The light blue is in the quarterfinals. The selection of Uruguay, a country of just 3,5 million people, It is among the best eight teams of the moment, in a world where big threats are being left by the wayside and where charrúas resist unbeaten, for joy and plethora of all its inhabitants. Because in Uruguay football is lived.
In Montevideo stores do not open, The streets are cut and universities and schools close when the light blue play. If the game begins at eleven in the morning, It doesn't matter, What do Russian schedules matter, At nine some streets already smell like roast firewood and in supermarkets friends groups, Families or romantic Soccer lovers in solo are provided with beers, mate, pan, cookies, Magdalenas with photo of Suarez, lollipops with the image of cavani or succulent chocolates with the silhouette of the brand new "onion".
It all started in the Qualifying Rounds, All this movement, This paralysis of the daily ronroneante orientante began to receive it in last year's matches in which the charrúas played the entrance to the World Cup. Those of us who live here for a short time were unknown to that football dimension, patent when, on October 2017, The team scored four goals to Bolivia signing its direct classification to the World Cup.
In Montevideo stores do not open, The streets are cut and universities and schools close when the light blue play
That day several co -workers came out before, On many balconies, flags were seen in the wind, Children swallowed on the street with the light blue shirt and, As the party advanced, The density of the buses decreased and with each goal that put Bolivia roaring the entire city. "My mother", I commented on a Uruguayan friend, "What a hobby".
"This is nothing", He told me with the pride and forcefulness of a high -ranking general, "You'll see when we play in the World Cup. I stop the country ". Uruguayo does not usually exaggerate, So I kept that warning somewhere and every day that passes I do nothing but show it.
The first game of the group classification was lived in Montevideo as in Spain a final would be lived or how the "fans" live. Here everyone is "amateur", My mother, eg, – A spectacular being but that could easily say that Casillas is the goalkeeper of the Spanish team today -, In Uruguay it would organize a roast for the whole family, I would be dressed in blue to confectionery and comment with Tino's pass to Silva.
Walking on a street minutes before the game was how to wander through an inhospitable moor whose buildings emerged remote voices, banderas, Odors to provolone and songs.
When at 11 in the morning of that first day of the World Cup, Friday 15 June, I looked at the Plaza de la Independencia, Epicenter of the capital, And I saw that there was no one, that Artigas and his horse spent the morning in a lonely mist and that the avenue that leads to the center was deserted, I realized that my friend did not joke. The country stops.
If the days of the group classification the city was paralyzed, except for public places with screens that were raided by celestial hordes, on Saturday, Eighth Day, Cloudy and cold, The entire country hung from the World Cup. The Montevidean artery, Artigas Avenue was empty like a desert at noon. Walking on a street minutes before the game was how to wander through an inhospitable moor whose buildings emerged remote voices, banderas, Odors to provolone and songs.
Those who did not participate in the domestic party were arriving in dozens in the city center, where the Intendencia had installed a giant screen. Sheltered, and animated by the idea of ??seeing the encounter with fans, friends, Compact humanity and joint suffering, They followed the encounter with a dangerous mixture of deep concern and effervescent adrenaline.
Portugal approaches to Muslera, Ronaldo's overtaking or fatal goal were digested with a deep bitterness that only the goals in favor reconvened in a joy never seen, In an unprecedented excite, In an emotional burden so intense that tears were few for the occasion
The goals in favor reconvened in a jubilation never seen, In an unprecedented excite, In an emotional burden so intense that tears were few for the occasion
I had never seen that. I had never seen that people of such a varied age, Condition and nature will face a football match so flagrant and that an entire town will mobilize in that way for some round of 16. I would never have imagined, also, That was here, In a tame country even in their way of making jokes, where the staff put "the world for Montera" and take out their most sharp and pure charrúa claw.
I don't know what awaits us this Friday. I can't imagine where this ship will go to. The foreign are fun and expectant. We divide our focus and our cravings between the anthropological study of Uruguayan behavior, and an unknown current that we do not know how to identify.
Start through defeated nationalities, The selections that return with your head crouched, And the football gaps of a celest and fierce mass is filled that, almost on the eve of the pitched battle, Sow a pure charrúa seed and unconditional militancy.
