Hold onto your hats...

…because this post is going to be a long one.

We’ll start with soccer. Today is the last game of the season, and my team has saved itself from relegation. We are currently in the third division and we will continue there. The way the Salvadoran professional league works, is there are 5 divisions, and the top team from each division moves up and the bottom team drops down a division. For a while were tied with three other teams for the bottom spot in our division, but we fought our way back in the last four games and are now assured to stay put in the third division. Second division gets publicized in newspapers and some games are shown on TV, so maybe we’ll win third division next season and move up, but I’m not counting on it.

Last week we had an away game against our cross town rival. Not only that, but our goalie and another player from last year had switched to their team in the off-season. This was a big game and we needed a good result to not be relegated. We had beaten them earlier in the season, so they were playing for pride. We brought two big trucks of supporters, and they had a bunch of fans as well. The field is completely surrounded by a chain link fence that is only about 3 yards beyond the boundaries. People lined up around the entire perimeter of the field pressed up against the fence—many of whom were drunk and belligerent. This scene would have scared me shitless 8 months ago when I first arrived here in El Salvador; last week, it made me as excited about soccer as I have been since college.

The game was a blast and I played phenomenally. Some highlights:

Our goalie, trying to stop their first goal, dove into the post headfirst. When people helped him up, he promptly stumbled backwards and crumpled to the ground. After a few minutes, people sat him up again and his eyes started to wobble and go back in his head like he was going to pass out again. 5 minutes later, he got up, ran a sprint to show he was okay, and played the rest of the game. This never would have happened in the U.S.

About 15 minutes later, I beat a defender and was taken down by another one right outside of the penalty box. We scored on the ensuing free kick. In the second half, I scored the go-ahead goal with a shot from about 15 yards out. The crowd went nuts.

With about 10 minutes left in the game, they were correctly awarded a penalty kick, but my team was certain we were being cheated by the ref (which is always the case if a penalty kick is called against us.) One of our fans/coaches came onto the field to pull back some of our players, but couldn’t restrain from calling the player who used to play for my community a traitor, which started a bit of pushing, but was quickly broken up. They scored to tie it 2-2 with only 10 minutes left. Two minutes later, their goalie came out to collect a ball coming into the box. When he hit the ground, the ball squirted loose, was collected by our player, and put in for the go-ahead goal. The ref, however, admitted he did not see the play, and asked the goalie what happened. Of course the goalie said he was kicked (which he was not, I was right there) and the ref called ‘no goal.’ Both teams went nuts, fans came onto the field, and the game was ended as a 2-2 tie with about 7 minutes left still to play. Even I yelled a bit at the ref, which made me feel like an asshole later.

One would have to be masochistic to want to be a ref in El Salvador. They work by themselves, no lines-men, and are verbally abused no matter how good or bad they are and usually by both teams. They are generally terrible, but nevertheless, they are working in extremely difficult conditions. It seemed like a perfect formula for violence—booze, tons of emotion, a lot of testosterone—but there was never even a hint of violence. Even when people were yelling at the ref, they were not threatening. The pushing match earlier in the game was quickly broken up by both sides. Leaving, opposing fans and players shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. It was fun.

I was going to write about other happenings, but this has already gotten too long. Later in the week maybe I’ll write a bit about work. I promise, I actually am doing some work.

Love to all.