Football Bolivia

Our guide Freddy was awfully excited about the football match.  His home town Sucre were playing the locals Potosi in the final.  We went along and the atmosphere was similar to a footy match at home.  People wearing their team colours, lots of families eating dodgy food and cheer squads down each end of the pitch.  Although the cheer squads in Bolivia are better than at home.  They have drums and other instruments and sing and dance in the stands, which is cool.  They also have a lot of firecrackers which they randomly through into the stands, which is not so cool.

The stadium was a little different to home.  Mainly the security; the 6ft barbed wire fences, followed by a 20m buffer zone so anything thrown over the fence wouldn't land on the pitch.  And the riot police. They had batons and shields and were lined up on both sides of the fence.  I couldn't figure out why they were on the inside of the fence - no one was going over that thing.
 

Riot police on standby

The match itself was a normal soccer match, 80 minutes of pass, pass, pass.  Stop, pass, pass.  Turnover.  Pass, pass, pass.  How is this one of the most watched sports in the world?  It bores the shit out of me.

Potosi v Sucre - Sucre are in the red.

But as is common with soccer, things actually start happening in the dying minutes.  Finally a goal was scored by Potosi - the home crowd went nuts!  The team ran around like they'd already won the match congratulating themselves for a ridiculously long time then the match restarted.  Then there was a red card for Potosi from the ref.  The crowd goes nuts, the team goes nuts.  The other team comes in and they get into a bit of a melee which is soon sorted out when the riot police step in.

The game restarts again only to have Sucre score in the 93rd minute.  Potosi fans are livid but Freddy out of his seat excited and all of a sudden there are full drinks and other shit getting thrown at us.

Riot police seperating the teams after a red card.

Potosi stadium - note 6ft fence and buffer zone.

 Turns out Sucre only need a draw in this match to take out the whole thing, so the locals are spewing.  The refs are escortted off the ground at the locals throw things like full 2lt bottles and batteries at them.  The locals then turn on anyone wearing the red and blue of Sucre (I had to hide my scarf in my bag).  They blocked all the exits and as the cheersquad tried to leave they were beating the shit out of them.  Punching and kicking into them.  The riot police had to move in and escort the fans onto the ground so the locals couldn't get to them.  The whole thing was fucking mad.

Riot police escort the unpopular refs from the ground.

All in all it was a pretty mad night.  It was definately something we wouldn't experience at home.  But something I'm glad of.  You ask the locals about it and they just excuse the behaviour as 'oh we're very passionate about our football'.  But it sounds like bullshit to me.  You can be passionate about something without being violent.