Standing outside the Arena Pernambuco, a stadium on the outskirts of Brazil’s Recife metropolitan area, I felt like a tiny rain-drenched speck in a sea of football fans. Most of them had come prepared, faces streaked with the black, red, and gold of Germany or the stars and stripes of the United States. Those with tickets trooped confidently through the gates, wearing steely stares, refusing to acknowledge the riff-raff, the dregs of the crowd, the ticketless, of whom I was one.
It was 26 June, the final day of the World Cup group stage, and my aim was simple: Germany, the football team I support, was playing the United States in this north-eastern Brazilian city, and I had to watch the game. A straightforward task, and yet daunting, since I had already read that the tickets for this particular match were the most expensive of the 2014 World Cup thus far, and also that legitimate tickets had been sold out months in advance. My excitement was gradually being replaced by an overwhelming sense of futility.
The day of the game saw about 12 hours of constant, heavy rainfall, and the 25-kilometre drive to the stadium took me two and a half hours, with agonising long waits at traffic lights, and rain pouring in through the windows, kept open to allow visibility.
Once I reached the stadium premises, I assessed the situation. Dodge the police and get a ticket in black, off a tout? Right. But with one hour and 15 minutes before the 1 pm kickoff, and with my ticket-poaching skills, as well as my knowledge of Portuguese, non-existent, things did not look promising. I scrutinised the faces of every cerveja (beer) vendor I passed, hoping they were doubling up as undercover touts.
“Ingresso?” I asked hopefully. “Ticket?” They wagged their fingers at me. Não, não, não.
I walked the 500-metre path from the stadium turnstile to the nearest bus stop, hoping to accost some fresh arrivals and sway them with an expression that I hoped conveyed that I deserved kindness and pity, and also that I was willing to pay good money for a ticket. Other seekers were less subtle, holding up placards that read “NEED TICKET” or simply holding one finger to the thunderous sky in the style of cricket umpires.
Learn quickly, I told myself, watching how the other, probably more experienced lot, were going about things. The language barrier wasn’t insurmountable, after all—surely, here, even more important than English, German or Portuguese, was the language of hard cash. And when it was two big, dollar-dropping, euro-spitting teams in the mix, the touts were much more likely to be interested in people’s cash than their conversational abilities.
My first attempted deal was with a fast-talking, good-looking Brazilian couple who asked me for 800 reais straight up. About $400. I asked the lady to show me the ticket. She complied, unzipping the pocket of her blue raincoat to allow me a glimpse. Category 4 (the worst seats), original price: 30 reais. “Muy caro (too expensive),” I told her, mustering up the little Spanish I knew. She looked at me and shrugged, rattled off an irritated stream of Portuguese, and turned her attention to another interested customer. Never mind, I thought, there was still about fifty minutes to go for the match. There was time yet for the touts to get more desperate than I was.
I assumed my previous position after this failure: facing the gathered crowd walking to the stadium, index finger in the air, occasionally calling out, “Ticket,” “Ingresso.” But I might as well have been invisible.
Someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around to a hail of Portuguese words and an elderly Brazilian man trying to open negotiations. “Cuanto?” (How much?) I said. He muttered something incomprehensible in reply. I signed “100” in the air and repeated “dollar” so he would get it. There was more Portuguese I couldn’t understand. Obviously, he was saying no.
I upped my bid. “Two hundred dollars?”
He reached into his trousers and pulled out his wallet.
Finally, it was within reach, the ticket I was seeking with such fervour. In my mind, I was already making the glorious walk to my stadium seat and settling in, clutching the oh-so-valuable piece of paper. It was then that I realised the man I was trying to buy a ticket off was actually pulling out money to pay me. Drawing out some more broken Spanish from the recesses of my memory, I said: “No vende. Compro compro compro” (Not sell, I want to buy, to buy, to buy).
We walked away from each other in disgust, both no doubt cursing our precious wasted minutes.
Even with ten minutes to go for kickoff, ticket-holders were arriving in droves, chanting, singing, screaming as they breezed through the hallowed gates, filling me with even greater despair. One such trio walked by, jumping over puddles and discussing who had to buy the next round of cerveja, and they kept this up till a voice near me called out to them. An American, also in search of a ticket and clearly still unsuccessful like me, had spotted them drop one of their tickets onto the muddy ground, and he now held it out toward them. Fool, I thought, wanting simultaneously to commend him for his honesty and shake his righteousness out of him.
Up and down the path I walked, stadium to bus stop and back, several times over, passing unfortunate kindred souls. Several others in my situation had given up and already begun queuing up for buses to leave. I wondered if I should join them. From within the stadium, I heard the crowd roaring, greeting the teams walking out. So near, so far.
“You want a ticket? One thousand dollars.” An American drawl from behind me interrupted my defeated musings.
“That’s too much,” I parried.
“Five hundred then.”
“Three hundred?”
“No, take it or leave it.”
I left it.
My chances growing bleaker with each passing minute, I returned to my original strategy of walking around, calling out “Ticket? Ticket?” I watched a few people snap up tickets right in front of me, each briefly raising hope that it was not too late for me, but also leaving me with the demoralising realisation that there was now one ticket less for me.
The match was now approaching half-time. Praying that the touts were growing impatient to sell any remaining tickets they had with time running out, I went up to one gang, only to be waved away as I approached. Three Americans were negotiating with them and offering far more money than I had with me, with opening bids of around four hundred dollars.
Then, a man, dressed in a shirt and trousers, rather formal for the occasion and his work at the time, walked up to me. “You want ticket?” he asked in broken English.
“How much?” I asked. There were still 45 minutes of football left.
“Give me four hundred,” he said.
“No, no,” I said firmly. “Two hundred.”
“OK, come with me,” he said, gesturing towards a nearby turnstile, where the crowd, and the watching policemen, had visibly thinned out. “No policia there,” he said.
I followed him, looking straight ahead each time I passed any policemen, who were standing in groups all around the stadium. Thoughts crowded my mind. What if it was fake? What if the seat didn’t exist? What if the security guards insisted on my ID to prove the ticket had my name on it?
Over the booming public address system from within the stadium, I heard a voice announcing a half-time substitution for Germany. Miroslav Klose on for Lukas Podolski. Would today be the day he broke Ronaldo’s World Cup goals record?
Rain seeped into my wallet as I removed two hundred dollars, tilting it away from the tout so that he wouldn’t glimpse how much money I had with me.
He handed me the ticket.
I ran in.