A Return to the Field

After quite a hiatus I finally returned to the sports world yesterday and attended my first soccer game in Venezuela. Local club Caracas FC took on FC Carabobo in a matchup between two sides that were sitting in mid-table early in this Clausura season. The rojos, as Caracas is generally known, are one of the strongest teams in the league, finishing third last season and forming one half of the league's glamor rivalry with Deportivo Táchira, while as far as I know Carabobo does not have a particularly illustrous history. Further tipping the scales in the home side's favor was the fact that the day before the game the Caracas FC administration sent out a release informing supporters of Carabobo that they could not guarantee the security of their fans at the game, as violence has increasingly become a problem in the Venezuelan league. Thus as best as I could tell there was not a single Carabobo fan in the stadium. Or at least if there were they did not reveal themselves.


Soccer has not traditionally been a particularly popular sport in Venezuela. Both the national team and its club teams have served as whipping boys for the rest of South America. But the national team is probably the strongest it has been in its history right now, and they have a real chance to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil for the first time. As a result, interest in the sport is rising steadily. However all of the best players for the national side play abroad, mostly in Europe, and the Venezuelan league is still somewhat mediocre. Caracas FC was recently eliminated by Uruguayan giants Peñarol 5-1 on aggregate in the qualifying stages of the Copa Libertadores, and no Venezuelan team has ever progressed to the group stages via the qualifiers.

Nevertheless, Caracas is still a local giant and I was expecting big things from them yesterday. By which I did not mean that I expected them to start a pair of forwards who were probably each at least 6'3, surpassingly tall for these parts. One of them had apparently studied at the same academy which produced Fernando Morientes and Brian McBride, as his ratio of heading ability to foot skills was incredibly high. They also seemingly had managed to employ Sam Allardyce as manager, as during the first half I don't think Caracas even attempted a pass through midfield. They preferred instead to hoof long balls up at their target men, who would nod them back to a David Silva-lookalike who was definitely their best player. The 1980s English feel was completed by the intermittent drizzle that accompanied the first half. Their long ball tactics were surprisingly effective and Carabobo looked pretty futile in comparison. Still, Caracas only managed one or two clear chances until late in the half the most impressive figure on the pitch, the referee, gave them a big boost.

I mean that honestly and as a compliment to the referee, who was excellent all game. He whistled for a foul at the top of the circle for Caracas in the 42nd minute. When the players in the Carabobo wall left early twice in succession, he booked a Carabobo player. On the subsequent try the wall stayed in place, and Edgar Jiménez struck a beautiful shot into the far corner. In the second half the game opened up a bit and Caracas actually started passing the ball a little. Except when it reached the feet of their winger, #18, who was a Venezuelan version of Ryan Levitan, for the six of my readers who will understand that reference. He was not afraid to take on four players at once, and even managed to beat his defender on an occasion or two. More often he attempted a ridiculous dive after the ball was taken away or he dribbled it ouf of bounds.

Caracas scored a nice goal in the 67th minute, which surprisingly came via header not by one of their forwards but by Jesús "Chiki" Meza, the Silva-esque midfielder. Carabobo managed a consolation goal in the 89th minute, but they never managed to create another chance before the final whistle blew minutes later. All in all the game was relatively entertaining, and I would say that its quality was that of 1990s MLS rather than the standard to which the American league plays today. Don't say that to a Venezuelan of course.

Fernando McBride to the far left

The crowd for the game was really good for the most part. The Estadio Olímpico holds 22,000 spectators, and I would estimate that 10,000 attended. The visitors section behind one goal was completely empty, while the best seats under the roof were probably only 1/4 full. But the grada was packed throughout most of the rest of the stadium, and fans sung happily for most of the game. The songs were pre-planned and known to all, so there was little of the creativity or humor in them that distinguishes English crowds, or Cameron Indoor Stadium. Though the best line of singing, for me, came before the game started, during the national anthem. There is a lyric in the anthem, repeated once, ¨Seguid el ejemplo que Caracas dio¨ (follow the example that Caracas set (in reference to its actions during the War for Independence)) that the crowd belted out even more emphatically than the Cameron Crazies do with the ¨Oh!¨ during the U.S. national anthem. That was probably the loudest single moment of the game.

The torches were a nice touch

A track around the field diminished the amount of noise that reached the field, so I would not say that the atmosphere was overly intimidating for the visiting team. Nevertheless the crowd definitely had a grittier feel than that at baseball games in Venezuela. Soccer is a working class sport here, and all of the many banners hung around the stadium boasted of fan clubs from some of the rougher neighborhoods in Caracas. Tickets were 40 bolívares each, cheaper than for baseball games. While there were plenty of females in attendance, almost the entire crowd consisted of the 15-45 crowd, with few young children or senior citizens, unlike at baseball games. In the end, everyone went home satisfied and I was happy that my streak of watching draws (six in seven games attended) at club games in Europe had not followed me to South America.