I´ve taken to going to Guatemalan football matches recently. It´s the exciting part of the season with the top six teams in the league playing a knock out cup competition to determine who will be champions. Most of my Guatemalan mates are football mad so I´ve taken to following the local team Xelaju. All the "superchivos" have to do is beat "las cremas" to get to the final. I went to the home leg of match yesterday and we managed to win 1-0. I´ve realised that going to Xelaju´s matches is great for the following reasons...
1. Tickets for "top" games cost $5-6. While the standard may be only marginally better than the Unibond league 1 it is definitely cheaper
2. Beer is cheap at the grounds - the equivalent of a pint costs about $1.50
3. You will leave the ground equipped with swearwords for any situation
4. The aficionados here are like those in all other Latin countries - completely mad
5. Xelaju has it´s very own Peter Crouch equivalent up front - although I haven´t heard anyone say "he´s got quite a good touch for a big man" yet
6. The electronic scoreboard stops at 40 mins for some unknown reason. Once of the presidential candidates kindly purchased the scoreboard for the club last year...
