futbol

The other day, I went to my first European “football” game, and I really liked it. We got to sit in the front row! The teams were Real Madrid (real means royal in Spanish) vs. Ecuador. There were lots of Ecuador fans in the stadium too because Ecuadorians make up the largest population of immigrants in Spain. We took the Renfe, a very fast train, to Madrid to go to the game. We had to put our bags through and x-ray machine just like at the airport, and the inside of the train looked like the inside of an airplane. The stadium was huge! It’s bigger than any football stadium I’ve seen in the states, I think I counted 5 levels of seat sections, and the field is about as big as a football field in America. The seats were different in the fact that they didn’t have armrests or cup holders, but they folded down just like a regular stadium seat. They don’t have bleacher seats anywhere though. They have loge seats too, but I don’t know if they provide food and things like that like the loges in our stadiums. Right behind where the players sat looked like little box seats that we have at the Q behind the two basket ball hoops. The thing the players sat in looked like an above ground dug out. They were sheltered by something, but it didn’t go into the ground. The players from both teams also sit on the same side of the field. There is a fence that keeps the fans in their seats, and after that is a security guard with a billy club about every two feet that are supposed to keep people off the field; and after the guards is another steel wall that is short enough to see over. Every time a team scored and the fans started to cheer, the guards stand up and look real defensive. I think in the past that maybe fans have gotten crazy after a good score, or something. Also, if you have a bottle they take the cap away from you, just like at the browns stadium. One nice thing is that you can bring in your own food and drinks of any kind, and if you want to you can film the game on your own video camera. Of course, photographers with Canon equipment lined the field too. The screens on either side show the score, advertisements, the time, player changes, and celebrate when something good happens. They don’t have music playing in the background, though, or things on the screen that egg on the fans. The crowd sings and chants its own songs though, kind of like at a college game.
Now, I have a whole new aspect on football. It is much rougher than I expected. There are two periods of 45 minutes each, and instead of the clock counting down, it counts up from 0 and never stops. The game goes by so fast because of this. There are no time outs and the clock doesn’t stop for injuries. Basically, the players go full speed for 45 minutes straight until a 15 minute pause and then they go for another 45. When a player got injured, they looked really bad and sometimes medics would come on the field, but they tried to get up as fast as they can so they don’t loose time and continue playing. None of the players sat out because of an injury, they just got back up and kept going. At the end of the period, if the medics took time from the game to go on the field, they would add a few minutes of play time. The ball they play with is silver, and if it goes into the stands, the people actually give it back. Every few feet around the security guards are ball boys who throw balls to the players so they don’t have to wait for the one from the crowd to come back since the clock doesn’t stop. The players do some pretty cool tricks with the ball too. During the 15 minute break, more security guards line the field. Also, during the last 5 minutes of the last period, more guards come and they jump over the steel wall to line the field closely. Real Madrid won the game 4 to 2, and I hear that is an amazing score to see because most games have even lower scores like 1 to 0. The game started at 10 and ended around 12, so it seemed like we were in and out of there compared to American sports. After, people sing in the streets and run around and wave their flags.
We tried to get on the metro, but it was so crowded so we decided to walk and find the next station. The metro is just like the one in New York, but much cleaner and more modern. The stations are really pretty and have ads in them for movies and stores. We found a different station, but the metros slow down for the night so we ended up taking a cab home. Cabs here are really cheap, and we only had to pay 6 euro. We stayed in a hostel that was very similar to a hotel. It had two twin beds in the room, a TV, a dresser, night stand, and your own full bath. Usually hostels have a community bathroom. We stayed in the hostel that we will be staying in when we go to Madrid on Saturday. There’s a pizza place near by that I’m dying to try because it smelled like regular pizza. Usually, every pizza here has ham or blue cheese on it. Blue cheese is just weird on pizza, and I don’t like ham. They like worship ham and other pig products here, it’s disgusting. They also have Starbucks in Madrid. I can’t wait to go back, the buildings and really pretty and the city kind of reminds me of San Antonio.