In the Line of Fire : U.S. Soccer Team’s Presence South of Border Ignites Passions
In the stands at Azulgrana Stadium in Mexico City, they burned the U.S. flag.
In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, they hung a life-size effigy of the referee from a grandstand fence and pelted U.S. players with rotten fruit.
At Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in San Jose, Costa Rica, they spat on any American within range, hurled stones and batteries and bits of wire and glass at the players and taunted them and their families with unprintable insults.
Isolated incidents?
Not a chance. For decades, that has been normal behavior by opposing fans whenever the U.S. national soccer team has traveled south in its quest to qualify for the Olympics or World Cup.
“We’ve always been treated that way when we go down there,” former U.S. national team coach Bob Gansler told Soccer America magazine in March. “Only the psychologically strong survive. You have to steel yourself.”
And it figures to be no better on Sunday when the United States plays El Salvador in a crucial World Cup ’98 qualifier in the heat and bedlam of San Salvador’s Cuscatlan Stadium.
The match is virtually a must-win for both teams and its importance has raised temperatures considerably.
Fearing the worst, the U.S. State Department, through the American Embassy here, last week took the unusual step of circulating a written warning to U.S. residents in El Salvador to avoid going anywhere near the game.
“Soccer matches are often emotional events and have engendered violent or disruptive behavior by supporters of different teams,” the statement read. “In some cases, police forces assigned to such events have been overwhelmed by unruly fans or bystanders.
“U.S. citizens attending the recent match between Guatemala and the U.S. in El Salvador were threatened by fans and pelted by dangerous projectiles. . . .
“The U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens who may be planning to attend the June 29 match between the United States and El Salvador to consider the danger they and their children might confront at such an event.”
This ominous warning has offended Salvadorans, who resent being portrayed in such a light. It also has angered U.S. Coach Steve Sampson, who told the New York Times this week that it “gives the Salvadorans one more [reason] to get riled up” at the U.S. team.
He amplified that remark Thursday in Miami.
“While not wanting to show any disrespect to any government official, I can only voice my opinion based on what I have seen firsthand, having been in El Salvador on three occasions now,” he said.
“On no occasion have I sensed any danger to any fan. Rather, the violence that I observed was fans throwing things onto the field of play. . . .
“I understand that they [embassy officials] must present all options to the American public and do what is in their best interest, but it’s highly disappointing from my standpoint that the American fans in El Salvador will not be able to attend this match.”
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American fans are accustomed to state-of-the-art stadiums and to regarding sporting events as entertainment, free of political overtones. For them, it is difficult to imagine the bizarre and even threatening conditions U.S. soccer teams face when playing south of the border.
For the home fans, however, whether in Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean, it is not simply a game at stake, it is national pride.
For years, the soccer field has been one of the few places where these countries have had the chance to demonstrate superiority over the United States, which dominates so much else.
But the United States’ rise as a regional soccer power over the past decade is threatening to take even that way from them.
And so the fans do what they can to intimidate visiting teams, not only those from the United States but from anywhere.
Their actions, therefore, should be viewed not as anti-American, but rather as nationalistic.
Defender Marcelo Balboa of Cerritos is the all-time leader in appearances for the U.S. national team. Since his debut against Guatemala in 1988, he has represented the United States 118 times in 24 countries. With two World Cup tournaments behind him and a third beckoning, he knows, firsthand, the passions that can be aroused by the game.
He also knows the reason behind the fans’ actions.
“They live and breathe soccer, so I think more than anything it’s trying to put a little bit of fear into you before the game, trying to disrupt the way you play, to intimidate you,” he said.
“The first few times, it does work. I was in Guatemala my first game and it was intimidating. That’s where we got urine thrown on us and bottles and oranges thrown at us. It’s difficult, but after a while you start getting used to it and it doesn’t bother you.
“I mean, what can you do? Are you going to argue with the fans? You just have to leave it alone. If you don’t do anything, then they kind of leave you alone. If you turn around and you react, that’s what they want.
“It’s difficult. You always hope that the police are watching, but after so many games, you just kind of get used to it.”
It is not only at the stadium that the intimidation takes place. It can start as early as the team’s arrival at the airport. Because the media in these countries give blanket coverage to every game, TV and radio stations and newspapers all have crews at the airport when the U.S. team arrives.
It was that way Friday night when the U.S. team landed in San Salvador. And with the glaring TV lights, the microphones and the jostling notebooks come the fans, yelling, shouting, pointing out players, making jokes, starting the intimidation ball rolling.
