It's no surprise that the Spaniards love love love their soccer/football/fútbol, whatever you want to call it. Their love for the sport is deep seeded, hereditary, passionate and after winning the World Cup this summer, stronger than ever. I myself am a huge sports fan so I love the intensity and pride that accompanies the sport. In Spain there are a number of leagues and levels to professional football, but the highest is La Liga. The most well known and most successful teams in La Liga are Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, homes to some of the best footballers in the world. There are 20 teams total in La Liga, including Malaga. Unfortunately, Malaga is not having a very good season thus far and is currently ranked 16/20. Despite their lack of success, the fans are not deterred.
My friends and I went to the game against Levante (currently in last place) on Sunday and the entire stadium was packed. Home games are played at Estadio La Rosaleda, about a 25 minute walk from the center of the city. The stadium holds 28,963 people (Wikipedia, whattup), so it's not a huge facility but it was crowded and bleeding blue and white for the game. Proudly sporting Malaga colors and garb we made our way to the stadium excited for a day of futbol. While at home our football games are packed with men and women, my three girlfriends and I stood out like sore thumbs inside the stadium. The only other girls I saw at the game were with their novios (boyfriends) and glared at us when we started shouting and getting into the game. Sorry we're spirited! Happily, Malaga won 1-0 and we got to witness everyone going crazy when they scored. GOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! There most spirited and loudest section of fans (where we obviously want to sit at our next game) is full of British (of course) ex-pats and retirees who sang Malaga fight songs throughout the entire game. We're going to do some research, figure out how to get tickets for that section and teach ourselves the chants and songs so that next time we can be just as into it as they were. Just our luck, it started to rain 15 minutes into the game, but, superfans that we are, we stuck out all 90 minutes. It has rained about four times in my time here, and of course it rains when we have to be outside. Even though we looked like drowned rats by the end, it was a great afternoon.
My friends and I went to the game against Levante (currently in last place) on Sunday and the entire stadium was packed. Home games are played at Estadio La Rosaleda, about a 25 minute walk from the center of the city. The stadium holds 28,963 people (Wikipedia, whattup), so it's not a huge facility but it was crowded and bleeding blue and white for the game. Proudly sporting Malaga colors and garb we made our way to the stadium excited for a day of futbol. While at home our football games are packed with men and women, my three girlfriends and I stood out like sore thumbs inside the stadium. The only other girls I saw at the game were with their novios (boyfriends) and glared at us when we started shouting and getting into the game. Sorry we're spirited! Happily, Malaga won 1-0 and we got to witness everyone going crazy when they scored. GOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! There most spirited and loudest section of fans (where we obviously want to sit at our next game) is full of British (of course) ex-pats and retirees who sang Malaga fight songs throughout the entire game. We're going to do some research, figure out how to get tickets for that section and teach ourselves the chants and songs so that next time we can be just as into it as they were. Just our luck, it started to rain 15 minutes into the game, but, superfans that we are, we stuck out all 90 minutes. It has rained about four times in my time here, and of course it rains when we have to be outside. Even though we looked like drowned rats by the end, it was a great afternoon.
We bleed blue and white.
Vamos Malaga!!
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