My Baptism

I was raised in a secular household, and so therefore grew up without a religion (tear...). But I think that regardless of whether one identifies his religion as Christian, Hindi, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, or, in my case, doesn't identify religion, there has to be something to fill that spiritual void - to explain what can't be explained by the natural, and to feel something, dare I say, transcendental. For the Romanticists of the early 19th century, this connection was with the natural world. I suspect that I have a number of friends who feel this way - that the natural world, the world free of human soiling, holds something supernatural (ironically), something transcendental. And at times, I would agree to feeling this pull from nature. But I discovered last night that my true religion is football.

A friend of mine from high school came down from Madrid, where he is studying this weekend, to take in some sun and see the Costa del Sol. On Friday night, we went to the Málaga C. F. team store to buy tickets for yesterday's match. The tickets were in the following price categories: expensive, more expensive, really expensive, and Holy S*** expensive. We decided to get the more expensive ones - a wise choice, in retrospect. Naturally, game-day (Saturday) it rained all afternoon - the first time it has rained for more than about 20 minutes since I got here three weeks ago. I decided to go into town a little early to meet him and a few other people and go out for churros pre-match.

By the time we got out of the churro place (around 6), the rain had almost stopped and the 30 minute walk to the stadium, while not being pleasant due to the wetness and drizzle, was passed quickly due to my anticipatory adrenaline. Once we reached about two blocks away from the stadium, things started getting pretty busy. Lots of people, lots of drinking, and lots of Málaga jerseys. We walked around the outside of the stadium looking for the gate through which we were supposed to enter. Unlike at most stadia in the US where one can walk all around the stadium, here, the sections were cordoned off and it was simply not possible to go anywhere beyond the two or three sections where one's ticket permitted entry.

The people would swell in bulges around the gates while they waited for them to be open, so we decided to watch that madness from across the street, neither of us having the desire to be quite so intimate with so many Malagueñans. I get all the intimacy with Malagueñans I need from the bus. Our gate was actually one of the last to open (about 7:15 - 45 minutes before kickoff). We walked up about 10 steps to get out into the stadium, turned to the right, and sat down. Those were our seats. There was a divide in the lower level, with about 6 rows being lower down close to the field, then a walkway, and then the rest of the lower level rows. We were sitting in the first row of the slightly higher section of the lower tier - quite close to the field.

The first players to come out of the tunnel were the Barca goalkeepers, and they were met with a chorus of whistling and boos from the only half full stadium. The atmosphere was already deafening and it was still more than half an hour before the game was to start. The crowd cheered loudly for the Málaga players when they came out, but it was nothing compared to the roar of disapproval for the visiting players when they arrived. I've read about opposing grounds being intimidating for footballers, but I never understood what that meant until now. And once the game started it got even worse.

Málaga started the game a bit faster than Barcelona and almost surprised them within the first minute. I wide shot was as close as they came to scoring in the entire match. It wasn't that Barca dominated, although they did create far more chances and have more possession. Málaga, however, defended admirably throughout the match, and it took all of Messi's creativity, and Ibrahimavic's brawn to produce the first goal in the near the end of the first half. A little dinked ball over the top from just outside the box, that Ibrahimavic, after holding off the defender would have had to have tried to miss. The celebration was directly in front of us on the field, and I managed to get some a good photo or two. The only other thing of note in the first half was that Xavi gave the ball away once - in the 13th minute. I turned to my friend and correctly speculated that that would be the only instance in the match.

After about ten minutes in the second half, Piqué, who had just come on for Chygrinsky, the new signing from some Eastern European club, got a touch on a Xavi free kick to put it in. That effectively ended the game. The major talking point in the second half was when Málaga substitute Alberto Luque made a pretty bad challenge on Dani Alvés and got sent off for it. I don't know if it warranted a red card. Alves's acting merited an oscar, and when he popped up off the stretcher and jumped back on the field, I nearly covered my ears to the roar of disapproval from the crowd. And La Rosaleda is supposed to be one of the more hospitable places to play - at least compared with the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan (Sevilla), El Sarindero (Santander), and San Mamés (Bilbao). I wouldn't have wanted to be Dani Alvés, I'll put it that way.

Coincidentally, Barca put four past Santander in El Sardinero midweek. With Champion's League fixtures coming up this week, Iniesta was left totally on the bench. That was my only regret. Other than that, I felt that my baptism into the world of European club football was all that I could have asked for.