screaming insults at the Argentine coaches and players when they came on to warm up. There were several competing cheering sections that sang Alianza hymns at the top of their lungs.
The game took an ugly tone from the first couple seconds, when Estudiantes (who won the Copa Libertadores last year) stole the ball and made a quick and clean run at the goal, scoring before most of the Alianza players had even realized that the game had started. The crowd erupted and Scott, already watchful and on edge, became even more antsy. Missiles of streamers and water bottles soared through the air at the field, most falling short and ricocheting off the net that separated us from the players.
Each section was themed. The North was mellow, the East had red flares, the West had confetti and blue balloons, and the South (where we sat) had streamers, and a hefty row of riot police. Blue balloons from the West section drifted up against the chain link fence that separated them from us, nudging along before finally rising up to pop on the barbed wire. Confetti was constantly revived by wind gusts, and the few streamers that made it over the net caught there and fluttered in the wind, snapping at Alianza’s keeper.
The stadium was much smaller (35,000), but the crowd was more passionate. The 11-year-old boy behind us screamed the most profane things I’ve heard in Peru at the top of his lungs. “Hijo de puta!!” chanted the crowd whenever the ref made a bad call, and the riot police would line up with shields overhead to protect opposing team corner kicks from projectiles.
We left early from this game, too, again missing the last goal, though we were able to see three Alianza goals (they won 4-1). Scott was adamant about leaving early, and later he told us that someone had been just about to try to grab our little camera from Rob before they saw Scott heading toward them. It’s too bad that the Universitario game wasn’t better football, because it’s hard to enjoy a good team like Alianza when you’re constantly stressed out. Alianza Corazón!
More of Robert’s photos of the Alianza game.
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Make sure you catch a Super Classico between the two teams. Universitario are very passionate fans but we are also gentlemen haha, although that disappears when we play Alianza. Our playing style may differ from that of Alianzas but at the end of the day we still have more championships. Dale U!
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