I was flipping through the channels last night when I landed on ESPN Deportes, the Spanish-language offshoot of the Worldwide Leader. I was pleasantly surprised to discover they were broadcasting the Redskins-Cowboys game, as yesterday was the first full day of the NFL season.
I quickly related my excitement to my housemates, who, being from Colombia, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria, didn't care.
But what a relief it was for me. Argentina revolves around soccer. Multiple matches are broadcast nightly, whether Primera Division, minor league or even European. The country's field hockey team just won the Women's Hockey World Cup but caused only a minimal stir here. And although Argentina had the top-ranked basketball team in the world entering the FIBA World Championships, the team likely never drew more attention than a regular-season soccer match.
So my shock at seeing an N.F.L. football game is understandable. Both commentators spoke in Spanish, which allowed me to pick up some useful translations of football terms, something that will come in handy when talking to absolutely no one about American football. (On a related note, this glossary is coming in handy when talking to myself about baseball.) One of the colormen was also fluent in English, based on his pronunciations of player names and his usage of terminology like "the cluster," which I'm sure leads to some crazy on-the-job code switching.
Anyway, I watched the final Cowboys drive with my Spanish housemate Jorge, who had never seen an N.F.L. game in his life. I took it upon myself to diagram as many of the rules of football as possible in 90 seconds. And I did a decent job, until the game-ending holding penalty, which I tried my best in broken Spanish to explain, although I'm pretty sure Jorge left more confused than he had started. Poor guy. We'll work on it again next Sunday.
All this came a day after my first-ever Argentine futbol game. Reflections on that coming later. People got teargassed though.
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