El Salvador - Football Fever

August 13

Hello everyone!

I always find it interesting to see what sports are popular in the country I move to. Whilst Korea (baseball), Kazakhstan (hockey), Czech Republic (hockey) and Malawi (netball) all have other passionately-followed sporting endeavours, there is a common link between them all: football.

Watching Santa Tecla FC...through the cars...

Watching football in Malawi in 2017

El Salvador is no different, it seems. The country advertises itself in the airport as ‘Surf City’, which I’m sure I’ll investigate at a later date. However, the number of football shirts you see being worn around shows which sport rules the roost here.

This sign is prominent in the airport

Internet picture of fans at a national team game

Being part of the Spanish ‘Old World’, it is no surprise that Spain’s Primera Liga is keenly followed. An Uber driver told me that most people will pick Real Madrid or Barcelona as their team of choice. This has actually helped when explaining where I’m from, as I reference Gareth Bale. Not sure how you say ‘Wales.Golf.Madrid,’ yet but I’ll get there.

Bale has since moved to LAFC

Owing to its locality, Mexico’s Liga MX also seems reasonably well-followed. I’ve seen a few shirts and games have been on TV when I’ve been out and about in the evenings. It’s at a more ideal time for watching games out here. I’m going to have to get used to British games starting early in the morning.

Big teams include Club America and Necaxa

But what about football in El Salvador? Those of you who know the beautiful game will know that the men have qualified for two World Cups (1970 and 1982). Those who also know about history will know that violence during a qualifier for the 1970 tournament resulted in a brief military conflict between El Salvador and Honduras.

El Salvador lost 10-1 to Hungary at the 1982 tournament,
the biggest defeat in the history of the men's finals

A graphic capturing the key elements of the conflict,
also known as the Hundred Hours War

They are currently ranked 71 in the world (sandwiched between the powerhouses of Iraq and Cabo Verde) and have no players I know. They got to the final stage of qualifying for 2022 in the region (though it’s hard for them to not do that) but never really had a chance of making it to Qatar.

The women’s team are ranked 118.

A picture from the USA playing El Salvador, which was
played in Columbus, Ohio in January. Slight temperature shift...

The top 3 qualified for the World Cup, with 4th going
into an intercontinental playoff. 7th...is nowhere.

There is a league, called the Primera Division. Correction: there is usually a league, called the Primera Division. It’s currently suspended. When I asked about this, the phrase ‘government interference’ came up. It’s a common FIFA rule that if your government starts explicitly messing around in national associations, your national team is suspended. It actually happened to their neighbours, Guatemala, a few years ago.

As you can see, most future
matches are currently 'postponed'

To cut a long, boring story which I don’t fully understand short, a ‘Normalising Commission’ was set up possibly to investigate money laundering by the country’s football federation. This commission was set up by the government, therefore is seen as interference. I think. The commission stopped working just before FIFA’s deadline but the league is still yet to resume.

I was also told that the referees were sort of on strike. This may be stereotyping but having seen what can happen to referees in Latin America, I’m not overly surprised that they might want more money or protection.

An infamous example of a referee bringing
a gun onto the pitch in Brazil in 2015

I have now seen an example of this. The protection, not the violence. To keep players ticking over (and maybe bring in some much-needed cash), some of the teams are organising non-competitive friendly matches with one another. Our local team, Santa Tecla FC, were doing this. Some of the teachers are ardent followers of Tecleños and follow them around the country. Another newbie and I decided to join them.

The Santa Tecla FC flag

We headed west to the Estadio Las Delicias, a not-so-delicious looking stadium with a roof covering half of the main stand. The rest is fully exposed to the elements. In rainy season, it’s a bit of a risk to sit on the concrete steps which resemble seating. We got lucky.

Supporters trying - and failing for a long time - to put up
banners on the fences partitioning the stands from the pitch

Santa Tecla, who aren’t one of the better teams in the Primera, were hosting Alianza. They are from the big city itself, San Salvador, so there is a bit of a rivalry but also a chasm in support and finance. I’d associate it to Brentford playing Chelsea. However, Santa Tecla have won four titles in the last decade, so success is more evenly matched. ‘Titles’ actually work differently in many Latin American leagues. You actually have two per season, an Apertura (opening) and Clausura (closing).

The ticket office. A ticket was $4.

Recently, however, they’ve apparently been rubbish. Having just about scraped to stay in the league last time out, they aren’t seen as the perennial contenders that they were six or seven years ago. This was reflected in the match itself, in which they seemed to play OK but never really looked like winning.

Parts of the pitch were surrounded by cars -
prime parking unless they get hit by the ball!

Interesting moments from this experience? The referee being escorted on and off the pitch by riot police with shields. Me asking a man (who in the dark and with long hair, I actually first thought might be a woman) where I can buy beer and then being later told that the person had been linked to an attempted murder. The constant banging of the drums from the Alianza end (and being told that they were using some fairly blue language in our direction). 

Is it just me or do the riot police
seem quite far away from the ref?

Great experience and I will definitely be back. Assuming they start playing soon…

No rain but lots of mist came across the
pitch, making it quite atmospheric

Love you all,

Matt