Today, the Dowbrigade will don his sportswriter cap and report on the much anticipoated showdown between our hometown New England Revolution and the glamor team of the Ecuadorian first division, Emelec.
The Emelec squad is known locally as “Los Milonarios,” mostly because their fan base is the rich and privaleged socio-economic elites who rule in any developing country, b and can be seen bombing around in late-model land rovers, hummers and other armored vehicles. They are true sports fans, just as much as the poor teeming masses, who pledge allegiance to Emelec’s cross-town rivals, Barcelona Futbal Club.
The other reason Emelec is known as the Millionaires is their capitalist roots. Emelec was originally the team of the Empressa Electrica de Ecuador, the Ecuadorain Electric Company, back in the day when the biggest companies owned and sponsored sports teams, owned and operated as monopolies the key companies, in the interest of “national security. Also just like in the Soviet bloc.
Barcelonistas and Emelecistas hate each other with a cold, consuming familiarity. They hate each other like the Hatfields and McCoys, like the Capulets and , or, dare we say it, like an Ecuadorian echo of the Red Sox and Yankees.
They compete in every sport imaginable, not just in soccer. These “Sports Clubs” are veritable sports empites, keriatsu of comptetive sports, and the Barcelona – Emelec “classico” is repeated endlessly in basketball, volleyball, water polo, chess, equestrian events, and Sapos, an Ecuadorian favorite involving tossing metal slugs into the open mouths of cast iron frogs.
Thirty years ago we participated in one of the more obscure