Footie Peruvian Style

This is how Macchu Picchu should look if the camera hadn´t gone on strike, I´ve tried photo shop etc but had to settle for taking a pic of a postcard.

So last night was the play off 2nd leg for the league here in Peru. The year is split into 2 seasons with the winners of each season competing in a two-legged home and away final. The 1st leg here in Cusco was a sell out including lots of gringos like me.

The game itself was lacking a bit in atmosphere despite the hard core supporters behind each goal who really did give it their all for 90mins. Fair play to the Lima fans too who had a flight or 24hr drive to get to the game. I´d say there were about 22,000 there and we were sat on concrete steps which cost 3 quid each. The price is really high when you consider that teachers are paid about 80 pounds a month and everyday objects are very very cheap; bread rolls 1p, electricity bill in the porter´s house was 1 pound and a 3 course lunch at a local cafe (rather than tourist place) is about 30p. Our guide from the Inca trail said that tickets were normally 3 soles and ours were 18 so a mark up of 600% is pretty extreme when it´s the same stadium. The crowd looked like pretty well off Peruvians and most were families rather than the predominantly male crowds at the Ecquadorian games.

The match itself was pretty unispiring but there were a few notable happenings: A Lima player was taking a corner and someone threw a toilet roll onto the pitch, it grazed his shoulder and he went down as if a sniper had shot him, classic. I also had a genuine first at a football match when the lady sat next to me started breastfeeding her baby after 5 mins of the first half. One of the assistant refs was called Sr. Huanca (pronounced with a silent H) so the infamous song about refs was right on this occassion. After the match I had a kebab that disagreed with me, to say the least, in fact you could say we had a full blown argument.

After winning the first leg 1-0, Cusco lost the 2nd leg 3-1 last night so there are a lot of long faces today.

I´m enjoying watching lots of footie including seeing a Seba Veron led Estudiantes win the Argentinian league for the 1st time in 23 years, classic Boca v River Plate derbies from the 80s with Maradonna and of course UTD playing great football and scoring a few goals as well. All I need now is my new signing Harewood to start scoring on Sat for me to climb the FF table...