To all of my family and friends who know me, you probably know that I’m not a huge soccer fan. I just never have been. A big part of my family loves soccer because it’s a big part of Mexican culture; however, I’ve just never been attracted to it, or any other sports for that matter, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends invited me to a soccer game. At first, I was hesitant to accept the offer because I’ve just been navigating through life thinking that soccer wasn’t for me, but after a while of contemplating and a couple of my friends telling me to go for the experience, I caved. It couldn’t be that bad and even if it was, it was only one game, so it wasn’t that serious of a commitment, I thought to myself, so I agreed to go and the game was this past Friday.
My four friends and I took the metro to the stadium and as soon as we got out, the outside was flooded with street vendors selling team merchandise. I didn’t really see anyone selling the guest team’s merch, which I don’t know if that’s normal, but I didn’t really have a choice on what to buy. I guess it didn’t really matter though because the team “we” were going for was the host, so I ended up buying one of their shirt’s and putting it over the one I was wearing. I figured even if I didn’t like the team, it would serve as a memory of Chile.
After we bought our merch outside of the stadium, my friends were trying to explain to me the rules of the game and also a couple of chants that this particular team, Colo-Colo, had. I felt pretty good about the game despite my lack of knowledge of what was going on. We found our seats and we waited for it to begin.
The first half of the game wasn’t that good. It was a pretty intense game all throughout, but it was a little frustrating because our team was losing. lol, look at me! getting all into soccer. The opposing team had scored two goals against us and I just wanted to watch “my” team win during my first game in person, but it wasn’t going as I please. Then the second half started.
I had honestly lost all hope in the team and, just like I always do when things don’t go my way, I felt like giving up on them. During the first half, I would always stand up when the soccer ball was getting close to the goal, but I kind of just stopped caring during the second half…until Colo-Colo scored their first goal! Then I was hyped and I was super into the game. We scored another goal, and then another, and then we ended up being the winner of the team and I actually enjoyed the game! I was actually interested in something I thought I was indifferent about my whole life.
It was a lovely time and I realized that now I can, in fact, bond with some of my family members over this sport instead of always excluding myself from conversations with the excuse of “I don’t get soccer and I just don’t care for it.” It just felt nice to be able to enjoy something that I knew a lot of my tíos and primos liked. It made me feel like I was a little closer to them without even talking to them.
Anyway, here is a picture of my friends and I at the soccer game:
The day after, we even went to the park and played a couple of games of soccer, and I was able to learn a little bit more of it myself :D I’m excited about this new found like for this (:
Thank you for reading my blog,
J