My First Experience with Uruguayan Soccer

Before I get into the soccer thing I'm going to give a little run down on my first experience with Uruguayan Nightlife. At least half of the exchange students(There are maybe...35 of us) went out to a bar in my neighborhood called "La Primata" last night. I'm fairly sure this means "The Primate", which is cool-the Silverback Gorilla being one of my favorite animals(right SouthernStunna?). La Primata is fairly small, and without a roof in some places, I believe this is design feature as there were trees growing out of these holes. If not, big ups to the trees for being heads up. Everything was fun, fairly unremarkable. There were, however, two Uruguayans that were pretty funny. The two of them were a year or two younger than me and had incredible mullets. I'd put the mullets somewhere in this range, but more of the South American variety:

So these two young Uruguyans are getting very animated. Each is trying to sway me into pledging my allegiance to their soccer teams. Like most Uruguayans, these cabelleros fell into two camps. Nacional y Penarol. The two biggest soccer teams in Uruguay. Mullet one is in my left ear telling me that his club is "The King of the Cups", and the other mullet really didn't have an argument but that didn't phase him in the least.

Out of the blue another Uruguayan, no mullet here-more along the lines of Cory from Boy Meets World-butts into the conversation. "Soccer is not about violence! Penarol and Nacional, they don't get it. This is a game of peace, it brings people together. Look. " At this point he pulls up his sweater to reveal a Bob Marley T-Shirt. He then starts saying that he is a fan of Defensor, a more peaceful team. This is where I make my mistake. Fredy, Gustavo's father and my soccer coach, played soccer at Defensor. I mention this, claiming that I like Defensor-mostly just to get a rise from the two young mullets-"Cory" goes crazy. He starts off saying that he was a goalie like Fredy but wasn't tall enough, and ends up putting his forehead against mine and telling me he knows he will see me playing for Defensor in the future. How he got to that conclusion..your guess is as good as mine.

Now, back to the subject of this blog. I was sitting in my casa a few hours ago and what I really wanted to do was play guitar. Apparently the guitar is missing some strings or something, so I decide to go for a walk. The 500 blocks I walk to school every day just aren't catabolic for me today.

I'm walking, and it's dark so I act like I know where I'm going. Pocitos is safe, but I figure it's best not to look too much like a tourist when you're walking alone in the city at night. So I'm walking, still quite close to my house, and I hear a ball bouncing and I see a crack of light through these doors a bit off the road. It's a highschool(I think, I later tried to clarify this with mixed results. It may have highschool and college classes) Unfortunately, there is a metal fence between what seems to be soccer and my current location. I look around, not sure how to get in...not seeing much except some old guy, looks a bit like Oscar the Grouch

I go over to him, "Yo Oscar, they playing soccer in there?"
"Sha Sha Sha. Sha Sha Sha. Sha." Thankfully, Oscar gesticulates while mumbling. I figure that I can go around the corner and find my way in. I eagerly press the door open lightly...VOLLEYBALL! Volleyball!?! practice? really guys? No wonder the door was closed, I wouldn't want anyone seeing me either. I feel like men practicing volleyball inside is on roughly the same level as someone taking steroids to enhance their badmitton performance. Volleyball is undoubtedly a sport best enjoyed in the summer...in the company of the opposite sex? Even better. These guys were practicing tactics and shit, in the winter, in the gym. Bad.

I walk back to my boy Oscar. He mumbles some more, no gesticulating this time so I'm out of luck. I walk a little more, as far as I dare before I might get too lost, and head back. Walking back I pass Oscar again. He calls me out! Oscar really is a nice guy, he actually gesticulates this time too. I'm supposed to go inside, talk to another guy. Let's call him Jabba. Jabba is also very helpful, and mumbles slightly less than Oscar. Jabba is kind enough to tell me that there is indeed soccer going on, I can't play as it is a private team, but I can watch.
"What is the team Jabba?"
"ORT Universitario"
ORT(Universidad de La Republica-I guess someone just likes the letter T) is the public school in Uruguay. I'm not sure how many students go to ORT, but it's a lot, a whole lot. It is the national school that students can go to for free somehow and I pass their architecture building on the way home. It's probablly twice the size of my school-which I am told has 5,000 students. These Universitario teams are the equivalent of college soccer I guess, I'm not too sure of the regulations because some of the teams are parts of professional organizations(Nacional Universitario for example) and some of the players are in the mid-late twenties. So I go to watch, they are just getting started and haven't actually begun playing yet. They look friendly enough, and I really want to play, so I approach the guy who looks like the coach.

Just to clarify for a moment, this is futbol de sala, not regular soccer. Think soccer on a basketball court with a small ball that's much heavier than a normal ball, it doesn't really bounce. It's a bit strange to hit, you can't put the same sorts of movement on the ball as you can't wrap your foot around it the same way. A lot of players seemed to almost shoot with their toes a lot of the time.

After a bit of talking, I understand this guy, I ask if I can play. This isn't a formal training session so he says sure. I held my own. There were two badasses, I would say another 2 were probablly a bit better than me(at futbol de sala atleast) but I definately held my own in the field of 8-10 players. I figure this is a good sign. There are tons of trophies and photos of the equipo universitario(our team in this league) in my school, but we can't be much better than these guys given the size of their school I am thinking. The coach and I talked for a bit, which went smoothly, although he either had a bad memory or I wasn't speaking as clearly as I hoped because he asked me the same questions a couple times. He joked that I should drop out of Catolica and go to ORT so I could play with them though so I take that as a good sign.

I didn't have many highlights, it took a little while to get used to the feel of the ball for sure, but I had huevos(literally:eggs, I'll let you guess at the meaning) and definately won a lot of balls. I did have one nice goal from about half field(again, think basketball court, not soccer field) and scored four all together, a respectable tally. Oh, and I almost had a nasty little chip off the volley, they went nuts when it missed by an inch or two.

That's about it though. I left a little early because my toes were killing me. I think I am going to need to buy some indoor shoes because these cross trainers aren't working. Pulling off my shoe when I got home, my hopes were confirmed. I've got a black toe nail again, or I will in a few days. They invited me to come play in this game, they usually play Tuesdays at 10:15 so I think I am going to try and start doing that. I need to send an email to some of the Catolica people too and get into the actual team at my school.

First day of classes is Monday, we do a bus tour of the city and a placement test for Spanish tomorrow.
Ciao