by Matt Kelemen
On the day after the Copa América final, I was driving. Returning a car to a friend and navigating the streets of a still-unfamiliar city. All was quiet, as most Santiagiños recovered at home from a night of revelry and emotional release. On the radio, two sports jocks discussed the victory. Not the armchair quarterbacking you often hear on AM radio in the States, with callers offering fervent opinions about the coach’s decision to put in the lefty to face a hot hitter or whether the point guard should have hit the open three rather than making that extra pass. Rather, they were discussing the perceived significance of La Roja’s first win of a major tournament… and boy was it ever significant. Chileans needed this, they said, as a salve to so many wounds inflicted on the people of this long strip of land at the bottom of the world. If it’s not an earthquake, it’s a volcano erupting. If it’s not an eruption, it’s political corruption and broken promises to reform the schools (their words, not mine). But now, all that was washed away in a moment of national pride. Eleven men in red shirts had outlasted eleven men in sky blue and white shirts. Alexis Sanchez planted the winning penalty past a helpless Argentinean keeper, wheeled off toward the corner flag, and stripped off his shirt to start a long and cathartic celebration of a whole country.
As a loyal fan of a few sports teams, I get it. I remember feeling utter joy when the Orioles won the World Series when I was thirteen years old, or when the US national team beat Ghana in the last World Cup. It’s what real Warriors fans must have felt when their team broke a 40-year streak without a championship. Or Red Sox fans celebrating a World Series victory after so much heartbreak. Curses broken. Ignominious records wiped out. The title of “longest-time-without-a-win” handed off to some other unfortunate group of fans.
But this had a different quality to it (or perhaps a just a different magnitude). A perceived sense of possibility, a wondering about “now that we’ve done this, what else can we do? Have we turned some kind of corner? Can we bottle this euphoria and optimism and use it to attack our social and economic malaise?” Absurd, right? After all, it’s just a game. And you can look at a number of ways in which the tournament was stacked in Chile’s favor: Brazil’s best player sent off in dubious circumstances. Chile’s talisman given leniency by a judge after drunkenly wrecking his sports car in the middle of the tournament! No small number of home-cooked refereeing decisions.
Not to mention that all of those other problems persist. The economy is stuttering. Both the Bachelet government and opposition political parties have been hit with corruption scandals that have weakened their ability to lead. And, most interesting to me, an ambitious education reform agenda is facing serious and organized opposition. It is beyond absurd to think that success on the soccer pitch will in any way translate into progress on these fronts.
Yet, it’s intriguing to think about how such an event can affect collective psychology. From what I’ve learned so far, there is a deep-seated cautiousness, even pessimism, among Chileans. It is central to their identity, known as “Chilenidad.” So, here they were, on sports radio, in newspaper features, in casual conversation, talking about the match lifting sprits and creating new possibilities. One Sunday article pictured a young boy wearing the national team jersey and asked in bold letters, “What will it be like to have a generation that knows about winning?”
We are now a month into our time in Chile, and a month away from that special night when Chile won the Copa América. As we go forward, I’ll be looking for other hints of optimism about the future. But I won’t be holding my breath for any fundamental changes to Chilenidad… at least not until the next major fútbol tournament.
Dylan’s thoughts on Chilenidad: I saw my first sub-12 game between Católica and Magallanes. The field was tucked away off a dirt road with no name. Parents and teammates were cheering on their team from the sidelines in the freezing cold. The kids and the parents constantly yell at the ref, hoping to get their way on EVERY call. The game was different from my soccer experiences in the US. It was more physical, goals were celebrated excessively, and the whole game was faster.
Jeannette’s thoughts on Chilenidad: This past week confirmed for me that bureaucracy is a pillar of Chilenidad. When we went to a notary last week to get our lease agreement signed and stamped, the office was PACKED with people lined up to get various documents notarized: car sales, apartment rentals, house purchases, employment offers, business contracts . . . the list goes on. Curiously though, despite our wait, all our official documents, our fees, and the help of our property manager, we never actually SAW the notary – he or she signed and stamped our documents and we merrily went on our way.
Adela’s thoughts on Chilenidad: Chileans are kind. Chileans are funny. They welcome you into their homes and say, “Mi casa es tu casa.” I visited a couple of schools. In one interview, where it was just me and no one else from my family, I was talking to the interviewer and we laughed together, we smiled together, we asked questions about each other, and I didn’t have to hold anything back from her. I knew that I could trust her. You don’t get very many of those sensations when you first meet somebody, but for me, I felt so many things like that in just this past month. I hope that Chile and Chileans never change.