fao dazza

this is long winded but well worth the read:

South America is famous for its football. Think Brazil, think Pele. And Zico. And Socrates. And more recent superstars like Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos. Argentina’s not far behind in the global star stakes, with the now-bloated Maradona, the divine Batistuta, and Ardiles and Villa who lit up the English game after their 1978 World Cup win (we’ll draw a veil over Alex Sabella). But Peru? While the local population are as obsessed with their football as the rest of the continent, few English football lovers will be able to get much further than Newcastle’s Nolberto Solano in the Peruvian player stakes. If they follow the Champions League closely, they might just manage to name Bayern Munich’s Claudio Pizarro as a second. But that’s about it.

My knowledge of Peruvian football wasn’t much more extensive before I visited the country. I knew some of the team names, including the magnificently monikered Deportivo Wanka, but that was about it. But if you’re stuck in the smoggy, filthy hellhole that is Lima for a weekend, there isn’t much else to do other than watch football. And, while there is far more English Premier League football on TV than there is at home thanks to Fox Sports Latin America, the lure of watching a game or two in the flesh was just too strong.

A quick investigation of the fixtures showed I was in luck. Most Peruvian league games are played on Sundays, and the country’s biggest team, Alianza Lima, were at home. And the televised game on the Saturday was a home fixture for Sporting Crístal, the reigning champions, who are named after one of the country’s biggest beer brands. Two days, two games. Perfect.

Lima is a sprawling metropolis of over 8 million people, with streets over-run by minibuses whose drivers range from wildly erratic to downright dangerous. Road signs appear to be suggestions rather than instructions. And the horn seems to be a more important driver aid than the indicator. In theory, it should have been easy to get the bus from my hotel in Miraflores (the ‘nice’ part of town – though these things are relative) to St Martín de Porres where Sporting Crístal were playing. In practice, despite the multitude of buses proclaiming St Martín on their destination lists, a taxi seemed a much more appealing option than risking life and limb on a rust-heap bus driven by a lunatic. The 40 minute ride all the way across town cost all of s/20 – about £4 – so it was hardly bank-breaking, even though the bus would have been about 30p.

Unusually, the driver spoke good English, but he seemed more interested in trying to chat in German, his command of which, amazingly, was even worse than mine. But whatever language he was speaking, he thought I was mad for going to the match, and doubly so for doing so on my own. After telling me to make sure I got a ticket in the Occidente stand behind the dugout, he dropped me off by the side of a huge dual carriageway, with a horde of people hawking food, drink and knock-off merchandise to negotiate my way through. A policeman soon found me looking faintly bemused and warned me that there were ‘muchas robbers’ about, so heading straight for the stadium seemed much the wisest plan.

Armed with a s/25 top price ticket for the Occidente, bought from a battered looking ticket window that was so dark and dingy it was difficult to see whether there was anyone inside, I ventured into the stadium. An U20s game was already under way – they always seem to play a kids’ game before the main event – with visitors Union Huaral scoring a last second consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat.

Like almost all Peruvian clubs, Sporting Crístal don’t own their own ground, and play in the Peruvian Institute of Sport’s stadium, with some big games such as the derby with Alianza being shifted to the national stadium. And the St Martín de Porres had certainly seen better days. The old terraces had no such luxuries as seats – merely bum-numbing concrete. The décor was limited to peeling blue paint, with the distant Andes just about visible through the smoggy haze.

The battered concrete surrounded a pitch in excellent condition, with the grass mown in circles by an artistic groundsman. The football was rather less impressive, and seemed to consist largely of theatrical rolling around on the ground after innocuous-looking tackles. Five minutes from half time, the deadlock was briefly broken by a blinding 20 yard volley from the Crístal number 10 Sheput, which was rapidly countered by Union Huaral’s Ibarra following a well-taken one-on-one with the keeper. The players failed to add to the scoreline in the second half, with more squandered shots and ‘injured’ players being carried off on stretchers only to run straight back on. The over-fussy young ref didn’t help matters, either, with none of his shower of yellow cards being brandished in response to the diving.

