Venezuela is surpassing expectations during this edition of the Copa America. The Copa America Centenario being held in the U.S. is a special tournament for many soccer fans. It is especially a meaningful tournament for fans that come from some of those nations and live in the U.S. I am a first generation American born to Venezuelan parents and split my childhood between living in the U.S. and in Venezuela. The majority of my family still lives in Venezuela, while some of us are here in the states. The opportunity to root for or even go see our “vino tinto”, red wine, as the team is nicknamed, play on U.S. soil is a rarity for me and the thousands of Venezuelans living in the U.S.
Venezuela Surpassing Expectations
As a child of two countries, I have always identified myself as having two national teams, U.S. and Venezuela. Choosing one over the other would be like choosing one parent over the other. One provided me with a home for my family and opportunity to gain an education and build a family and career, while the other provides me with my cultural identity and connection to my family history. The chance to root for both of my teams in one tournament, occurring in my own backyard, is an opportunity in which the magnitude of the moment does not escape me.
In a 2013 PEW research study, it was found that an estimated 248,000 Hispanics of Venezuelan origin live in the U.S., the 13th largest Hispanic population in the U.S.
Tonight when Venezuela plays Mexico to decide the Group C winner in the Copa America in Houston’s NRG Stadium, the stadium will be mostly clad with Mexican jerseys. There will be sporadic fans and spots in the stadium with Venezuelan fans, and you can bet that plenty of Venezuela flags will be viewable from the stands. There isn’t a way to measure the amount of flags in a stadium but if there were, I would assume Venezuela would be in the top 5. Houston has the third largest Venezuelan and Mexican populations in the U.S., so while there is a good population size of Venezuelans in Houston (approximately 14,000), they are still swallowed up by the approximate 606,000 Hispanics of Mexican origin living there as well.
It is no secret that Venezuela’s soccer history is filled with disappointment, heartbreak, and often the butt of the CONMEBOL jokes that comes with the territory of being the only nation from the confederation to have never qualified for a World Cup. In fact, even the Copa America, a tournament in which every team in the confederation plays in, Venezuela’s best finish ever was fourth place, in 2011. Prior to the 2011 Copa America, Venezuela had gone 12 straight Copas without making it out of the first round or group stage, dating back to 1975. They managed to finish in fifth place in 1967’s edition, their first ever participation in a Copa America, but that edition only featured six teams.
Even today, despite finishing in fourth place in the 2011 Copa America and just missing out on a World Cup playoff position for the 2014 World Cup, the Vino Tinto still finds themselves at the bottom of the current World Cup qualifying table in CONMEBOL. Venezuela has one point through six games, already nine points from a World Cup playoff spot and World Cup automatic berth. Coming into the tournament, Venezuela was winless under coach Rafael Dudamel, who took over on April 1. Their prospects for any positive results were dim, and perhaps that is exactly the motivation the players needed. Only a little over 25,000 fans showed up in Chicago to see Venezuela pull off a close 1-0 win over a 10 men Jamaica squad, while a mostly pro Uruguay crown in Philadelphia were witnesses to the biggest shock of this tournament when the vino tinto beat the 15-time tournament champions Uruguay, 1-0.
The team now finds themselves in the knockout stages of the Copa America Centenario for only the third time in their history, in 17 tournament participations. As many Venezuela fans know, it is not every day that our national team makes it to these stages of a major international tournament. Fans of the national team since 2011 have come to expect the team to compete and pull off some upsets from time to time that get them to the quarterfinals of a Copa America or on the brink of World Cup qualification, however, before 2011, the nation had never had results like that.
Older Venezuelan generations never saw Venezuela in a knockout stage of a Copa America, in fact, they had never seen the team finish higher than 8th place in a World Cup qualifying campaign before the sixth place finish for the 2014 World Cup. We can’t blame fans of the team for focusing more on the true national sport of Venezuela, baseball, up until this recent decade, there really wasn’t much to cheer about or be proud of as a soccer fan.
How quickly a span of one week, two games, played in the U.S. can change a whole nation’s expectations of their team. Venezuela’s two opening group stage wins have set up a winner take all matchup with Mexico tonight. If they can pull off another stunner, they will win the group and could face Chile or Panama in the quarterfinals. Losing to Mexico could mean a quarterfinal matchup against Argentina, a team Venezuela is 1-20 all time against. Then again, stranger things have happened. Venezuela had never won a game against Uruguay in eight chances in a Copa America until last week.
Tonight’s game against Mexico may find the Venezuelan team and fans overmatched, however, if this team or tournament has shown us anything is that predictability can be thrown out the window and hope reigns true. While there may only be 14,000 Venezuelans living in the Houston area, there are more than 30 million who will be cheering on the team from Venezuela and another approximate 1.2 million Venezuelans living around the world cheering their beloved Vino Tinto. This Venezuelan fan will certainly have his flag and national team gear out while cheering from across the country and continue to do so no matter what the result. Reaching the quarterfinals of the Copa America is no easy feat, my expectations have already been surpassed and will enjoy the ride for as long as it continues to last.
#Uruguay v #Venezuela 0-1#Messico v #Giamaica 2-0
URUGUAY ELIMINATO #Mex #Ven 6 #Uru #Jam 0#CopaAmerica pic.twitter.com/OcE6WES8QX
— Matteo Pedrosi (@MatteoPedrosi) June 10, 2016
