Peruvian Football - The Beautiful Game

I first went to see Cienciano play in 1999 – they are the local team in Cusco. At the time were low down the league, and their prospects of winning anything seemed remote to say the least, they had never been champions of Peru in all their 98-year history, and they seemed to always be outclassed. They only seemed to win games in the last half an hour, when Cusco’s 12,000 feet altitude left most visiting players looking as if they were about to collapse and start vomiting blood.

I saw a few games against smaller teams, which were quite unexciting to say the least, more like Gillingham vs. Accrington than a skilful display of this football crazy continent’s finest play. However, eventually I went see Cienciano in a cup game against “la U”, Universitario, who were one of the top sides. This was a totally different affair, with the basic but large stadium full to capacity, one of the concrete stepped terraces in particular full of the kind of excitable young fans I recognised from games in England, many shirtless with their bodies painted in Cienciano red, and singing along to all the chants. That is where the similarity with English crowds ended, the terraces regularly had a round hole suddenly appear in the middle of the crowd, where someone had lighted a firework and explosions and mushroom clouds of red smoke were going off everywhere, as people dived out of the way.

The referee of course took a lot of stick, and was protected from the rain of missiles, coins, etc thrown at him when off the field by a group of riot police who protected his front, sides and head with large transparent riot shields. However, the crowd was always really friendly, and no violence at all seemed to go on between the spectators, who were not segregated at all. Cienciano, of course, lost.

This was before the fairy tale happened.

In 2003, Cienciano entered an international competition being staged for only the second time, the Copa Sudamericana (South American Cup). The top teams from all South American countries entered, and Cienciano entered every game as the underdogs, and to everyone’s surprise kept winning. They played the final over two legs, drawing 3-3 against River Plate of Argentina away, and winning 1-0 at home, becoming the first Peruvian team ever to win an international championship. Not only that, but they went on to play Boca Juniors, the winner of the longer-established Copa Libertadores (Liberators’ Cup) and won, being crowned champions of South America.

They are still the only non-Argentinean team to have won the cup. This of course endears Peruvian football to any Englishman, along with the way that Peru spectacularly dumped Scotland out of the 1978 world cup, which the Scotland coach had confidently (and laughably) stated they would win.

Since then, Cienciano have rebuilt their stadium and signed better players, and are now one of the better Peruvian teams along with Sporting Cristal and Allianza Lima.

If you get the chance, make sure you go to see a football game in Peru, especially a big cup game – the excitement and enthusiasm are contagious, even if you are not a football fan (or for US readers, not even understand the offside rule!).

All together now:

“Upa Upa Upa-pa, El Cienciano es el Papa!”

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