I could have stood with the ultras in the Popular section behind the goal for the princely sum of s/6 – £1.20 – but it became clear why the taxi driver had steered me towards the Occidente. There was no obvious segregation, but half time heralded an outbreak of fighting, with riot police piling in to calm things down. A uniform-separated channel miraculously appeared behind the goal from front to back of the stand, and remained for the rest of the game. It all seemed to be part of the fun of the day out. Fortunately I found a taxi back to Miraflores very rapidly after the game, with the price this time a mere s/12. Cost of day out, including taxis, ticket and half-time drink: about £12. Well worth the numb bum, despite the low quality of the football.

If the taxi driver to Saturday’s game thought I was mad, my non-English-speaking Sunday driver clearly figured that insanity had set in. Alianza Lima are one of only two teams to own their own ground, the other being Lima’s third big team, Universitario. It’s in La Victoria, which is, apparently, by some degree the most dangerous part of Lima, with an even higher concentration of thieves and drug-pushers than the rest of town. So concerned was he for my safety that the driver pulled up a couple of hundred yards short of the ground and asked a couple of policemen to climb in. He then drove round to the entrance to the Occidente, where one of the policemen helped me buy a ticket from a tout for less than face value (surreal enough in itself), walked me right up to the correct entrance and, as well as reminding me about the muchas robbers, told me to find a policeman after the game to help me get a taxi.

Once more, the U20s game was nearly finished when I arrived. The stadium was again predominantly concrete terracing with an abundance of peeling paint, but at least this time there were wooden benches to soften the posterior experience of those who’d splashed out to sit in the Occidente. When the main event kicked off, it rapidly became clear that visitors Atletico Universidad were in for a bad day. Alianza went 2-0 up after 15 minutes, with a cracking 40 yard cross-goal volley from midfielder Junior Viza hitting the back of the net, followed by right back Guillermo Salas skinning the defence and dancing around three players before calmly blasting the ball into the goal. Universidad’s Jesús Maldonado managed to acquire a pair of yellow cards in sixty seconds flat, and the game as a contest was essentially over. Two goals from the young number 15 Wilmer Aguirre – a mistimed cross trickling in off the post after the goalie missed the clearance and a second in injury time involving some very untidy defending – left the half time score at 4-0 and the result not in doubt.

The second half was full of wasted shots high and wide by Alianza players already confident of the win, and Alianza’s Guillermo Guizazola was sent off for a second yellow card; a pity, as he’d been having a good game. Amidst a flurry of indirect free-kicks for dangerous play, Aguirre managed to complete a well-deserved hat-trick just before the end, and the final score of 5-0 didn’t flatter the home team. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Aguirre heading to Europe in the next year or two.

As I’d promised the pre-match policeman, I went in search of another to help me find a taxi back to my hotel. And so it was that I found myself with a personal escort from a fully-armoured riot policeman with several gold teeth by the name of Edgar. Not content with finding me a taxi, he also asked for my phone number. Needless to say, I declined gracefully.

One thing that surprised me was the small size of the crowds. While neither home team were playing particularly appealing opposition, one might have thought that more than a couple of thousand would be there to watch two of the country’s biggest teams. Those that had turned up included, at both games, the Peruvian equivalent of the dreaded Burberry boys in the Popular stand behind the goal. And Alianza, in particular, played host to a good smattering of women and children, but I guess I was the only single English female daft enough to go. I was sad to have missed a third fixture that weekend, though: Deportivo Wanka lost 4-0 to the almost as amusingly named Sport Boys who, of course, wear pink shirts. The Peruvian national team may have specialised in failing to qualify for the World Cup in recent years, but if Alianza are anything to go by, there is no shortage of skilful players in the country. It can only be a matter of time before we see more of them heading our way in search of fame, fortune and European adulation.