Why I won’t cheer for the All Whites
COMMENT
Arriba Peru. That’s right, I will be there, at Westpac Stadium, cheering for La Blanquirroja. I will be waving my inflatable llama in the air and bobbing up and down to the drumbeats of Alex Acuna. And I’m taking the whole family. And I hope they cheer along for Peru too.
Yes, I have failed the immigrant test, the famous measure of patriotism that Norman Tebbit came up with in ‘80s Britain to decry folk from Asia and the Caribbean who used to go to the Oval and Headingley and barrack for the West Indies, India and Pakistan. It just wasn’t British, said the Chingford Skinhead.
And maybe giving my favours to Peru just isn’t Kiwi, although in a way it is. You see I was planning to get behind the All Whites. I was hoping that Winston Reid, Tommy Smith, Michael Boxall and Themistokolis Tzimopolous would park the bus and frustrate the hell out of the Latins. I was hoping a crazy moment from Ryan Thomas, Marco Rojas and Chris Wood might somehow confuse the ball into going into the Peruvian net.
And then I would be in the midst of a country up on their feet. We would be going to Russia together. Mmm, yes, well, forget that last bit. We would all be going to the World Cup finals together. We would celebrate Tzimo’s hummus and rhyme it with Thomas and make up songs to sing long into the night and whirl our white shirts above our head.
And then Andy Martian, the man from another planet, the head of New Zealand Football, told us that he hoped the supporters made life hell for Peru. He wants us to be hooligans. He wants us to rattle their team bus and refuse to serve them coffee.
I won’t repeat everything that the Martian said, but here’s the gist; ‘‘It will be hostile, the hotel will be noisy and disruptive, all of those things we know happen in South America. So what we’ve got to think about is what can we do in New Zealand, as a country, to make sure this team know they’re coming into a battle.
‘‘It’s not about welcoming them into New Zealand for a great experience and a football extravaganza, this is about them coming into our home, and we’re going to make life as difficult for them as possible for them to perform.
‘‘This game is almost like a war, really. This is somebody coming to take away our prize, US$10 million (NZ$13.9m) changes the nature of the game of football in New Zealand over the next five years and Peru are coming to take that away from us, so what are we going to do to stop them? We’ll do everything we can on the field, but what can you do it off it?’’
Well, I’m not sure about that last ‘we’, Andy, because God help New Zealand if you’re on the pitch. But are you mad? Presumably if you’d be in charge of Allied troops in the Second World War you would have told them to behave like the Gestapo. But this isn’t war. And it matters a hell of a lot more to them than us. We can be kind, we can be welcoming, we can be Kiwi, just like we were at the Rugby World Cup and on the Lions tour.
Football is Peru’s game. And they have been through 30 years of agony. They call themselves the kings of the choke, the South American Chicago Cubs. All they have is memories and the youth don’t even have that. They don’t know what it’s like to be at a World Cup final.
This World Cup started the same way. Peru picked up just four points from their first six matches. In their second game, Christian Cueva, an artful midifelder, was sent off for throwing the ball in an opponent’s face. It was all going wrong again.
Luis Miguel Echegeray, a lifelong supporter, wrote a beautiful column in The Guardian. He said: ’’For Peruvians, the only assurance that we have in life is that we make the best ceviche in the world and that we won’t qualify for the World Cup. We are not even Cinderella – at least she made it to the ball.’’
His mate Mariano Bustamente said: ’’As a Peruvian, rooting for the national team is like having a toxic ex-girlfriend. You know that every time you get back together, she’s going to deceive you, she’s going to cheat on you, but like a fool you forgive her, thinking that she will change. But she never changes, she just disappoints you, over and over again. But she’ll return in four years, and again, like a fool you’ll take her back.’’
You think these guys don’t already have it hard, Andy. Half of them won’t even be able to make to over to support their team because they will never get a visa in time, even if we are trying to find a lastminute way to speed up the process. What now? The paperwork usually has to go through Washington’s Circumlocution Office. What’s it got to do with them? Maybe we are at war. We condemn you to fight American immigration for eternity.
Isn’t it already hard enough already for the 31 million Peruvians on this planet? They’ve had the Shining Path and military regimes and slaughter and hyperinflation and poverty. And now they’ve got this beautiful team and a bit of hope and we can’t even waive a visa in their face.
So I’m cheering for the boys of coach El Tigre. I’m cheering for Pablo Guerrero and Renato Tapia and Edison Flores. I’m cheering for skill and passion and beauty. I’m cheering for Luis Miguel who says, ‘‘We love this game so much, because it’s a testament of loyalty not just to your team but to the people you love.’’
I’m cheering for football.