My Controversial Post

I was at the match and did witness quite a few punches being thrown, and I sit in the mezzanine section (I don't mean to say punches were thrown in the Mezz, I mean to say from my vantage point that I could easily observe at least 4 or 5 different scuffles going on.)...

I too am disturbed by this recent trend of behavior..

I don't want to sound Xenophobic in any way but the Salvadoran issue is one of grave concern for me.. Me personally, I've had no problems while at these matches.. But last night was different for me.. My brothers girlfriend went to the match with me and she was constantly harrassed when we were on the Concourse level to buy some souveniers.. She is a tiny little thing (only about 5' and 98 lbs) and I hate to think of what would happen had I not gone with her to "escort" her.. I'm a fairly decent sized guy (5'10" 200 lbs) and can take care of myself but I got really nervous last night and I can't imagine how a 12 or 13 year old child might have felt..


I will not be able to attend the USA/El Salvador match on November 17th and I'm damn glad of it too..

This match has the potential to be very dangerous for anyone who goes and I hope and pray that things will work out OK for all involved.. It's more than likely that we will win this match and further anger pockets of Salvadoran supporters.. I just hope everyone gets out of RFK without incident...

Before anyone lambastes me or Bryan about our views of El Salvadoran behavior, let's just remember that only in games where there has been a Salvadoran prescence, there has always been trouble..

There never was any trouble after the Honduras match, or any of the English matches that RFK has hosted..

It's one common denominator and we all know who it is...

 

My thoughts exactly. This is why I missed my first DCU homegame in 2-3 years. I will also be skipping the USA v El Salvador match... Every time there is an El Salvadoran angle at a game, my wife and another female season ticket holder in our group get majorly harrassed. Usually in the women's restroom (by men!). Add in all the other BS that occurs during the game and we quickly lose interest. How much longer until we have our own Hillsboro moment at RFK?

 

I'm no apologist for the sallies (an intentionally derogatory reference to anti-DCU salvadorenos), but even I realize that there are pockets of trouble but that not every salvadoreno is a rabble rouser.

The Salvadoran community needs to take some responsibility for the excrement their reputation is being drug through by these roving bands of sallie hooligans. Each of these "hooligans" is nothing but a punk who blanches at the prospect of provocative behavior without less than 10 or 12 others behind him. I would dearly love to teach them some manners, but such things are better left to their peers and elders. The "leaders" of the Salvadoran community should assemble a neighborhood watch equivalent. This group could wear orange ball caps or something and try to self-police these cowardly cretins. It is in the Salvadoran community's interest unless they want to further unflattering bias toward salvadorenos in general.

The buddy system works very well for DC United fans, because the sallie punks would need about 15 or twenty guys to confront two average DC United fans. The prospect of payback is just too enticing to keep me away from games vs El Salvador teams. Last night's four-nil result was delicious salt that we vigorously rubbed deep into the raw wounds of every punk we could find (many were behind the Barra Section (R&B was dominating the Choir area behind the Nest).

I would be a wonderful day if the Salvadoran community were able to control its aberrant members. I don't think it will happen anytime soon. So I take satisfaction in watching the anguish on sallie faces as there friggin heroes take it up the bum without lubricant.

GM

 

Most of the fights I saw were Sallies fighting themselves further proving their intellectual prowess.

I said this in another thread, if you want to stay out of trouble for the game on the 17th come to La Norte and sit in the front or the middle and you will have zero problems whatsoever.

 

Although there is the risk of a little rough acting going on, what i saw was not exactly the roughest game ever.... If you want rough.. go down to brasil or argentina, you have to walk always with an eye over your shoulder to see oncomming rocks....

This is soccer boys and girls... I understand the risk for children and smaller statured people, but after seeing the game yesterday I am sure security will be on extra careful watch. I endorse the separation of the fans... and If it nessesary have guards surrounding the US Pockets of fans...
Being 16 years old, I have my share of concerns, but dont let it hinder your obbession for watching this beautiful game..

 

GrillMaster summed it up better than I ever could. I hope the US shows no mercy and kicks the snot out of ES on 11/17.

 

I very much hope that you're not serious. Hillsborough, if you knew about it which you obviously don't, did not occur because of "hooligans". Hillsborough happened because of the fences around the field, that's it. If there had been no fences, the fans involved in the crush would have been able to escape on to the field, relieving all of the pressure on those terraces.

What we deal with, pertaining to the Sallies, is unorganized, spontaneous violence. The only way to avoid the majority of this is to have the an away section, seperating the home and away fans. Plus better policing. That's it. Until DC United/USSF realizes this, there are going to be some big problems with upcoming matches, specifically on the 17th. Don't be surprised to hear about alot of violence for that one.

 

Ever wonder why DCU plays these games? Believe me, they are under no illusions about what goes on. But these matches help the team balance the books at the end of the year. I'm willing to guess that the last 5,000 through the gates were pure profit for the team.

Do you want to end these games? This is what you do. Come to the regular season games and bring 20 people with you for every game. There are probably 200 regular posters on this board. If everyone brought 20 people for every match, we would have 4,000 extra people per match.

Until that happens, don't expect these matches to end.

Sachin

 

I doubt anyone would deny the reason DC United puts on these exhibitions is for money, but they need to hire some more security or somethin. Personally, I dont give a rats ***, but other people care enough to not come..that's bad.

 

I agree with what Bryan said. Until they do a better job policing these games, I'm not going to go to them.

I understand th eprofit motvie behind the games, and they probably do make a lot of money off of them. Just not any of my money.

