November 14
Hello everyone!
A lot of people in El Salvador, like much of the world, are obsessed with a game which involves kicking a round ball towards a net. It may not look like it from the crowd below, though…
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Estadio Cuscatlan, watching El Salvador play Bonaire.
Not one the masses wanted to see... |
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This burger, one of the thinnest I've ever eaten,
was being cooked at the bottom of the stand |
Football is the national sport of El Salvador. It’s all the kids in school want to play. It’s an easy conversation starter with a stranger. Admittedly, most of them focus on Barcelona, Madrid or Miami, but football is clearly a passion for millions of Salvadoreans.
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| Football merch on sale outside Estadio Cuscatlan |
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Messi's Inter Miami team played El Salvador in January. Tickets
for that were trading for hundreds of dollars. It ended 0-0. |
It’s fair to say that El Salvador’s national team, La Selecta, has underachieved of late. They have qualified for two men’s World Cups, the last of which was in 1982. They haven’t even made it to the semi-finals or final round of their regional competition, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, since 1989.
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El Salvador's first World Cup finals appearance, in 1970, happened
after the 'Football War' between them and Honduras during qualifying |
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| El Salvador suffered the biggest defeat in World Cup finals history in 1982 |
Their current world ranking of 83 (sandwiched by Angola and Bulgaria) highlights the fact that they haven’t been doing well for a while. It explains why they’re not even in the top league in the latest regional tournament. Instead of mixing with Mexico and cavorting with Costa Rica, they’re in a division with some of the lesser lights of Latin America and the Caribbean…
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St Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat and
Bonaire are the other competitors in ES's group |
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| The other team in the group, Bonaire, don't have a FIFA world ranking |
One positive of El Salvador plunging these depths is that tickets for their matches are readily available. The way this tournament works is different to the European version. Here, one of the teams ‘hosts’ for a weekend, in which each team plays twice. In this case, the four teams in El Salvador’s group were playing on a Thursday and a Sunday, with all at the capital’s largest stadium: Estadio Cuscatlán.
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According to Wikipedia, this is the largest stadium in Central America.
I'm assuming that doesn't include Mexico, which has many massive arenas. |
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The stadium hosted a Guinness World Record attempt a while ago...
for the most people brushing their teeth in one place |
A group of us decided to venture to the stadium, in the eastern side of the city, to watch them play Bonaire on Thursday evening. Traffic heading in that direction was intense, though it became clear upon arrival that this was due to regular rush hour traffic, rather than a special event at the stadium.
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The stadium is in a district called Antiguo
Cuscatlan, perched halfway up a hill |
After a stadium crush killed 12 people last year, stricter rules have been implemented in stadiums in El Salvador. One of these is that no alcohol is allowed. This led to the slightly bizarre scenario of many people being outside the stadium drinking as we walked up the hill to the entrance. It might have been as many as there were in the arena.
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| The line to enter the grounds. Some people were frisked. I wasn't. |
We had bought tickets for the cheap seats. A remarkable deal, this $5 ticket allows us access to all four matches happening this weekend. You can’t expect an actual seat for that price. Some people had come prepared…
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| Bum pillow: useful |
An expectant crowd was pretty quiet in the first half, owing to very little happening. Any gripes with players from Bonaire (one of whom plays for Dundee United in Scotland and looked far better than anyone else on the pitch) or the referee were greeted with whistles and chants which are homophobic when translated.
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This was a reminder lesson of words and
phrases I shouldn't try with my students |
Having hit the bar twice and missed numerous chances, a deflected shot finally breached a tiring Bonaire defence in the 84th minute. El Salvador comfortably saw out the game 1-0.
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| A hard-fought win |
Most of us agreed that the experience was interesting enough, but that we don’t need to head back to the stadium on Sunday to see whether El Salvador can win their group by not losing to mighty Montserrat. La Selecta may not be playing there much longer anyway, with plans afoot for a new 50,000 stadium in the centre of the city. Maybe more people would turn up there…
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| Ground was broken in September 2022 |
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| Futbol forever! |
Love you all,
Matt
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