Photos of a soccer match in Peru

[MicroBob]

Decided to put this in a different thread so as not to hijack too badly the other discussion comparing American and European sports-fans.
I attended this match in Lima, Peru a couple months ago and shared some of my observations about it in this thread.

link

apologies for the difference in size of the photos. I swear to you that RIGHT NOW photobucket has it that I edited them all to be of the same size. No idea why that got screwed-up.


The match was between Alianza-Lima and Sport Boys.
Both teams are in Lima but it's a really big city and this was a home game for Alianza. Sports Boys are way on the other side of the city.

Game ended in a 2-2 tie with all scoring in the first half and then both teams just playing it out and looking really tired in the 2nd half. It was hot, and it was the opening-day for their season so they weren't exactly in mid-season form.

Lots of noise. Trumpets, drums and non-stop singing. Especially from the Alianza side.
It was pretty freaking cool really.

Stadium might be 50k capacity or so and I would guess there were only 15k on hand. But they were about as loud as any American football game I've attended.

[Valerio]

that's a crisp looking field

[The once and future king]

Imagine the atmosphere if it had been full. Nothing compares with the atmosphere of a full to capacity football (soccer) stadium.

[Assani Fisher]

Why were so many people in the upper deck when there were perfectly good seats to be taken in the lower deck? Do they really care if you move closer if the stadium is that empty?

[imitation]

[ QUOTE ]
Why were so many people in the upper deck when there were perfectly good seats to be taken in the lower deck? Do they really care if you move closer if the stadium is that empty?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do people get in the mosh pit when they could sit in the upper deck and watch the concert better....

[Spy Dog]

Bob,

Did you ever make it to Astrid & Gaston?

[MicroBob]

king - yeah, the atmosphere would have been awesome with a packed-house.
This felt almost like the rated G version although there were a couple of scuffles that broke out in the stands that were quickly broken-up by any of the zillion armed-guards around.

Would love to go see a game between Boca Juniors and River Plate which are the main rivals in the Argentine juniors.
Some publication (Sports Illustrated or ESPN or somewhere) rated this as THE top sporting rivalry in the world worth seeing.
Rated higher than Duke/UNC, Yankees/Red Sox, other soccer rivalries, etc.
I know nothing about it really except the names of the teams and that their fans are REALLY nuts.
GF says no way she would be caught dead at one of those.
"Are you crazy? WAY too dangerous."
Hot damn that just makes me want to go even more.


assani - sitting lower meant you had a pretty crappy angle to watch the action and would be watching the game through a fence.

On our side of the stadium, sitting higher also meant you got to sit in the shade which was DEFINITELY preferred on this day.

Although in my pic of the seats across the stadium you can see one specific upper-deck section that had all these armed-guards around it. I have no idea why they were protecting that section specifically.

Soccer riots are very real and I think they can happen kind of without warning.
The Sport-Boys fans killed a fan of one of the other teams a year or two previously outside one of the stadiums.

So maybe that was just a section for the armed-guards to kind of chill and be able to look at both sides and not have to deal with people walking in front of them or something.


Spydog - yes, our last full day in Peru we finally got out to Astrid and Gaston's with her parents and had a very nice lunch.
We didn't spend much time in that MiraFlores district though. Her relatives and friends are in different places throughout the city so we did a lot of visiting and dining with them.

My meal and Astrid and Gaston's was only so-so but I was also pretty uncertain on what I wanted to order and didn't do such a hot job with that I suppose.
Will definitely try again on future visits.

Her Mom thanked me too because she had wanted to go for awhile but her Dad hadn't had time to take her.

[PITTM]

i keep saying the warriors playoff series is the 2nd best atmosphere of any event i have seen. They only follow when i went to see Barcelona play Chivas Mexico. i believe there were 102,000 in the LA Coliseum and the singing, dancing, chanting and horns never stopped. Soo loud. sooo many flares lit and thrown. sooo many people fighting cops, it was really quite a scene. i wish i had some non cell phone camera pictures.

[Levarkin]

[ QUOTE ]
Would love to go see a game between Boca Juniors and River Plate which are the main rivals in the Argentine juniors.
Some publication (Sports Illustrated or ESPN or somewhere) rated this as THE top sporting rivalry in the world worth seeing.
Rated higher than Duke/UNC, Yankees/Red Sox, other soccer rivalries, etc.
I know nothing about it really except the names of the teams and that their fans are REALLY nuts.
GF says no way she would be caught dead at one of those.
"Are you crazy? WAY too dangerous."
Hot damn that just makes me want to go even more.


[/ QUOTE ]

You have been properly informed. La Bombonera (where Boca plays) is very square, with steeply raked stands on either side, which has the effect of magnifying crowd noise considerably; similar principle to the Seahawks' stadium, I'm told. The rivalry between them and River is fierce, though few matches in BsAs will leave you wanting for competitiveness. Boca isn't the safest area in BsAs, to be sure, but you can grab a cab pretty easily right out in front of the stadium (as you should), and it's been cleaned up as the matches have developed as tourist events. You can walk around Boca during the day without a problem. I posted a review of a match I saw between Newell's Old Boys of Rosario and Velez Sarsfield of BsAs; not sure if posting blog links is approved of so just let me know if you're at all curious.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
The match was between Alianza-Lima and Sport Boys.
Both teams are in Lima but it's a really big city and this was a home game for Alianza. Sports Boys are way on the other side of the city.


[/ QUOTE ]

Jesus, DON'T THESE FANS WANT TO TRAVEL?????????