As a precursor, I would just like to say that I know very little about fútbol (soccer) much less other sports in general. However last night I went out to a pub to watch the Real Madrid match. Living in Madrid, I am not sure how it took me so long to actually get out to watch a game but I can just say that I now understand what this soccer craze is about.
Yesterday afternoon, I was just browsing my Facebook newsfeed when I saw that Linda posted about how she as looking for someone to go to the pub with her to watch the match. I inquired about it and quickly realized that she had already messaged me about going a few hours before. We made plans to meet up at the metro stop so we could get to the pub a little early so we could reserve a spot to sit and watch the game. I was fairly certain that the colors for Real Madrid were white and gold and I looked up the colors of the other team (Bayern) to make sure I didn’t accidentally wear any of their colors (which turns out to be red). Kaitlyn got dressed and she put on a red plaid shirt and I told her she might want to change in fear for our safety. After all, fútbol is religion here. I decided on a simple white v-neck and my gold sparkly flats to show my support. I did run out of time to thoroughly paint my nails so I painted them gold minutes before we left then let them air dry on the way. I forgot to change my purse and use my black one instead of my red one, but I figured that wouldn’t be the biggest issue in the world.
We met at the metro station promptly at 720pm but of course, some people like to operate on “spanish time” so we had to wait around a little bit for Linda’s friend Roxanne to arrive. We got to the pub and asked the waiters if we could move around some of the chairs so we could have a table and they complied. We were situated so we all had good views of either the two smaller TVs and the large projector.
Though I have seen countless soccer games from when my sister used to play the sport, I still don’t know very much about it. Turns out, you don’t really have to know all about the rules because it’s just as exciting without knowing them. I went into the pub only knowing the names of two players: Ronaldo and Ramos. I left knowing a few more players and with some opinions about them. Specifically that that Pepe player is a bit of a hothead. As I had previously known, Cristiano Ronaldo is just an Adonis of the fútbol world. There are very few men in the world that I think might be considered prettier than him but that’s a story for a different time, I suppose.
It was a really eventful game, in that there was a penalty against the other team (one of the players touched the ball) and Ronaldo was able to get and make the penalty kick. Within the first few minutes, we were ahead 2-0, then Pepe got a little dirty and the other team was given a penalty kick. The score was at 2-1 for quite some time, which was fine except Real Madrid had to win at least 3-1 to advance to the next round. I am still confused about this point system that is used, but oh well. The game was close for the remainder of the time with two overtimes which both resulted in nothing. Then came the penalty kick round which was Real Madrid’s last effort to win. They didn’t fair so well. I guess I can’t really critique their playing too much since it was my first time watching but we ended up missing a lot of the penalty kicks and the other team (Bayern) were a bit more lucky than us. Naturally, with this happening, we ended up losing the game which eliminated us from the tournament. This made everyone really upset and quite disappointed but they still seem to find solace in the fact that we beat Barca over the weekend so we are still ahead in the spanish league.
I woke up to cold, dreary and rainy weather today, part of me can’t help but think that mother nature is mourning the loss as well.
4.25.12
ps. Naturally these are not my photos, so I am not trying to take credit for them, just simply posting photos of the attractive soccer players.
