Heredia VS Cartago

Allow me to set the scene.

The biannual National Soccer Finals. The last two teams play two games and the winner is determined by the combined score of both games. So in other words, if you lost 3 to 1 in the first game you could still come back…maybe. Or if you won 3 to 1 in first round you could still lose…eek. It all rides on that second game and how many goals you can get…or how many goals you can stop the other team from getting.

Cartago-They haven’t won a finals game in over 70 years…(75 maybe). They won the first game last Sunday…3 to 1. Really, they straight owned last Sunday. They showed up to the Heredia stadium last night ready to change history.

Heredia- Not the underdogs you wanna cheer for maybe, but who wants to lose to the team who hasn’t won in decades? They lost miserably last Sunday in the first game, looking more like a little league team than a national contender.

*Note: I live in Heredia and since I have no other loyalties it only makes sense that I should be a Heredia fan to the death…or at least to the end of my stay in the country.

Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. The sound of car horns honked this…anthem? ...throughout the streets of Heredia yesterday. All day. At any given breath or interval you could hear it miles away or just outside the door. The fans were rallying their enthusiasm, their support and their energies for the night ahead. The big game.

At 6 Veronica, Mary and I left the house to brave the streets for a pre-game beer and to meet up with some friends before diving into the red and yellow sea of the Heredia stadium. The game started at 8 and already the chants and yells and honks and beeps were echoing off every surface of the city. Central park was alive with loving fans smiling and sharing in the kinds of shenanigans that come from a life-long love of the same team.  Of course we were decked out in appropriate attire: Mary in a team T, Veronica in a red hoodie, and I in a shirt so close to red who would know, and a yellow lei draped proudly around my neck. Someone had given Mary a free team flag on her way to meet us at our house, and then on the street corner as we headed to the stadium she was gifted with a package of tortillas…to what purpose we never quite figured out but it was game day so what the hell? Vive Heredia!

Ooeee Oeoeoeee! El Teeaam! El Teeaam!

Sí se puede! Sí se puede! Sí se puede!

As we left the bar for the stadium the chants filled the air. So much optimism. So much confidence. So much joy. Last week’s performance didn’t matter. I was all about this night. This game. Every face was aglow with that childlike confidence that everything will be ok if I just cheer loud enough, or pray hard enough, or shine bright enough, my team WILL win. And as we filed into the stadium the insanity sunk in even more. An hour before the game and the stands were overflowing. Fans were perched on the fence between the field and the seats, with more clinging on below. The men were dressed almost as if it were Halloween with their red wigs left over from some ex-girlfriend’s slutty costume of years past, and their masks of whatever sort (it was festive so it didn’t matter). They wore face paint and body paint, and everything in their closet that was red and/or gold. The women wore their tightest pants and T’s, and their hair and make-up were flawless. We are Heredia, Costa Rica and we are proud.

But dressed to the nines or in nine different things, no importa, when the players came out on the field all were equal. Equally excited. Equally insane. Equally enthusiastic to give their voices up to their players for a win. I mean we’re talking screaming, jumping, throwing confetti, throwing rolls of paper that unraveled through the air like streamers, spraying fire-extinguishers filled with red and yellow…whatever it is fire-extinguishers are filled with. You would think we had already won. And our little group of fans for the night put on our game faces and acted a fool with the rest of them…

Ooeee Oeoeoeee! El Teeaam! El Teeaam!

Sí se puede! Sí se puede! Sí se puede!

I won’t give you a play-by-play. I actually can’t give you a play by play. Red cards. Yellow cards. The ball moving around the field…out of the stadium. People falling. My attention span is really only long enough to watch when the ball is close to the goal. I’ll just shoot for an overview. At half time Heredia was ahead 1-0. There was a current of mixed energy pulsing through the red/yellow mass as we waited out the minutes to the second half. Heredia was winning the game…but they still needed two more points to  beat Cartago for good. Heredia scored again sometime in the second half …it actually gets really fuzzy here. All I know is we went into a 15-minute overtime because the teams were tied for total points. Heredia scored again and the stands went ballistic…again. It was seriously like we won the whole thing every time we scored. Then Cartago scored. The teams were tied once more. More overtime…And then a shoot-out. (If we were worried we had paid too much for these tickets, by this time our fears were relinquished.)

A shoot-out. Five players from each team go one-on-one against the goal keepers. Alternating. Shot for shot. Cartago first. Point. Heredia. Point. Cartago. Point. Heredia. Point. Cartago. BLOCKED!!!!! Heredia. POINT!!!!Cartago. Point. Heredia. POINT!!! Cartago. Point. Heredia……GGGGGOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!The fans spilled over the fences and onto the field.  (I know the word spilled sounds a bit cliché…but it was honestly like a liquid mass of red and gold pouring, flowing, splashing into the center of the stadium.)

It was the part of the movie where things start going into slow motion and the camera starts zooming in on those beautiful little individual moments. The Grown men in their red and yellow crying and pulling each other in for the shirtless hug. Women in their heels jumping up and down. The old lady waving her little flag wildly around in the air and the old men running out to join the rest as if they were kids. Fireworks. Things would slowly fade to black and white as the stage was brought out onto the field for the awards ceremony and post-game interviews.

We didn’t stick around for the whole shebang. Hunger and warm beds were calling to those of us whose hearts are not so devoted to the love of the team. We pushed, and were pushed through the definition of a bottleneck as we tried to make out way out of the crazed stadium. After just enough time to make me feel a notch above molested we were spit out on the other side where the infection of joy was spreading and thriving out in the streets. The drivers were drinking and honking and moving a centimeter a minute. The sidewalks were crawling or teaming or just…alive. Someone was spraying water from a hose out into the street from the second floor. As we approached central park the church bells were ringing and if you looked up into the tower you could actually see the priest, his whole body and soul thrown to the endeavor. After a few minutes he stopped ringing the bells and took up a Heredia flag to wave from the window of the bell tower. Yes…I think even God probably did a fist pump or two.

The honking and hollering continued into the night…and the honking, on into today. As I ate my breakfast at about 9 this morning I could hear the horns out across the city…and even now (5:22 PM) a car just drove by: Beepbeepbeep Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. I criticize this country for its childishness sometimes, but sometimes it’s good to see this much happiness one place. 

(I dare not speculate on the despair and shame of not winning a twice-annual national soccer tournament 75 years strait when there are only 8 teams in the league...)