Like a family

I went to my first Aucas game yesterday. The game ended in a 2-2 tie. Aucas kept its hopes of advancing to the next level in the classification alive, but that wasn't the real story for me.

I have never gone to a stadium before and felt like the entire crowd was one big family.

This was unexpected.

My friends and I bought tickets in the $5 general admission section and took some seats in the bleachers on the south end of the field. I sat next to an older gentleman and his family.



I don't really remember starting a conversation with him or even saying hi. We just kept following the rhythm of the games together. We would cheer when the team got close to scoring and then berate the forward when he failed to convert what seemed like an obvious goal. When the ref would blow an obvious foul, we would be standing up questioning his judgment.

Slowly, we started to exchange a few more words. About 20 minutes into the game, he poured me some water from a bottle he was sharing with is wife and daughter. Then I called Aucas's first goal off of a free kick, and my neighbor was really impressed.

Then came halftime. I was all ready to head back to my friends' seats to see what they thought of the first half when my neighbor and his family start giving me a full plate of corn and fava beans they had brought to the game. Then even offered some pork, but I kindly declined.

It turns out that my neighbor has been an Aucas fan his entire life, goes to every game, and sits in the same seat. He even makes it out to the road games to cheer on his team. He goes to the games with his wife and daughter and knows most of the people sitting around him.

I told him that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, and he started into a story about a volunteer he knew in Quito about a decade ago. We sat there chatting throughout the halftime, and I kept thinking to myself "Did I really just get a lunch from the people sitting next to me at the soccer stadium?" At the end of halftime, he gave me some fruit juice to wash down the lunch with and get ready for the second half of action.

We kept up the conversation through the ups and downs of the second half. (Aucas really should have won the game. They hit the post twice and had many more near goals. But in soccer, the only statistic that matters is on the scoreboard.) At the end of the game, I thanked him profusely for the hospitality, and we parted way. I didn't get his name, but I know exactly where to find him at any Aucas home game.



The amazing thing is that I feel like this could have happened anywhere in the stadium. Aucas's stadium is also known as La Caldera (The Cauldron). It is a place where people from anywhere in Quito can come together, putting aside their differences, and get behind their beloved Aucas.

Maybe I'm romanticizing this a bit too much. Maybe I just had great luck and sat next to a really hospitable gentleman and his family.

But it seemed like everyone in the stadium knew each other. Just walking down the street or around the stadium, it looked like a disproportionate amount of people knew each other. Maybe this what happens when the same group of 5,000 people goes to the games over the period of 30 years.

S.D. Aucas hit the peak of its popularity in the 70s.

Since then, the club hasn't had too much celebrate. In the meantime, every other team in Quito has at least qualified for continental tournaments and challenged for the national championships.

As a result, Aucas has struggled to attract new fans. So the same people have been going to the games since then. They are almost all over the age of 50.

Most of them are wearing the same shirt and hat they wore to games in the 80s, and they probably all sit in the same seats.

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I don't know if I can make Aucas "my team," but it is nice to know that I can go to a game and feel part of a family.