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World Cup voices: Goosebumps amid a sea of orange

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 29, 2010 12:02 PM

Nina MacLaughlin with two Slovakia fans. "This is very important to us," the team's supporters said.

Dispatches from Boston-area residents attending the World Cup. Here, Nina MacLaughlin, a Cambridge free-lance writer, captures the excitement of yesterday's Netherlands-Slovakia match.

By Nina MacLaughlin

The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa, looks like it’s made of paper. It’s ethereal, beaming white. It looks like origami, all the peaks and folds. It looks like the gaping jaws of a great white shark. And when I walked in this afternoon for Netherlands vs. Slovakia, I got goosebumps.

I followed a river of people along the boardwalk that skirts the Indian Ocean shore, fighting against huge winds. Dutch fans decked in orange head-to-toe, with wild wigs, massive glasses, striped Dr. Seuss-style top-hats, painted faces (and torsos -- one young man was deeply orange from the waist up) dominated the crowd.

The Slovakians wore team jackets and scarves, staid and fewer in number, this Slovakia’s first World Cup. The energy of all of it exceeded my expectations.

In the stadium, the vuvuzela blasts -- the trumpeting, exultant combination of a bleat, a moan, a wail, and a barbaric yawp -- moved across the space like a wave. Total sound. And when it crescendos, it hit me the way bagpipes do, that strange goosebumpy heart-stirring way. The official number in the stands: 61,962, a little over twenty-thousand more than Fenway Park.

The Dutch out-played the Slovakians, winning 2 to 1, Slovakia’s single goal scored from the penalty spot in the final second of play. But the Slovakian fans were proud.

“The big win for Slovakia was to be here,” said Peter Tesbus, who’d traveled from Slovakia with 15 others to cheer his team. “Now Slovakia has been seen on screens across the world. This is very important to us.”

Cristina Figueroa-Carrillo and her husband Jorge Carrillo traveled from Mexico City to root for the Dutch -- but only after England, Mexico, and England were eliminated. Jorge, half-English, disparaged the team: “Awful, terrible. They ought to be hung in Trafalgar Square.”

The Dutch, meanwhile, have “a euphoria you’re able to enjoy. They make you feel welcome. They know how to enjoy themselves.”

The mood, at the end, felt civil and celebratory on both sides. “This is the one sport that all walks of life are part of,” said Figueroa-Carrillo. “Whether we win or lose, it still joins us.”

Slovakia’s Vladimir Balaz echoed those words. “We are so happy to be here for this team. We will celebrate with them. If they win or if they lose, we will celebrate.”
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Read a previous entry in this series and additional Globe coverage of the World Cup.