Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Suwon Blue Wings

This weekend I got to experience my very first professional soccer game.  Growing up in America, a country that has no use for soccer, and specifically in Kentucky, a state that's in the heart of basketball country, I've gone to a handful of soccer matches in my life and, to quote my English friend here James from Manchester, cared "fuck all" for the sport.  That is, until I was able to be inside an actual stadium and experience the kind of fervor I thought only reserved for NFL Monday Night Football games.  But just like football, which I didn't care much for either until having a friend explain to me the rules and tactics of the game, hearing a commentary on what I was seeing while listening to the roaring crowd made me a believer.  Saturday's match was between the Suwon Blue Wings (South Korea's best soccer team) and the Pohang Steelers .  



























To confess, going to the soccer game was not the original journey for the day but once we went to the movie theater and saw that Watchmen wasn't playing for another 2 hours phone calls were made and a fellow teacher at the Hogawon told us about the game starting at 3PM.  This excited another teacher with us, said James from Manchester, who lives and breathes soccer,  and our plan was set.  We had to grab the 720-2 city bus towards Suwon with 27 minutes to spare before kick-off.  The bus ride takes about 20 minutes.



























Hard to tell from this picture but this is Saturday and half the bus is full of schoolgirls in private school uniforms.  They go to school 6 days a week here.



























There we arrived at the Suwon World Cup Stadium built in 2002.  A scalper outside the massive complex sold us tickets for 10,000 won each and we went through the gates into our section and grabbed a seat in the shade on a chilly afternoon.  Once inside I heard deafening roars from the fans doing chants for their home-team and saw PEOPLE



























lots and lots of PEOPLE.  This was by no means a packed house with the away team's section being a handful of shivering die-hards wearing red but the amount of noise that this stadium produced was incredible to me.



























I mean just look at the scope of the place.  I've never been able to go to an NFL game but imaging this stadium full and chanting must be something else.













Flags were everywhere.



























Once the initial shock wore off I looked around and noticed some things that remained similar to any stadium I've been in and some that were different.  For example, people waved stuff in the air and banged their chairs but instead of being big foam hands they have asian style fans that they would use to block the sunlight and slam into their palms during chants.  And what sporting event isn't complete without snacks?  But here they passed up on the hot dogs and nachos in favor of sushi, dried squid! and beer.  The beer of choice in Korea is Cass, produced by Oriental Brewery or OB for short, and tastes halfway between a Budweiser and swept-up fermented sawdust.  After the first one it's not so bad, plus they're super cheap.  But watching a couple eat dried squid like it was jerky and share a sushi roll then wash it down with crappy beer was something else.

































These things get very loud when collapsed and smacked together.

Thanks to the camera my mother bought me before heading over I was able to utilize the video feature and capture some footage of the place during the first half.  Describing it is one thing but you really have to hear the scope of how loud it was inside.  All the while this was going on, James was offering play by play insight for myself and the others who knew next to nothing about soccer tactics.  I have to say, if you're going to go to your first real Professional soccer match, make sure you go with a European, they know their football.  I mean soccer.  Whatever.



So in the end the Blue Wings lost 3-2.  The crowd was very sportsman like to the opposing team and everyone had a good time.  This stadium being so close to me and really missing having professional sports all around me (something I took for granted in the USA), I'll be making a habit of visiting this place more often.  I got to go to a professional game, get a few beers, buy some sushi, and I spent less than 15 US dollars doing it.  Crazy.  The conversion rate here still blows my mind.  And I got to learn all kind of new put-downs from James, like calling someone a cutesy flagger or a weekend tosser.  I have no idea what they mean but rest assured if you do a bad play somewhere in a soccer game, you qualify as one of those.



























More to come, and, as always, thanks for stopping by!

3 comments:

  1. What's Harrison Ford doing at that football match?

    ReplyDelete
  2. aww shucks, you'll make me blush!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kolon Sporex sounds suspiciously like Preparation H.

    ReplyDelete