On my fourth week in Mexico City, I went to see a soccer* match at the soccer stadium.
Now, if you don't know me, this statement probably didn't seem all that remarkable, but if you do know me, well, I imagine that you might have just fallen off your chair, spit out your tea (see, in my mind, you're a sophisticated tea-drinker), or at the very least started questioning the meaning of life.
In case I wasn't clear, let's just say I'm not exactly a fan of soccer. Don't get me wrong, it's not so much that I have something against this specific sport, but rather, I have something against all sports.
With soccer, though, my biggest problem is this: the field is too damn big! Now, if you're a soccer fan, this "field is too damn big" theory probably makes no sense whatsoever, but if you are not a fan, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
See, as a non-fan, when it comes to watching sports, I have the attention span of a squirrel. This means that if the distance between point A and point B is too long, then by the time the ball gets to its destination, I've already forgotten about everything that happened in-between - either that, or grown a mad-professor-sized beard.
So, how did I of all people end up going to a soccer game? Well, I feel that when you're in a foreign country, it's important to try to experience it the way locals do, and, as far as I can tell, Mexicans LOVE soccer. Usually, if you go out to eat, there's a soccer match on TV. One day we went to a restaurant, where they were serving a particular Belgian beer. My fiancé pointed out to the waiter that that's actually a pretty cheap beer in Belgium (at this restaurant it was not) and said that he knew this because we had lived in Belgium for three years. The waiter seemed excited about this revelation and then said, "Me gusta la seleccion belga" ("I like the Belgian selection") and my fiancé said, "Si. Los Diablos Rojos" ("Yes. The Red Devils"), and even though I don't know anything about soccer, I knew right then and there that we had now officially stopped talking about beer.
So, in the spirit of "When in Rome," when I was invited to go watch a game at the soccer stadium, I said, "Sure, why not." I know, I know. This is a classic pearls-before-swine sort of a situation (me being the non-soccer-loving swine in this scenario, obviously), and I promise I feel very badly about that, but apparently not badly enough to decline this kind invitation.
The First Half
I went to the game with this sole (non-soccer-related) goal in mind: Blend in and do NOT look like an idiot! See, as an expat, every day you face obstacles where the potential of you looking like an idiot is unusually high, so, instinctively, you start avoiding these kinds of situations. For example, whenever I'm at, say, a Starbucks and start approaching a door with the text Jale or Empuje printed on it, I hesitate as I try to recall which one means "Push" and which one means "Pull," because we all know that a person who pulls a door when it should be pushed is the kind of stuff that Internet memes are made of.
So. With the intention of keeping the idiot-o-meter as low as possible on the day of the soccer game, I made sure I was prepared. First of all, I wore black, figuring it was a pretty safe choice (turned out I was right). Second of all, as soon as we got settled in our seats, I asked my fiancé these two simple questions:
1) which color jerseys are we supporting, and
2) which one of the goals do we want the ball to go into?
I was told that 1) we are supporting white jerseys and 2) we want the ball to go into the goal on the left. LEFT, I said (this point will become important as the story advances)!
But as soon as I got these little details out of the way, I was ready to start enjoying the game. And - to my surprise - enjoy I did! It was a particularly beautiful day, not too cold or hot but pleasant, and we had a clear view of the field. My fiancé got me a torta de cochinita pibil (a type of pulled pork sandwich), the crowd was cheering (not at the sandwich, unfortunately, even though it was totally cheer-worthy), and, on the right, the opposing team was surrounded by guards, protecting them.
For appropriate fan behavior, I just followed the masses. So, the first time "our guys" scored a goal and everybody stood up, I stood up with them. When the same phenomenon repeated itself, however, I realized there was a pattern:
Me: *snaps fingers* Oh! I get it! When there's a goal, we all stand up!
Fiancé: Yes, honey. We're celebrating the goal.
Me: I see.
[a short silence]
Me: Sooooo, how long until we can sit back down?
Fiancé: *a long stare*
Despite this promising beginning, though, it didn't take long before there was trouble on the horizon: We were about half an hour into the game when, out of the blue, the people around me started - get this - chanting. And not only was the crowd chanting, but Fiancé next to me was chanting, too (J'accuse 😠)! As I felt my idiot-o-meter needle dangerously approach the red zone, I turned to Fiancé:
Me: What? There's a chant? I wasn't told about a chant! Also, how do you know this chant?
Fiancé: *shrugs* Passive knowledge.
