The Classico

A lot has been happening recently, I just haven't been able to find the time to write about it. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some of it this month.

A few weeks back I took the opportunity to have a “typical” Asuncion experience. Friends that are leaving at the end of the year wanted to go to the Classico – the biggest football rivalry in Asuncion, and the game that they say everyone needs to go to at least once. I figured I would take the opportunity to go with them and see what this Olimpia vs. Cerro rivalry is all about. It turns out that you can’t actually buy tickets at the stadium on game day. No worry, there are plenty of people trying to sell them on the streets. It took two men to come up with the 9 tickets we needed but there wasn’t too much of a mark up and we did have tickets in hand.

We entered the stadium a full hour before game time, to find that the stands were already almost full. We finally found seats close to the line of riot police that separated the Cerro and Olimpia fans. (Two lines of police with an empty section of seating between them). I did mention this is the biggest rivalry in the Paraguayan league, didn’t I? To the left of us there was a sea of black and white – the Olimpia fans – and to the right it was all red and blue – the Cerro fans. We were technically sitting in the Cerro section so I guess that means we were cheering for them if we wanted to cheer for anyone. (Never mind that we had all carefully chosen to wear colors not associated with either team.) The junior teams were playing but you could tell that everyone was just waiting for the real game. In the meantime I could take the time to appreciate the view out of the stadium, as we were up high enough to see the river beyond it, and shake my head at the amount of fan support each team had.

Soon enough it was game time. The officials walked out on the field and things got quiet. The announcer introduced the Olimpia team and as they stepped an entire half of the stadium erupted. Cheering, chanting, unfurling huge flags that cover an entire section of bleachers, and throwing white streamers onto the field. At one point it seemed as if the sky was a solid snake of white. And now the Cerro enter the field. The opposite side of the stadium is suddenly going crazy. Red and blue smoke pour forth, balloons are being waved, and I watch an enormous flag get unrolled over the heads of almost one fourth the stadium (How do they do that? I still don’t understand.). I began to realize that we had come as much to watch the fans as to watch the game. Perhaps that was a good thing, as it ended up as a zero – zero tie, with very few exciting moments. Although I might have missed some of the better moments when I was distracted by the crowd. We slipped out a few minutes before the end of the game to avoid the crowd and the possible craziness, however the scoreless result seemed to have kept things fairly calm. There is a part of me that wishes one of the teams would have scored just so I could have seen how their fans would react. (At least I’m not like one of my friends who has now been to three games in that stadium and not seen a single score.) In any event, it was definitely an experience.

For more about the history of this rivalry check out this FIFA article.