Nacional vs. Cali

June 18, 2017 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

While I was on the bus to Medellin I got a message from Luis asking if I wanted to go to the Colombian soccer final. I had seen a soccer game last year when I was in Medellin and the tickets were quite expensive so I told him no. But when I got to Medellin we decided to go to the stadium and watch the game in a bar close by so that we could join the celebrations afterwards anyways. Once at the stadium lots of guys came trying to sell us tickets. We realized that it was a lot cheaper to buy the tickets here. We found a guy who was selling 2 tickets of a friend who couldn't go. He didn't want to make extra money and sold us the tickets to the original price.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was great even before the game. I learned that fans of Cali weren't allowed in the stadium to prevent fights. I already new from last year that there wasn't any alcohol sold inside the stadium for the same reason.
After going down to the field first to take some pictures we climbed up to our seats. They were pretty high up but in the center of the stadium so we had pretty good views.
We found green plastic bags on our seats which we were supposed to blow up and use to cheer for Nacional. When the team came onto the field everybody was up from their seats singing and cheering. This ended with fireworks and everybody throwing their blowed up ballon-bag. All this before they even started to play. During the game it died down a bit but someone was always singing and we were never sitting down for long.
A girl next to us came by herself as her family didn't wanna go but she didn't want to miss it. She gave both of us a Nacional bracelet (which I'm still wearing).
Cali had won the first game 2:0 so Nacional had to score at least 3 goals more than Cali. They didn't let us wait to long! As I'm not really into soccer I was hoping for some action and wasn't disappointed. The game ended 5:1 for Nacional! After the big show before the game I must say that I expected more party after the game inside the stadium. Probably everybody just wanted to get out to finally have a beer ;)
We found a little bar outside the stadium where just locals were dancing salsa on the sidewalk. I did my best dancing with everybody who asked me to but my salsa is basically just stepping really quick from one foot to the other without stepping on my partners feet.
But it was a lot of fun. People were old and young and everybody was just happy celebrating the victory.
We stayed here quite a while and only went back to El Poblado after midnight with a couple we met in the bar.
There everybody was partying on the streets as well. People were throwing flour and spraying around shaving cream - within minutes we were completely white as well. After a drink on the street we went into some club. There was more salsa and rum till I was so tired I really had to get to bed!
The next day was quite slow and relaxed with a late hangover breakfast and a nice dinner with some friends of Luis.Read more