Me: *feeling peer-pressured to chant* Quick! Teach it to me!
Fiancé: Sure! It goes, "Go ya, go ya. *Gibberish-gibberish-gibberish-gibberish-gibberish-gibberish* Universidad!"
[a stunned silence]
Me: Seriously?! Chants are supposed to be simple! That's why they are chants, for God's sake.
Fiancé: It is simple. Listen, "Go ya, go ya-
Me: Forget it.
But even though this was a setback to the plan, help was on the way as Fiancé pointed out that the lyrics to the chant were displayed on the screen, and they would appear whenever it was time to start shouting. I celebrated this good news for about ten minutes until another chant-related problem surfaced:
Our guys scored another goal and chanting ensued. I glanced at the screen but there were no lyrics. Frantically, I tapped Fiancé - who was chanting with the others (the traitor!) - on the shoulder and pointed at the blank screen:
Me: Hello? Why are you chanting? There are no lyrics! You're not supposed to chant!
Fiancé: This is spontaneous chanting, dear.
What? Spontaneous chanting? Who's the sadist who thought of that one?! Let the record show that I'm vehemently against spontaneous chanting as it makes me look like an idiot. An idiot or a supporter of the opposing team, which is not great either.
But then, before I had time to protest, it was half-time.
The Second Half
The unfortunate chanting incident aside, I thought I'd managed the first half of the game pretty well, and after the break, I was ready to start anew.
The second half didn't seem to offer too many plot twists; Grown men chasing a ball, trying to score goals. So pretty standard stuff, I thought (foolishly), until something strange happened:
The ball was kicked into the goal on the left (this is not the strange part yet). Now, proud to apply my previously acquired knowledge (i.e. a goal = standing up), I lifted my derrière a few inches up from my chair until I noticed that the rest of the crowd were still seated. Confused, I sat back down and turned to my fiancé a.k.a my best source of soccer knowledge (which is not exactly saying much - sorry, hon) :
Me: *whispering* Hey, we made a goal! Why aren't we standing?
Fiancé: *looking embarrassed* It was the other team.
Me: No. It was the goal on the left. The left-hand goal is where we want the ball to go, remember?
Fiancé: They swapped sides.
What? Swapped sides? When did that happen? I'd asked my fiancé two very simple questions: Which color are we supporting and where do we want the ball to go. And now one of the pillars of what was supposed to make me not look like an idiot was crumbling down at an alarming rate. Now, I'm not a complete dummy. I have heard that the teams swap sides at some point, but apparently, coupled with my attention span of a squirrel, I'd completely missed when this had taken place.
Luckily, it wasn't long after this incident that we decided to leave the stadium to avoid rush hour. I let out a breath of relief and patted myself on the back for having managed to keep my pride more or less intact (well, hanging by a thread).
But little did I know that it wasn't over yet.
After the game
Just a few weeks after the game, my fiancé and I attended a seminar at the university of UNAM, the biggest university in Latin America. We were sitting in the audience, listening to an excellent speaker, and after she finished, we all got up on our feet and applauded.
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, until suddenly, something unthinkable happened.
Almost as if taken over by an evil spirit, the crowd started collectively shouting and punching their fists in the air. It only took me one second of horror to realize what was happening:
The audience was spontaneously chanting that goddamn soccer chant 😲(because the soccer team we'd been supporting had been the university team)!
I tried to look at Fiancé for help, but he was too busy chanting his heart out, too (Et tu, Fiancé?). As stated, I was on my feet and, to make matters worse, I was wearing heels (Why, God? Why?), so, feeling like half a meter taller than the people around me, there was nowhere to hide. I was too shocked to even try to lip sync, and the only thing running through my mind was my earnest wish to be swallowed by the 100-year-old academic floorboards. Also - because apparently no refusal to learn the soccer chant goes unpunished - there was a video camera in my face, filming audience reactions (lovely).
So, now, every night when I lay myself to bed, I have to fall asleep knowing that somewhere out there there's somebody with video material of me doing the very thing I've tried all this time very hard NOT to do:
looking like an idiot.
Oh well, I suppose no one can avoid their destiny, and mine seems to be becoming an Internet meme. So, if there's a moral to this story, it's this: The soccer gods are vengeful. If you're a non-fan going to a soccer match, for the love of God, learn that stupid chant!
* I know that soccer is called 'football' in this part of the world, but for the sake of my American readers, I've used the word 'soccer' throughout the post so as to avoid confusion.
