Futbol

I forgot to tell you all about the futbol game I went to (like, the first weekend here, even). A bunch of us went; we piled on the metro and headed out to the stadium. The stadium actually seemed quite primitive to me--although I don't think I was expecting anything fancy like Mile High or anything. But I guess I had some picture of a professional soccer stadium in my mind; this place didn't fit that picture.

In Medellin, if you follow futbol, you are either a fan of DIM (Deportivo something de Medellin) or of National. The game we saw was DIM vs. the Milionaires of Bogota. It was crazy! In the north end of the stadium, there is a mass of fans that chants and cheers nearly the entire game, all the while jumping up and down. The only thing I can compare it to is a football game at Texas A & M (it's a cult). Here's a video of the group--if you look closely, you can see the crowd jumping up and down. (UPDATE--it's taking forever to load the video and I've given up!)


They also had riot police protecting the two benches and the officials when they were near where the crowed could throw stuff at them.



Behind the goal near the previous picture, a little kid got caught up in the scrolling advertisement bar. They stopped the game long enough to get him out, but then started it back up while they worked on him and loaded him into the ambulance. Classy.