SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica – The ticket on the right was purchased on Sunday. Can you spot the mistakes?
No, this isn't 2013. Sunday wasn't August 18. And no – this one is trickier – Belén weren't playing Pérez Zeledón. Yet I was handed this very ticket seconds before entering the stadium to see Belén take on Puma Generaleña, in the Costa Rican first division.
To be fair, I came close to not exposing such mistakes.
According to multiple sources online, Belén was scheduled to play at the Polideportivo de Belén at 4 pm on Sunday. After Googling the venue, three colleagues and I looked forward to checking out the run-down stadium, which seemed similar to the Montreal Impact’s old stadium at Centre Claude-Robillard.
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The taxi got us there at 3:40 pm. We were the first to arrive. In fact, we were the only ones there.
The internet had led us astray. The game, it turned out, was taking place at Herediano’s Estadio Eladio Rosabal Cordero, a 20-minute drive from Belén.
Alright, then. The Cordero’s capacity is at least twice that of the Polideportivo, I told myself. Surely they expect a good turnout, and after all, experiencing these rarely seen crowds – outside of regular CCL participants Alajuelense, Saprissa and Herediano, we don’t get to watch a lot of the Costa Rican first division – was why I wanted to attend a league game before Montreal’s CONCACAF Champions League second leg at Alajuelense on Tuesday.
Se we handed our mistake-ridden tickets to the gentleman at the door and turned the corner at a food kiosk only to find that we had the whole thing pretty much to ourselves. Again.
There may not have been north of 400 people in the Cordero as the game kicked off. No groups of supporters sang and jumped the entire game, or even a little bit of it. Watching the Cartaginés-Alajuelense game on television on Saturday night, we saw that the stadium was far from full, but there was organized support. Here, most spectators focused on finding refuge from the burning sun, for the most part reacting to what happened on the field rather than creating an atmosphere themselves.
The game went back and forth – to a fault – for 90 minutes. The play was direct, and the players took no prisoners with their tackling. But there was some scattered brilliance, some of it even provided by a Canadian. Belén’s Keven Alemán, a former pupil at the Toronto FC Academy, is on loan from Herediano.
Halftime arrived without a goal, and the Belén anthem boomed out of the speakers.
Aquí, aquí, aquí está el Belén
Ahí, ahí, ahí está el campeón
Here, here, here is Belén
Here, here, here is the champion
It was an upbeat song alright, but a misleading one. Any result would see Belén remain dead last in the 12-team league. But they're getting better. After they were thrashed 6-0 by Alajuelense on March 22, Belén rebounded with a 5-0 win over Carmelita. Then they went to mighty Saprissa and beat the Purple Monster, 2-1.
Conveniently, they improved after halftime on Sunday. Midway through the second half, Belén scored twice in five minutes to build a two-goal advantage. Left winger Bryan Lopez opened things up, switching flanks and running onto a through ball down the right before slotting the ball home at the far post. Minutes later, Jocifer Castro perfectly placed his free kick into the top left corner, giving the goalkeeper no chance.
Belén’s supporters were ecstatic as the speakers once again blared the club anthem. A lady behind us promised her granddaughter that they would sing the song together when the team scored the third.
There would be no third. The game finished 2-0, but the granddaughter got to sing the song with her abuela anyway. Belén remained bottom of the league, but if they carry on like this, that’s bound to change.
Many odd things, at least from a North American soccer perspective, peppered our afternoon. The low attendance, the reactive atmosphere, the disappointing soccer – it embodied what clubs such as Belén and Puma have to deal with as the three powerhouses monopolize the trophies. Everything wasn’t perfect. In fact, nothing was. But that’s what made the whole thing interesting, even fun.
Before we left, I had to ask someone why we we were here, at Herediano's home stadium. "Why don’t Belén play at Polideportivo de Belén?" I asked a mustachioed man in his fifties.
“Why would they play there?” he replied.
As a hotel employee would later tell me, Belén quite simply do not play there anymore. Like everyone else, she wasn't able to tell me exactly why.
Hmm, OK.
What was the name of the venue on the ticket again?
