Viva Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile—With the 2015 Copa America soccer tournament taking place in stadiums all across Chile, the level of excitement among Chileans is off the charts. It's not uncommon to see waiters, bus drivers, or coworkers decked out in scarves, jerseys, and face paint representing their beloved national team. And with a flag that looks like the Texas flag I sport on way too many articles of clothing, Chile made it really easy for me to wholeheartedly throw my support behind its team.

It's hard to overstate how big of a deal people make out of this tournament. Imagine if you treated every game your team played in like the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, World Series, and Stanley Cup combined. That's how Chileans talk about soccer. When the team is playing, normally crowded streets in the middle of Santiago are completely deserted. The TranSantiago metro trains that are normally packed ten-people deep run empty. Street food vendors beg passers-by for a quick update on the score. I even saw a commercial for a portable TV small enough for taxi drivers to watch secretly while they work.

While I normally find soccer excruciatingly boring to watch, I couldn't help being drawn in by the Copa America fever that has captured the hearts of an entire nation. When Chile played their first game of the tournament--a 2-0 win against Ecuador--I wanted to watch it where all of the biggest fans did. I talked to several people who told me that La Moneda, a ceremonial government building similar to the White House except the president doesn't live there, was the place to be to watch the game.

There was supposed to be a huge crowd cheering on their team and watching on a giant screen. I was told repeatedly how exciting of a place it was to watch soccer, so you can imagine the disappointment my friends and I shared when we got to La Moneda and found the entire plaza devoid of life. Incredulously, I asked one of the police officers guarding the building where the best place to watch the game would be. She directed us to another empty plaza where another set of officers there told us they weren't showing the game publicly this time. For a life-long soccer hater, I was surprisingly upset that I would have to take my newly-purchased fake number 8 Arturo Vidal jersey to a restaurant to watch the game.

Despite the lack of raucous public viewing places, I was finally able to satisfy my newfound desire to watch soccer when a friend found tickets to a quarterfinal game that Chile could be playing in for a reasonable price online. I can't wait to join the crowd at the National Stadium chanting, "Chi-Chi-Chi Le-Le-Le Viva Chile!" For a proud Texan living in South America for the summer, Chilean pride was all I needed to feel right at home.

Ryan P. O'Meara '18, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Cabot House.