The menu had a lot of fun World Cup specials
The first of several surprises was the huge crowd of Colombians at the bar. The fans numbered in the hundreds, over 2/3 of whom were wearing Colombian yellow. It was thirty minutes before the game, and the place was already as crowded as Lexington had been for USA vs. Germany. Moreover, it was LOUD. While there was little chanting, the instruments were out in spades. Drums, tambourines, cowbells, horns, whistles, sirens, all being played constantly as the match approached. I asked one of the waiters if this is common. He said that they get a similar crowd for every Colombia game. Apparently, in addition to being the official American Outlaws bar of the Kansas City area, Futbol Club is also the place where the Colombian-American Society of KC always come to watch their team play. In the lead-up to the game, the bar switched the TVs from ESPN to Univision, so the commentary was now in Spanish. The main bartender told me that this is something they regularly do when they get a large enough crowd for a Spanish-speaking team (most often Mexico and Colombia).
The second surprise was how positive the Colombians were. From the moment the match kicked off, they exuded nothing but optimism. Their drums, cowbells, and whistles beat out an energetic rhythm from the opening whistle to the final one. Their voices egged on their players every time they entered the attacking third. This itself was nothing too far out of the ordinary for a regular USA game. What I wasn’t used to was the lack of any negativity. The attack gave away the ball to end a foray forward? The rhythm kept on beating. The defense committed an error which gave the Uruguayans a good opportunity to score? The Colombian voices refused to turn against their players. Not once, in the entire match, did I hear any Colombian criticizing or calling out their players, which was a stark contrast from the Americans, Italians, English, or Brazilians.
This positivity was reinforced in a strong way in the second half, when torrential rain started to come down over Kansas City, and the storm clouds blocked off the satellite signal, temporarily shutting down the TVs in the bar. The groan of dismay was the only negative thing I heard all afternoon. Despite an initial, restless quiet without the match on TV, the music resumed quickly. Phones and tablets were soon omnipresent as people scrambled to watch the match while the proprietors stood by and waited for the satellite signal to return. And, most surprisingly, not a single person left the bar.
It was during this time that I started speaking to some of the Colombians. One of them just joked with me about the TVs going out. “I think this is planned,” he said. “They want you to feel like you are in Colombia when the lights go out!” I couldn’t believe it. This man’s country was thirty minutes from reaching the last eight of the World Cup for first time in history when the TVs go out, and he is laughing about it? He wasn’t the only one joking around. Twice, several guys at the bar yell “goal!” to get everyone excited, then laugh when they look around to see who is celebrating.
I pointed out to the first man that no one had left despite the lost signal. “We believe,” he replied, ever the optimist. “We believe the signal will come back.” He then started talking to me about how much this match meant to Colombia. He told me about going to the ’94 World Cup to watch Colombia play in Pasadena, seeing them lose there, and suffering with them as they fell out of the World Cup picture for over a decade after 1998. He pointed to the TV (which had come back on by that point) and told me that these players, like him, had grown up watching the glory days of the 1990s and the subsequent collapse of the 2000s. To finally have something to cheer about again was a dream come true to them. “It means a lot more than just a soccer game to us.”
In the end, Colombia cruised to a 2-0 victory. In the process, they won a new fan. Not because of the way they played on the field (although they did play very attractive soccer), but because of their fans. They were happy, positive, optimistic, loud, passionate, FUN! They made it feel like an American game, only with samba instead of chanting. And they were so willing to include everyone in their party. For the sake of their wonderful fans in Kansas City, I wish the Colombian team the best of luck in the rest of the tournament.
No comments:
Post a Comment