An International Friendly… or Something

It sounds like a euphemism. In the world of soccer, an International Friendly is a match-up of the best soccer players from two countries. It’s a game not affiliated with any larger competition. Not quite an exhibition, and yet less meaningful than most International games.

The Streets of Old San Juan really are something to behold. Photo by Owen Main

In San Juan over the weekend for work, I stepped into a hotel elevator with 8 soccer players who all looked under 20 years old. And they were all at least six inches shorter than me. I was Gheorghe Muresan to their collective Calbert Cheaney.

Their blue soccer gear had no discernible emblem or logo, so I asked if they were a traveling youth squad. Their trainer, the one who spoke English, informed me that they were the men’s national team from Nicaragua. Say what you will about the quality of the MNT from a random Central American country, but sports junkie that I apparently am, Ihad to go snooping around and trying to find where they were playing. It was the beginning of a weird evening.

Puerto Rico is different from other Latin American places. Like Cuba or the Domincan Republic, soccer is not even in the top three or four sports here. Boxing, baseball, basketball, and probably volleyball are all more popular than soccer on the island.

Now, if I could only find the game.

The Nicaraguan defender I asked claimed to speak no English. He wouldn’t have known where the stadium was anyway. Then I asked one guy I met who did speak English, and he had no clue. And the next guy gave me a shrug and said, “Soccer isn’t really that popular here.”

“Does Puerto Rico play their National Team games in different places?” I wondered? Puerto Rico didn’t really seem that big to have multiple appropriate venues suited for an International match. But this is my first time here, so what do I know?

Finally, I talked to the staff at the hotel. And only one guy knew. His name, of course, was Moises.

The majority of the stands at the Bayamon Soccer Complex. Photo by Owen Main

“They play at the estadio in Bayamon,” Moises said. And then he started to give me directions. And I felt lucky to have a GPS. I found the name of the stadium in the GPS and Moises assured me that was the one. And there was a stadium where Moises directed me. Only the stadium had about 1/10th of its lights on and there was nobody in the parking lot 45 minutes before game time.

I’ll save the gory details, but after conversations with a police officer (mostly in Spanish), a CVS stock boy (English) and following the traffic toward the lights, I came upon a soccer field. I say field, because I couldn’t say stadium. I couldn’t even really say “complex.” Really, this was a field. RIMAC field at UC San Diego was better to view soccer than this place. My high school with less than 400 students had a better venue to watch soccer. And this was a real International friendly.

Perhaps I’d have to drive back to the hotel and spend a boring night watching boring LeBron James square off against Kevin Garnett — the two most unlikable players since God-knows-when.

Bill Gaudette, a backup keeper for the LA Galaxy, hollers out instructions to his teammates. Photo by Owen Main

So I paid my $5.35 and walked into the complex. A barbeque the size of the one in my back yard grilled burgers and chicken, smoke wafting into the humid, but pleasant, night air. People in three temporary tents sold refreshments. The line was never more longer than three people. As my sports fan experiences go, this one was surreal.

One goal line had “permanent” concrete stands where most of the fans gathered directly behind the goal Puerto Rico was gunning for in the first half. I decided to go to the sideline seats and, as I approached them, the players approached the pitch, lined up next to one another per FIFA protocol. They waited off the pitch until the television station was ready. They tried to pump themselves up. “Vamos,” they yelled. But there was barely a crowd to cheer back. I guess the 800 or so people who were actually there were making as much noise as they could. There were probably under 1,000 people there, so you can’t really blame the fans.

The first half included a quality strike from a Puerto Rico midfielder for a goal and, when Puerto Rico scored a second off of a corner kick in the 2nd half, it was time for me to leave.

I learned during the game that I had actually gone to the right place. The old baseball stadium in Bayamon was being refurbished as a soccer facility. It will open when Puerto Rico hosts Spain later this year. Tickets for that game are going for $50 to $200. “Way too much,” according to the guy watching the game next to me, leaning on the fence as my old man used to do watching high school football and baseball.

The Nicaraguan players told me in the lobby the next day that the final score was 3-1. I don’t know what I expected, exactly, but the experience was one of the most odd ones I have had in a long time. I’m not sure if having the game at a real stadium would have been more or less fun. Who can beat a cold Coke, peanut M&M’s, and the ability to lean on the fence close to the action during an International soccer game.  I suppose it was worth at least the $5.35 I paid to get in.

The photo of me with a few Nicaraguan MNT players is a little hazy. Maybe that's the most appropriate way for it to be. Photo by another Nicaragua MNT member