Football Fight

I´m not sure I´m going to the game, but I´m already wearing my Deportivo Cuenca shirt, so I´ll make a last attempt to get a black market ticket. The newspaper talks about our offensive trident. Apparently, we play a three-four-three formation. I´ve never heard of that formation, but it must be pretty aggressive. From the locals I spoke to last night, I'm assured this is an important game. I'm also given to understand that Manchester United's Ecuadorian, Antonio Valencia, is playing for us.

The streets are awash with my yellow shirted foes. I´m a little confused by the lack of red shirts, given that this is the home team. Nonetheless, after circuiting half the stadium, through hundreds and hundreds of metres of yellow entry queues, I'm the proud owner of a twelve dollar ticket, and for just thirty dollars. I manage to find an entry point dominated by my fellow red shirts. At the front of our queue, there's a woman with an arm covered in belts. As I close on the front of the queue, it seems that each person is being stripped of their belt by the police. It must have been an ugly day in Ecuadorian football history when the fans started going at each other with belts. Despite being disarmed, the fans, stadium and a a good distance around, is thoroughly policed by both policemen and soldiers on foot, horses, and Honda Tornados.

In the stadium, the extent to which the local supporters and I are outnumbered becomes very obvious, given separated blocks of fans. Over three-quarters of the stadium is yellow. Ahead of the match, the Barca' fans are singing, and frantically waving tube balloons. My gang is doing much the same. There's a hardcore of our fans going particularly crazy, but I can't work out what they're singing. Rolls of streamers and balloons are being handed out. Several of the fans have big wads of paper, cut into five-by-five centimetre squares for confetti. 


Cuenca score in the first half, triggering emphatic animation amongst my crowd. I join in with the jumping and shouting. Balloons are flying. A few pieces of confetti land on me - one piece is from a magazine, the other is piece of a child's maths homework on squared school paper. There's no love loss between the fans. A few of our fans are gesturing and shouting things at the Barca' fans that probably aren't very polite.


In the late stage of the game, we're still holding a one-nil lead. The yellow three-quarters suddenly goes crazy, then begins cheering as Cuenca concede a penalty. Our number one pushes the shot out and it's quickly cleared. The celebration on our side huge. The yellow fans receive a torrent of verbal abuse.


As the final whistle comes close, the yellow fans are singing and dancing again. The Cuenca fans are still loud, but nowhere near the volume of the yellows. I'm pretty confused. As the game ends, the two sets of fans exchange a hail of missiles - mostly empty bottles and corn cobs. I manage to escape from the stadium unhurt.

In town, I'm walking around looking for the celebrations, but there's little sign of the reds. There's plenty of car fulls of yellows making their way out, beeping their horns as if they'd won. I eventually confirm that despite losing, they've now won the league.

It's Sunday night, and although this is still a huge win for Deportivo, the standard South American Sunday night behaviour applies. The streets are empty and everything is closed. It's time to get out of Cuenca.