El Muro Que Cayó: Fútbol, Identidad y los Estadios de América Latina

They have a memorial section now.

You walk through this wall of names and photographs and then you're in a football ground.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y Alianza Lima también tiene su propia historia trágica.

And Alianza Lima also has its own tragic history.

En 1987, un avión con casi todo el equipo de fútbol cayó al mar cerca del Callao.

In 1987, a plane carrying almost the entire football squad fell into the sea near Callao.

Murieron ocho jugadores del primer equipo.

Eight first-team players died.

Para los hinchas de Alianza, ese día es como una herida que nunca cierra del todo.

For Alianza fans, that day is like a wound that never completely closes.

I did not know that.

That's the kind of thing that transforms a club from a team into something more like a community.

When a club suffers that kind of loss together, it becomes part of the identity of an entire city.

Bueno, y es que los hinchas de Alianza vienen principalmente del distrito de La Victoria y de otros barrios populares de Lima.

And the fans of Alianza come mainly from the district of La Victoria and other working-class neighborhoods of Lima.

Estos barrios tienen una cultura muy fuerte, con música, con gastronomía, con una identidad muy propia.

These neighborhoods have a very strong culture, with music, food, and a very distinct identity.

El fútbol es el centro de todo eso.

Football is at the center of all of it.

So when the wall fell, it didn't fall on strangers.

It fell on people who were gathering in their place, around their club, before the biggest game of their year.

That changes the weight of it entirely.

A ver, yo quiero hablar un momento de las barras bravas, porque son una parte importante de esta historia.

I want to talk for a moment about the barras bravas, because they are an important part of this story.

En América Latina, los grupos de hinchas más apasionados se llaman barras bravas.

In Latin America, the most passionate fan groups are called barras bravas.

Son como los ultras del fútbol europeo, pero con sus propias tradiciones y sus propios problemas.

They are like the ultras of European football, but with their own traditions and their own problems.

Right, the barras bravas.

I covered a story about them in Buenos Aires years ago and I came away genuinely confused about how to think about them.

Because on one hand, they're creating this extraordinary atmosphere, this theater of passion.

On the other hand, there's real violence and corruption tied to some of these groups.

Es que la realidad es compleja.

The reality is complex.

Una barra brava crea los cánticos, los tambores, los colores, la energía del estadio.

A barra brava creates the chants, the drums, the colors, the energy of the stadium.

Sin ellos, el partido es diferente.

Without them, the match is different.

Pero algunos grupos tienen conexiones con la violencia, con el crimen organizado.

But some groups have connections to violence, to organized crime.

No es una cosa o la otra, es las dos cosas al mismo tiempo.

It is not one thing or the other, it is both things at the same time.

The extraordinary thing is how this mirrors what happened in Britain in the 1980s.

Before Hillsborough.

Before the Taylor Report.

English grounds were crumbling, terraces were overcrowded, and fans were treated almost like cattle.

And then 97 people died, and everything changed.

Sí, y en muchos países de América Latina ese cambio todavía no llegó.

Yes, and in many Latin American countries that change still has not arrived.

Después de Hillsborough, Inglaterra construyó estadios nuevos y modernos con asientos para todos.

After Hillsborough, England built new, modern stadiums with seats for everyone.

Pero en Perú, en Argentina, en muchos otros países, los estadios viejos siguen funcionando sin grandes cambios.

But in Peru, in Argentina, in many other countries, old stadiums continue to operate without major changes.

And part of that, I think, is economic.

Renovating or replacing a stadium costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a country where a big portion of the population lives in poverty, that's a hard argument to make to a finance minister.

La verdad es que también hay un problema político.

There is also a political problem.

Los clubes grandes de fútbol en América Latina tienen mucho poder.

The big football clubs in Latin America have a lot of power.

Alianza Lima, Universitario, River Plate, Boca Juniors, estos clubes son instituciones poderosas.

Alianza Lima, Universitario, River Plate, Boca Juniors, these clubs are powerful institutions.

A veces los políticos no quieren enfrentarse a ellos para exigirles que mejoren los estadios.

Sometimes politicians don't want to confront them and demand improvements to the stadiums.

That's a dynamic I recognize from a lot of the countries I covered.

Big institutions, whether it's the military or the church or a football club, become untouchable.

And around them grows this infrastructure of corruption and neglect that eventually, literally, falls on somebody.

Bueno, y también hay algo cultural que es difícil de cambiar.

And there is also something cultural that is hard to change.

Para muchos hinchas, la incomodidad del estadio viejo es parte de la experiencia.

For many fans, the discomfort of the old stadium is part of the experience.

El estadio Matute es viejo, es ruidoso, es estrecho, pero es nuestro.

Estadio Matute is old, noisy, and cramped, but it is ours.

Cambiarlo significa perder algo, aunque sea difícil de explicar qué exactamente.

Changing it means losing something, even if it is hard to explain exactly what.

I completely understand that impulse.

Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago.

These are falling apart in various ways and the fans love them precisely because of that.

There's a romance to old stadiums.

The problem is that romance doesn't hold up walls.

No, no, espera, porque aquí quiero hacer una distinción importante.

Wait, because I want to make an important distinction here.

Fenway Park tiene mantenimiento constante, tiene inversiones millonarias cada año.

Fenway Park has constant maintenance, it has millions invested in it every year.

El estadio Matute no tiene ese dinero.

Estadio Matute does not have that money.

Amar un estadio viejo es romántico cuando hay dinero para mantenerlo.

Loving an old stadium is romantic when there is money to maintain it.

Cuando no hay dinero, es peligroso.

When there is no money, it is dangerous.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

That's the distinction I was fumbling toward.

It's not the age of the structure, it's the investment in the structure.

And that comes back to money, and money comes back to who we decide deserves safety.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y mira, los hinchas que estaban en el estadio Matute ese día no son personas con mucho dinero.

And the fans who were at Estadio Matute that day are not people with a lot of money.

Son trabajadores, son jóvenes de barrios populares.

They are workers, they are young people from working-class neighborhoods.

Cuando el sistema no los protege, son ellos los que sufren.

When the system does not protect them, they are the ones who suffer.

No los ricos, no los poderosos.

Not the rich, not the powerful.

I want to go back to something you said earlier, about the club being tied to a specific barrio, a specific community.

Because I think that explains something about why these fans are gathering in the first place, the rally before the match.

That's not just enthusiasm, is it.

A ver, el ritual del clásico empieza mucho antes del partido.

The ritual of the derby starts long before the match.

Los hinchas se reúnen en el estadio para cantar, para pintar banderas, para preparar el espectáculo visual de la tribuna.

Fans gather at the stadium to sing, to paint flags, to prepare the visual spectacle in the stands.

Es un trabajo colectivo.

It is a collective effort.

Lleva muchas horas.

It takes many hours.

El partido es el final, no el principio.

The match is the end, not the beginning.

So these 47 people who were injured, and the one person who died, they weren't just fans showing up early.

They were participating in something that has its own grammar, its own choreography.

A tradition.

Sí, exactamente.

Yes, exactly.

Y eso es lo que mucha gente fuera de América Latina no entiende del fútbol aquí.

And that is what many people outside Latin America do not understand about football here.

No es solo el partido.

It is not just the match.

Es todo lo que pasa alrededor.

It is everything that happens around it.

Los cánticos, los colores, el humo de los bengalas, la música de los tambores.

The chants, the colors, the smoke of flares, the sound of drums.

El estadio es una forma de arte colectivo.

The stadium is a form of collective art.

The extraordinary thing is that when you describe it like that, it becomes very clear why the response to stadium disasters is so complicated.

You can't just tell people to stay home and watch on television.

You'd be telling them to abandon something that is genuinely central to how they understand themselves.

Bueno, y hay algo más.

And there is something more.

El fútbol en Perú es también una forma de escapar.

Football in Peru is also a way to escape.

La vida en un barrio popular de Lima puede ser muy difícil, con problemas económicos, con inseguridad.

Life in a working-class neighborhood of Lima can be very hard, with economic problems, with insecurity.

El fútbol es el momento en que todo eso desaparece por noventa minutos.

Football is the moment when all of that disappears for ninety minutes.

Eso es muy valioso.

That is very valuable.

I've heard that said about sport in general but I think it's especially true of football in Latin America.

And that function, the escape, the collective release, it makes the infrastructure question even more urgent.

If the stadium is where people go to feel safe and free, then the stadium has to actually be safe.

La verdad es que después de una tragedia como esta siempre hay promesas de los políticos.

The truth is that after a tragedy like this there are always promises from politicians.

Investigaciones, reformas, nuevas normas de seguridad.

Investigations, reforms, new safety standards.

Pero muchas veces, después de unos meses, todo vuelve a ser igual.

But many times, after a few months, everything goes back to the way it was.

Esto pasó en Argentina, pasó en Colombia, pasó en muchos países.

This happened in Argentina, it happened in Colombia, it happened in many countries.

The cycle of disaster and forgotten promise.

I've reported on that cycle so many times in so many different contexts.

The thing is, it usually takes a very large number of deaths before anything structurally changes.

And that is a moral indictment of how we value certain lives over others.

Mira, quiero mencionar una cosa positiva también, porque no todo es negativo.

I want to mention something positive too, because not everything is negative.

En los últimos años, algunos países de América Latina empezaron a tomar decisiones más serias sobre los estadios.

In recent years, some Latin American countries began making more serious decisions about stadiums.

Chile renovó el Estadio Nacional.

Chile renovated the Estadio Nacional.

Uruguay construyó estadios nuevos.

Uruguay built new stadiums.

Es posible hacer estos cambios.

These changes are possible.

So change is possible.

It just requires political will, which requires public pressure, which requires exactly the kind of moment that Lima is having right now.

The question is whether that pressure holds past the news cycle.

A ver, para mí la historia de Alianza Lima es también la historia de Lima, de Perú, de toda América Latina.

For me, the story of Alianza Lima is also the story of Lima, of Peru, of all Latin America.

Un club con mucha pasión y mucha historia, con problemas reales de dinero y de infraestructura, en un país que tiene cosas más urgentes que resolver cada día.

A club with great passion and great history, with real problems of money and infrastructure, in a country that has more urgent things to solve every day.

Todo eso está en este muro que cayó.

All of that is in this wall that fell.

I think that's the right place to land.

One wall, one death, 47 injuries.

And underneath all of it, a question about whose safety we prioritize, and what happens when a place of joy becomes a place of danger because we stopped paying attention.

That's the real story here.

Bueno, y para los oyentes que estudian español, quiero decir una cosa.

And for listeners who are studying Spanish, I want to say one thing.

Cuando hablas con alguien de Perú o de Argentina sobre fútbol, no hablas solo de fútbol.

When you talk with someone from Peru or Argentina about football, you are not only talking about football.

Hablas de su historia, de su familia, de su barrio.

You are talking about their history, their family, their neighborhood.

Es la conversación más personal que puedes tener.

It is the most personal conversation you can have.

Recuérdalo.

Remember that.