Anniversary weekend

Chapter 2 - ¡Quiero llorar!

Photo by author

As a Journalism student in Romania, in the early 90’s, one assignment was to write an analysis of the way cameras would show the action at an event of our choice.

I chose a sports event; a soccer match from the national championship, featured in the printed local newspaper. Football, as we call it in Europe, is the most watched sport in Romania.

Without having watched the game, but based on that report, I recreated the major moments and described, play by play, the way the camera would zoom onto a replay, a player, the ball and corner lines, or the audience at certain times during the game.

My paper received the maximum grade. I had never been to a soccer game before, only watched some on television.

Growing up, I had season tickets to the opera and stage theater. Sports events were not something my family attended, but we occasionally watched. Not so much soccer, with a few exceptions. Like the 1986 European Championship in Sevilla, when Steaua Bucuresti defeated Barcelona in penalty kicks, thus becoming the first team from Eastern Europe to win the trophy. Moreover, the communist regime before 1989 rarely allowed international sports events to be shown on television, unless Romanian teams or sports players were in the competition.

Decades later, after I moved to the United States, married to someone who works in sports management and representation, my life, our family life, revolved around sports. I have lost count of the baseball games we have attended so far, or the vacations that we built around baseball teams and stadiums.

So, in the days leading up to our anniversary weekend, when my husband asked if I was interested in attending a soccer game, I exhaled with my eyes closed,

“Yes!”

Both worlds in one LA weekend.

For the first night, we chose a symphonic concert featuring pieces by Rachmaninov and John Williams at the Disney Concert Hall downtown Los Angeles.

The unique design of the Disney Concert Hall humbled us. As did the realization that John Williams was in attendance. To listen to his music in this unique setting, just rows away from him — how lucky!

The second night was soccer—football—at BMO Stadium, the home turf of LAFC, in Los Angeles by the Convention Center area.

Walking towards the stadium along with groups of fans, I could not stop talking. Fast and wide-eyed, telling my husband about the summer of 1994, when the World Cup was played in North America. And how my mother and I had stayed up during the night, in our home in Romania, to watch the Romanian national team play a game at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Not too far from where we were now. How the Romanian team had dyed their hair yellow, the color of their outfits and one of the colors in the Romanian flag. How the two of us cheered, yelled at the referees, yelled at the other team, lived it all.

How different that was from the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, which was not shown on the Communist television. But restrictions spark creativity and people found ways to watch the games. I remember camping in the woods with my best friend’s family. Portable television sets placed on car hoods, connected to their batteries and to antennas tilted westward toward Hungary. The neighboring country broadcast the games and the signal carried across the border. Groups of people gathered around flickering faded black and white screens beneath the trees.

Now, on the modern Los Angeles stadium, it all came back. Full circle. Was my mother watching the game with us?

With my husband next to me, the past and present seemed to overlap. The camera of memory widened, pulling back to reveal the larger picture.

My husband and I cheered along with the thousands of strangers for LAFC. We would tell the players when to shoot, when to go, when to no, no, no! We ahhhh-ed with the crowd when chances were missed. We joined in chants that moved through the stadium like waves.

And we learned to cry out with the crowd ¡Quiero llorar! Quiero llorar! when a player from the visiting team would roll on the ground holding onto their shins. Although, part of me felt for the player.

And then, the stadium cameras zoomed in on the fans in the supporters’ section behind the goal farther from us. They waved flags, beat large drums to measured beats and sang songs they must have passionately rehearsed. The only break they took was at half-time, along with the players. That was when I saw them—Asian women waving LAFC flags in a sea of Hispanic fans (one player on LAFC was Korean).

I looked around. Fans were equal numbers of the two nations. And then… us, embraced by both, included, belonging.

We were a sea of humans brought together to support a team who gave their best in a sport that goes beyond borders. That kids play in dirt with improvised goals and balls around the world. A sport that unites and divides at the same time. Unites for the love of the game, divides supporters of different teams.

I breathed in the experience, my chest expanded. I was there for it all. For the game, for the beauty of humans enjoying it, for the togetherness. For the love of the game, for the name of the game—

Football!