The circus continues at the team hotel, no matter how strict the security.
“When we were qualifying for ’90 [the World Cup in Italy], they cut the power on us and we had to jump out of the elevator,” Balboa said. “Another time, they washed the food with just their regular water, not bottled water, so we got sick because of that. Whenever we play Mexico, for some reason the fire alarm always goes off at 2 or 3 in the morning.”
The U.S. team bus is always a favorite target. American players and coaches are confined in an enclosed space, often caught in heavy traffic especially near the stadium.
“The people of El Salvador are very polite, but they are very, very passionate about their own team,” Sampson said. “That’s understandable. In and around the hotel, we don’t expect there to be any problems. However, where there is concern is in the arrival and departure of the players at the stadium, where the quote-unquote fanatics will surround the bus and try to impose their pressure on the U.S. team.”
Reports that shots had once been fired at a U.S. team bus could not be substantiated, but certainly there have been other incidents.
“There’s been people rocking the bus, throwing rocks at it, but you get so used to it after a while; it’s just like, OK, so what?” Balboa said.
Contributing to the menacing atmosphere is the state of stadiums themselves in many Central American countries. They are often dilapidated, always overcrowded and often feature barbed-wire barricades, moats around the field and heavily armed and grim-faced police or soldiers toting automatic weapons in an all-to-casual manner.
Because the security forces are fans themselves, they usually spend more time watching the game than any misbehavior in the crowd.
“Inside the stadium itself, there will be 35,000-plus with another 10,000 on a hill overlooking the stadium, who will do everything they can to intimidate the U.S. team,” Sampson said of Cuscatlan Stadium. “It’s probably the loudest venue that I’ve been in, short of Azteca Stadium in Mexico.”
Even in Mexico City’s Guillermo Canedo Stadium, formerly known as Azteca, the atmosphere can be daunting, with 120,000 fans perched vertically in a bullring-like enclosure and the noise echoing across the field.
The Mexican national team has not lost a meaningful game there in 16 years and U.S. winger Cobi Jones recalls seeing the effigy of a player, in full U.S. garb, hanging from the rafters beneath the stadium roof.
“As a player, you just take it for what it is,” Jones said. “Take it with a grain of salt. You know the fans are going to be supportive [of their country] and they’re going to do whatever they can to try to intimidate you when you’re walking out onto the field.
“But we’re all professionals and we’ve seen enough in our day to understand what’s going to happen and be prepared for it.”
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Sunday’s game could be without incident, especially if the home team wins. But that would be unusual. In 15 matches between the countries over the last 26 years, the U.S. holds an 8-1-6 edge, and if the Americans win again, thereby effectively ending El Salvador’s World Cup hopes, some fans in the crowd at Cuscatlan Stadium might well turn ugly.
“It’s been that way for the last 50 years, and it’ll be that way for the next 50 years,” former U.S. national and Olympic team coach Lothar Osiander told Soccer America. “They [Central American and Mexican soccer fans] don’t see us as a friend. We’re the powerful, omnipotent neighbor who deserves to lose.”
A footnote:
On the field for the United States in Mexico City on the night the U.S. flag was burned five years ago were goalkeeper Brad Friedel, defenders Alexi Lalas and Mike Burns, midfielder Claudio Reyna and Jones, a forward.
All five could be playing against El Salvador on Sunday. All five know the difficulties encountered on the road. And all five remember the final score that night: Mexico 1, United States 2.
Sometimes, the flames lit by the opposition can ignite the Americans too.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
World Cup ’98 Qualifying WHAT: World Cup ’98 qualifying game. WH0: El Salvador vs. United States. WHERE: Cuscatlan Stadium, San Salvador. WHEN: 11 a.m. PDT Sunday. TV: Channel 34, 5 p.m. HEAD-TO-HEAD RECORD: United States leads the 26-year-old series, 8-1-6. FIFA RANKING: United States 26th; El Salvador 73rd. AT STAKE: Top three finishers from among Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico and the United States qualify for France ’98. All teams play one another home and away.
STANDINGS
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TeamGP W-L-T GF GA PT Mexico 5 3-0-2 13 2 11 Costa Rica 5 2-2-1 7 6 7 United States 4 1-1-2 7 5 5 Canada 5 1-2-2 2 7 5 Jamaica 5 1-2-2 2 9 5 El Salvador 4 1-2-1 2 3 4
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