One of my favorite songs (there are several) by the British rapper/garager/whatever Mike Skinner is called "Geezers Need Excitement," and it deals with the trials and tribulations of young British man ("geezer") when he's had too much to drink (gotten "lairy") at a nightclub ("the club"). Apparently, it's quite stressful because one has to deal with lots of subtle ultimatums, flirtations with one's bird, and general "cheshire cat" smiles from one's fellow lairy geezers. There is one line in particular, that I really like:
All rage sweeps up through your torso, you're moreso
ready to go over and show him whos man
Football fan style
And I've always wondered what, exactly 'football fan style' meant, and I've made it a mini-mission, along with seeing an image of the Virgin Mary, to figure it out while here in Spain.
As an FC Barcelona fan, I've had my share of football fan style moments, most notably at the Barça vs. Deportivo La Coruña game a few weeks back, but also this past weekend while watching Barça beat Real Madrid, which is a bit like watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees, only televised in 52 countries and widely considered the most important sporting event all year. The other funny thing is that Barça, the team championed by leftists, socialists, anarchists, and other misfits, beat Real, the team whose title was bestowed upon them during Franco's regime, the team called "The Whites," which was the same name given to Franco's nationalist army in the Spanish Civil War, and the team championed by supporters of the right-wing Partido Popular, one day before the 30th anniversary of Franco's death, in Madrid's home stadium. It was glorious. I went nuts, football fan style. Oh, and here's a sweet article about it that Ishai sent to me.
So, in my endless pursuit to find out what 'football fan style' really means, I had my eyes open (abnormally) one morning a few weeks back while walking to class, and I happened to notice this sign affixed to a mailbox:
The offer was unbeatable: €30 for a round trip busride, plus the price of the ticket, to the "repesca" game of the Spanish national team vs. Slovakia. The "respesca" is sort of a playoff in the qualifying matches heading up to the World Cup, so basically Spain and Slovakia had the same number of points, so they had to have a tiebraking match, or two matches. We went and saw the game that was played in Madrid (there was another in Slovakia, a few weeks later) at the Estadio Vicente Calderón, which is the home stadium for Athletico Madrid, the worst team in Madrid, skippered by Fernando Torres, a prettyboy young blonde who is actually a star of the national selection.
It was an extraordinarily wet night, but that didn't stop us from buying Spanish gear, flags and scarfs, and drinking for an hour outside while the people danced around and yelled "Olés!". Here's Brian representing...
All 5 of us representing...
Dave and Chris with litros...
And for the first half, the view from our seats...
Me, attempting "football fan style"... I'm probably yelling "¡Debote Calderón!" in this picture, which means, roughly, "Rock the Calderón!"
Some guys with loud horns, making an admirable stab at "football fan style", even in the rain...
The Slovakia cheering section, after they scored their only goal (Spain won, 5-1, and if they had won 4-1, I would have won the bet-on-the-score lottery that I entered with all the old dudes on the bus on the way to the game, and would have been reimbursed for the price of the entire trip... Instead, on the busride back, I was soaking wet, watching the Jean Claude Van Damme movie 'Replicant' for the second time, and wondering why Spain had to score that one lousy final goal). The fire that the Slovakians set in the stands was DEFINITELY "football fan style".
And then, in a football fan style move, we crawled through a hole in the wall of the Estadio Vicente Calderón to some vacant 5th row seats, where we sat for the second half...
And this sign, which reads, "One flag, one nation" and is a clear anti-Catalan reference to the Estatut of the Spanish constitution, proposed by the autonomous government of Catalonia, which challenges the wording of the constitution to re-designate Catalonia as a "nation" rather than a "nationality". I don't really support the Estatut but I do support FC Barcelona, so I took personal offense to this banner.
And when all was said and done, everyone was very wet...
That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment