They took a bus for five days and were rewarded with a heart-stopping final
Flamengo supporters took to a bus to make it to the Libertadores final after a dispute over public transportation prices paralyzed Chile, the original host
Somehow, the convergence of everything in this story is public transportation.
In the beginning of October the Chilean government took the step of raising public transportation costs in its capital Santiago.
These hikes have been particularly contentious in Latin America over the last decade as the economic malaise the continent has endured following the mid 2000s commodity boom has largely worn off.
Predictably, people in Chile were upset about the hikes and began ad-hoc protests starting on Oct. 7 focused on the Santiago metro. Unpredictably, it led to a million Chileans marching in the street protesting income inequality in one of Latin America’s countries that was perceived to be relatively stable on Oct. 25. Things change rapidly.
Meanwhile in Brazil, there was football to be played. I promise these two events will converge.
The semifinals of the Copa Libertadores, the South American version of the Champions League, had reached its final four teams in October. Four giants of the continent, Flamengo, Gremio, River Plate, and Boca Juniors had progressed to the semifinals in matchups that would guarantee a Brazil vs. Argentina final.
For the first time, the Copa Libertadores final would be played in a neutral site. Instead of a home and away final played over two legs, the Copa Libertadores would be modernized to match its European counterpart the Champions League. It wouldn’t matter that South America is a large, vast continent and that travel could make it hard for supporters to visit the neutral site, the prospect of a thrilling one off final meant money for CONMEBOL, the South American football governing body, and intriguing storylines. They were right.
On Oct. 2 Flamengo, a giant club from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, travelled to Porto Alegre, Brazil to play Gremio in the first leg of the Libertadores semifinal. The game ended in a 1-1 draw. A pivotal match would take place in Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 23 to decide who would go to the Libertadores final…in Santiago, Chile.
The return leg was a thrashing by my cub Flamengo. They won 5-0 at home to make it to their first Libertadores final in 38 years. Flamengo is the largest club in Brazil and claims to have over 40 million fans in the country alone. It has spent the last 5 years consolidating its debts, and is now financially solvent. In response a new club administration has spent handsomely with the goal of winning a league title and a continental title. The Oct. 23 victory represented putting the club on the precipice of the biggest success it could win in nearly four decades.
As Brazil continues to grapple with its far right government, some of the biggest pain has been inflicted on the minority communities in Rio de Janeiro. Hardline security tactics have paralyzed the city and lead to the largest increase in police violence the city has seen in decades. Things are not looking well in Rio, except on the football pitch when Flamengo plays.
Once the protests started in Santiago on Oct. 7 they would not subside. In fact, they are still ongoing to this day. The first major victory the protests scored was the cancellation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit on Oct. 31. It was the first major event Chile was due to host that needed to be moved or cancelled to avoid facing massive protests that continued to engulf Santiago.
Eventually, the Copa Libertadores final would have to be reviewed. CONMEBOL first sought assurances from Chilean government officials that the game could be played in its original location. As the protests continued to swell across all of Chile, the situation became untenable.
On Nov. 5 CONMEBOL decided that the game would no longer be staged in Santiago, Chile, but in Lima, Peru. The date of the final, Nov. 23, would not be changed, and those who bought tickets for the final in Santiago would have their tickets honored. However, the new stadium for the final was much larger than the original, so new tickets would become available as well.
Fans had to scramble. With three weeks to go rerouting flights from Santiago to Lima was a nightmare. Prices on flights from Rio to Lima soared at the last minute:
Some fans got so desperate they found online that there was an old bus route that would go from São Paulo to Lima. It would take five days.
A simple car ride from Rio to Lima would take 51 hours and cross multiple countries:
Sensing an opportunity, Brazilian bus company Buser stepped in and offered fans a lifeline. Show you have a Libertadores finals ticket and be entered to win a round trip bus ticket with Buser for only R$100 (around $25 USD) and free accommodations in Lima:
It was a story that was too good to be true, but at the same time irresistibly Brazilian.
I’ll even admit on Nov. 5 I was browsing cheap flights from my home in the U.S. to Lima through Spirit Airways. They cost about $650 dollars at the time of the announcement. If they were slightly cheaper I would have impulse bought one. The next day the price nearly doubled. I did not make it to Lima.
But Marcello Neves did. He is a reporter for O Globo, Brazil’s largest media company. He is a senior reporter on Flamengo and was producing some of the best work I was reading about fans all over the country trying to get to Lima for the game. One of my favorite pieces he did was about fans in Brazil’s far west state of Acre that now had a rare opportunity to see their favorite team live. Acre is about 1800 miles west of Rio de Janeiro. Flamengo hadn’t played in the state in 22 years. Now they were as close as anyone to a continental final.
Neves got in my opinion one of the best assignments possible for the Libertadores final. He would accompany fans on the Buser bus to Lima from Rio.
The fans had to set off on Nov. 18 to make it to the game by Nov. 23. They were set to arrive on Nov. 22 just in time. They would sleep on the bus. They would eat on the bus. The bus was home for five days until they got to see what they were hoping would be the game of their lives.
The route the bus took was from Rio down to Foz de Iguaçu in the south of Brazil on the border of Argentina. Then the bus went across Argentina’s northern provinces over to Chile. Then after passing through the Atacama desert in the extreme north of Chile, they would enter Peru and drive up to Lima.
I had originally hoped to keep talking with Neves most of the journey, but by day three it was clear he was busy, and not really responding. Then, on Nov. 20 I got a voice message that said, “I will respond shortly, but there have been many problems”.
I asked what was wrong, and got one word in response: “altitude”.
Apparently, as the bus travelled through Argentina to Chile, it was slowly going up in altitude, which led to some passengers, including Neves, to get altitude sickness. It was a difficult journey.
As Neves adjusted to his new altitude, it was clear based on his twitter feed that the ride was not the smoothest for some. There were difficulties changing Brazilian Reals to Argentine Pesos at the border, and not everyone had a credit card that worked internationally. At one point Neves was tweeting out bank numbers soliciting fans to help send money to one person’s account since they had an international bank card that could pay for food for some fans that did not. Life on the bus was fun, but challenging at times.
By Nov. 21 the intrepid fans had made it to Chile, but they were not immune to the realities the country was facing. An early morning protest blocking the highway had stranded the bus for five hours according to this picture Neves sent to me:
The protesters meant no harm to the traveling Flamengo contingent, and had one simple request: join in support on the road and we will let you pass.
Eventually, the bus arrived in Lima well in time for the game. And what a game it was. Flamengo went down 1-0 in the first half, and scored two goals in the final minutes of the game to win its first continental championship since 1981. I was watching at a party, alone in a corner, and tearing up when the second goal was scored unexpectedly. Joy, reigned over Lima, Rio de Janeiro, and all of Brazil honestly.
Following reporting on the match, Neves and the fans departed once again for Rio de Janeiro back on the Buser bus that got them this far. They got memories that will last a lifetime and packed in enough adventure to last until the next one. Neves sent me these thoughts as he set out from Lima:
I accepted [this assignment] because I wanted to live the Libertadores final in a different way. I suggested going by bus as an agenda. It was something I tried to do differently from all the other reporters scheduled for the Libertadores final.
It was less difficult than I thought because the bus provided by Buser was so good. I didn't feel so tired, for example. [However], the biggest difficulty was bathing, because it was always in the middle of the road, and food, since you could not know when we would stop again and had to control myself all the time. That is, I already expected difficulty in these two areas and was positively surprised.
It was a professional commitment, but you get involved in history. I highlight five fans in my articles and see the effort each one made to be here.
Now that Neves is back home in Rio he had a little more to add about the experience:
I wanted to apologize for not answering every day, but then I have something else that you can include in the article.
I spent more time on this trip without internet than with. Between days 4 and 5 [on the bus in the Atacama mountain range and desert] it was almost 36 hours without signal. In the few hours I had internet I had to rush to send the stories desperately. As for the altitude, I had to ask the bus driver for oxygen balloon because the effects are very strong. It was a very bad experience.
I saw inside the bus how people come together in difficult times. There were moments of tension and irritation, but I highlighted when people ran out of money and tried to help each other. People were crazy about traveling for 11 days by bus with no money to eat. I think the situation itself speaks about fan passion. I saw it as something religious, faith, as if they followed something they worship. it was a fantastic experience.
Chile is still wandering its way through the latest round of political crises that is gripping South America. Flamengo fans are now figuring out how to get tens of thousands of fans from Brazil to Doha, Qatar for the Club World Cup. When public transit is available and affordable, people will take it based on hope and little planning, whether it leads them to fighting income inequality or a cross-continental journey.
What I am reading/following:
-The 2019 Southeast Asian Games are about to begin in the Philippines.
-What happens when you become a sports meme? The Miami Herald interviewed Alonzo Mourning about his infamous moment in a blowout loss that has become an enduring gif.
-Should be noted that Flamengo fans were still flying home from Lima 3 days after the Libertadores final:
-The end to the Russian Doping Crisis does not look like it will be anywhere near in sight.
-Flamengo won the Brazilian league the day after the Libertadores final after Palmeiras lost to Gremio, BY THE WAY.
-USA Gymnastics did not follow up that it was investigating Larry Nassar with its top athletes, even as it knew those athletes were abused by Nassar, the Wall Street Journal reports.
-The Mainichi Shimbun wonders where all the French is before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
-Scores will be broadcast in between rounds during the Tokyo 2020 boxing tournament, a first.
-Tokyo’s Olympic stadium is complete.
-Check out some of the alternate realities hard core players of the game Football Manager have created, thanks to this Wired report.
-Thomas Bach talks about moving the Tokyo 2020 marathon to Sapporo:
