I had been in love with “Baixinho” ever since my early teen years, seeing him score amazing goals for PSV. Later on, it was he and Stoichkov who made me a Barcelona fan. Plus, in 1994, he and Branco were my favorite Brazil players, the ones who, more than any other Brazilian “jogador”, made me a “Seleção” supporter. Oh, and did I mention he actually saved -quite possibly- my life the moment he scored against Sweden in that World Cup semifinal?...
A few weeks earlier, my parents had bought me new furniture for my room. One of the pieces was “hanging” above my bed, nailed to a closet on one side, and a smaller piece of furniture on the other. It had lots of space to put stuff, left, right, in the center, and I -stupidly- filled its central part with dozens of issues of some Greek basketball magazine I used to be nuts about back then...
The dozens of magazines were THAT heavy (added up), that in just a matter of days the furniture (hanging above my bed, let me remind you), started looking like a soft couch on which you sit, at the very centre of it, causing a significant “curve”. I could tell I had gone too far, but again, stupidly, I thought it wouldn't get worse, that I would just stop putting more magazines up there, and the furniture would stay put. I was wrong...
At 4-something, AM, in Greece, as I was watching the game on TV, Brazil scored, and I instinctively jumped out of bed to celebrate it. It was about ten minutes to the end, so it was kind of a relief. Two seconds later, my celebrations were cut short. The overweight furniture had fallen(!), and the spot where my head was a couple of seconds earlier, was then “occupied” by the side of the furniture that had just come crumbling down. Whether or not I sound overly dramatic, I genuinely fear that if I hadn't jumped out of bed to celebrate the goal, I wouldn't be writing these lines right now(...). Romário(?) had just saved(?) me...
What was hilarious though, was that my parents, terrified, came running to my room, saw what had happened, my mother was left in shock asking me again and again if I was ok, while my father only asked me once if I was ok, and then he started asking questions about the game (gosh, I'm laughing like an idiot even these very seconds as I'm bringing the scene back to my mind, almost 20 years later :-)), enraging my mother who couldn't believe that we were still focused on the game, despite what had just happened. Moms...
So, I did go to São Januário, and I did see Romário score twice in Vasco's 4-0 triumph over a practically... indifferent Grêmio side. The team from Porto Alegre, four days earlier, had qualified to the final of Copa Libertadores at the expense of Santos, and only three days later they were facing Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires, in the first final. In other words, Amoroso, Lucas Leiva, and their team mates, couldn't care less about the game against Vasco.
Football, yes, but “Australian Rules”, at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), Aussie rules football's “Maracanã”
That was the first ever football game I attended outside of Europe (in 2004 I went twice to “Australian Rules Football” games in Melbourne, loved it SO much, but... you know, that wasn't “my” football). Next day, a 32-year-old guy, tall and long-haired and not shaved for days and with his arms full of tattoos, couldn't help but shed a tear or five, as he laid his eyes first time ever on the... “Holy Grail” of us, football-fanatics, as far as visiting football stadiums-”temples” goes...
Inside the... “Stadium of stadiums”
Fluminense were playing at home against Sport Recife, they had just won the “Copa do Brasil”, so I took the metro, got off at “Maracanã”, walked up the stairs, left the station behind me, and there it was, on my left, the stadium I had, more than any other, dreamed of visiting one day, ever since I was a kid, and saw on TV, first time ever, highlights of the 1950 World Cup final (even though the last game between Brazil and Uruguay was not REALLY a final, but... anyway), when “200,000 people filled the biggest stadium in the world, only to leave it devastated”.
If you must know, I'm not making the “shedding a tear or five” thing up. Truly, my eyes got wet, as I stood there, in awe, a couple of hundred meters away, seeing my presence there as proof that I could dream anything I wanted, even visiting the most mythical place in my teenage, several years ago, mind, and I could go for it, I really could...
Jalisco, the historic home of Guadalajara. Not (even nearly) as... fancy as their new stadium, but a beauty of a stadium nevertheless
Almost a year later, my transatlantic matches went from two to four. I had chosen Mexico for a three weeks' trip, and I couldn't miss the chance to watch the “Chivas” at Guadalajara, and América at Mexico City, at another “temple” of world football, the Azteca stadium. What's funny is that I actually “ditched” the game at halftime(!), because that was the only day I could enjoy a Mexican “must”, a “Lucha Libre” afternoon, so between staying at Azteca only for the first 45 minutes and not going at all, the choice was rather obvious...
At Azteca, wa(aaaaa)y before kick-off
By the way, early May 2008, on my way back to Greece from Mexico, I spent a dew days at New York City as well, and didn't miss the chance to watch my first ever baseball game, and not just at ANY park, but at the “old” Yankee Stadium, the last season of the Yankees there, before moving to their new home.
15 to 18
15 Vasco da Gama-Grêmio 4-0, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2007, June 9
16 Fluminense-Sport Recife 3-0, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2007, June 10
17 Guadalajara-Puebla 4-0, Guadalajara, México, 2008, April 26
18 América-Monterrey 1-0, Mexico City, México, 2008, May 4
No comments:
Post a Comment