 

I must say I was in 2 minds about what to do for this game. In the end I decided to go and take my 10 year-old daughter with me and she invited one of her team-mates (also 10 years old) to come with us. We sat in section 205 (VIP tickets at $28 a pop) and were completely surrounded by Sallies (no offence intended). There were maybe 4 or 5 other DCU supporters in the whole section.

Not once did I or either of the girls ever feel intimidated, threatened or otherwise uncomfortable at any point of the game. True we could see the occassional eruption of trouble in the North end (way behind La Norte I might add) and once we watched the police turf someone out a gate when we went looking for Dippin' Dots (those of you who bring kids to the games will know what I mean<G>).

All in all, I was fine with the bahavior of the fans around us - but maybe that's because they were willing to fork out bigger bucks for their tickets so were not out to look for trouble.

Mind you, it was an experience jumping up at each DC goal and realizing no-one else around me was celebrating But I've done that in the swamp as well!

 

Right on. I like international friendlies -- particularly since we haven't been in the playoffs for so long. Even then, I like to see an international team now and then. But so far as I can tell, only El Salvador presents this problem of wide-spread drunken violence, and for that matter, only here.

So why play El Salvador and its teams? Who gives a rat's a$$ about any Salvadoran team? Who has ever heard of any of them before? Why not a Honduran or a Costa Rican or Mexican or some other team? Why not Joe Public from T&T? Why not ANYBODY but El Salvador and its domestic league powerhouses?

 

I remember someone stating that this is probably the deal Ray had to cut to get Q2. It sounds like a plausible reason as I don't think it's too much fun for the DCU staff/team either.

Still, I'm glad we won and I hope everyone is safe & sound.

 

The Common Demoninator

Due to some very unfortunate events at RFK Saturday night, I was in the concourse for the entire second half of the match. I presume DC United won? The entire evening I had absolutely no problem with the Salvadorans, though perhaps some pretty good insults were thrown at me... I don't know Spanish so maybe I missed something. I did have a couple of nice conversations with some Salvadoran fans in the concession stand line, which was about the only favorable thing I can say about the concession stands. Something that I think is very true with regard to the treatment you receive is that old saying... you reap what you sow.

The common denominator that I have seen with regard to fan safety is CSC (stadium security), and Saturday night they were the cause of a fairly serious injury to one of the fans in an unprovoked incident. More details on this will emerge in days ahead, I am sure.

 

Hey smartass, Hillsboro moment = tragic moment that causes a seachange in a sport. In past El Salvadoran games we've had stabbings. I'd call that tragic; if it gets worse, that could kill a very vulnerable game here. Get off your high horse.

 

i was never on a high horse smartass, I was simply telling you not to compare what happened at Hillsborough to the actions of some stupid, drunk sallie fans. If you would have said that you weren't making a literal comparison between the two i would have never said something. 2 or 3 stabbings is unfortunate and horrible, but 96 people dieing is a little worse(not to make it a contest between the two because that's just sick).

 

Hey, I will turn this car around mister!

Cool it boys.

 

The Aguila vs. DC United and Steelers vs. Ravens games this weekend featured some of the worst fan behavior I've ever seen. However, Baltimore's use of the police to be the enforcers for crowd control works far better than RFK's reliance on CSC.

All things considered, I think we got what we expected from the Salvadoran crowd Saturday night. Admittedly, it was the first time I've seen missiles hurled directly into the BB/SE sections. Thank God those idiots didn't throw glass bottles at us (I did see security collecting several empty Corona bottles at one point in the game). I also didn't like having to resort to the "buddy system" to get around in our own stadium. However, I've seen far worse incidents of fan misbehavior at games featuring opposing Salvadoran players. Considering how the United fans were outnumbered by about a 15:1 ratio things could have been far worse than they were.

I thought the security supervisor working the BB/SE area showed some degree of professionalism and good judgment in the way he was handling the situation and it was prudent to hold us in our section at the end of the game until the Aguila horde had departed. On the other hand, among his minions was a toothless, thin-skinned, hotheaded goon who had no idea what his job was. Plain and simple, he was on a power trip. He wrongly accused some of us of throwing things and threatened us with ejection from the stadium. Later, I saw him mishandle a confrontation between an Aguila supporter and a United fan where his belligerence nearly resulted in the kind of violence he was supposed to try to prevent. I did complain about him to the supervisor, but I forgot to get his number. Sadly, we've seen too many stadium security employees act with the same lack of professionalism before.

By the fourth quarter of the Steelers/Ravens game there were lots of problems too. At least five people who sit in my row were ejected for fighting. They don't fool around in Baltimore though. The police there work very closely with security and they directly collar the troublemakers, toss them from the stadium and arrest them if need be. I know the DC police department has manpower and budget issues, but the way to better crowd control at RFK is more police presence and less of CSC.

 

DC's goal is to market the salvadorean fans.

I shook alot of hands of Salvadorean fans, and for once non of them threatened me personally. Actually, they were calling me ********* for a while for protecting one salvadorean dude cheering for United, but stopped after they found someone else to harrass or threat.

Unfortunantly, they wanted to kill all the other DC fans in my section ( LIterally, they said they would meet us out side and shoot us). Everyone in my section didnt mind the threats or verbal abuse till some salvadorean dude grabbed or gave some physical contact to a mother in our section. That pissed us all off.

My time wasnt so bad compared to other matches with salvadorean players.

Realistically, DC needs to market a different ethnic fan base. THe Chinesse, Korean, and Japanese community is pretty large, as well as the indian community. I dont know, anything is better then going through another match with salvadorean fans.

 

Makes me glad with the decision I made to stay away and also to stay away on the 17th. I don't need that crap and neither does my family. To me I do not feel the need to go into a bad situation to "support my team" as others state. I feel my team lets me down by putting people into siituations like this so F em for these games. Let them support themselves.