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Help! I Got Trapped in a Citywide World Cup Party in Málaga, Spain
MÁLAGA, Spain — I learned the uncomfortable joy of nonviolent chaos along with tens of thousands of my closest midnight friends on Sunday evening. Fortune placed me in Spain and Spain in the World Cup finals.
I served as the American delegate to a United Nations of Fins, Danes, Germans, English, and Spaniards crammed into O’Connor’s, an Irish bar in this Andalusian beach town. When Donald Trump appeared on the television screen during the match, people of diverse languages spoke in a common tongue through a loud and sustained “boo.” Compelled by patriotic duty and the beverages O’Connor’s serves, I demonstratively cheered atop a chair. This proved contagious. Because the Silent Trump Supporter phenomenon seeps outside of America’s borders or as an appreciation for my bravado, the sudden cheers nearly offset the boos. Several of the bar patrons more quietly then inquired about Trump to the lone American in sight. Like cheerleaders, Ford F-150s, and Civil War reenactments, Donald Trump perplexes outsiders.
A more positive, pent-up reaction greeted Feran Torres when he finally kicked a ball into a net after a full game and in the midst of the second extra-time period. Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez kept up a rather convincing none-shall-pass, Black Knight impersonation for the entire contest. But with Argentina on the heel throughout, Spain’s victory — provided that time did not expire so that Argentina could roll the dice with penalty kicks — seemed almost a fait accompli.
When Spain mercifully put the ball into the net after 106 minutes, fans poured out of bars and into Plaza de la Constitución and Plaza de la Merced. The wild scene — which I attempt to describe here but reaches a better approximation in the video I posted on my YouTube channel (please like and subscribe!) — witnessed men, women, and children hoisted upon the shoulders of large humans, a sea of red-and-yellow flags, and shouts of “Viva España.” No fights, gunshots, or even vomit on the streets accompanied the celebration. Several dejected individuals wearing Argentina jerseys even walked about unmolested. It all seemed so un-American — in a good way.
Five days earlier in Toledo, the Spaniards lulled me into regarding their fandom as refined and reserved. The reaction to the upset of France in the semifinals involved claps and cheers followed by a quick evaporation of the entire bar. These people worked the next day and Spain, just 16 years removed from winning the World Cup, had been here before. The Spanish, I misjudged, amounted to maybe the anti-soccer-hooligans.
On Sunday night in Málaga, the cops rather smartly ignored the bedlam — uncontrollable and cathartic — rather than sought to quell it. Strangely, the primary impulse I felt here amid so much exhilaration and joy is: “Get me out of here!” Among so many celebrating nighttime strangers, bad things can happen: fights, pickpocketing, falls. Yet, I witnessed only a happy crowd. Still, that ingrained impulse that insists that massive throngs of people are very scary nudged me to abscond. In my escape from the chaos, I aided a small Irishwoman looking like a pinball caught between pop bumpers. Thank goodness I am large, I thought to myself — and maybe she did too — as I carved a path through the humans.
Cars rather than crowds jammed La Alameda. Some danced atop vehicles. La Rojigualda waved from windows. Beeping horns and nonstop vuvuzelas invaded the ears as just the mass of humanity stimulated, similarly not always in welcome ways, other senses.
Again, smiling faces and an ebullient mood could not overrule this inveterate flight response. Clearly, as attested by the public celebration’s size and duration — it continued for hours after the match — not everyone’s instinct sounds the alarm when large and loud mobs surround. Maybe my feeling of enjoyment mixed with an impulse to leave the party comes from being 52 and the desire to stay put among the revelers stems from being 22?
No word exists for knowing that you, at a given moment, occupy the ideal spot on the globe yet feverishly work to evacuate the premises. The feeling certainly does.
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