Essay

On this essay I will write about the differences about Chilean soccer and European soccer,
what we can see on this sport in our country, what advantages and disadvantages exists, the
differences about the fans, the soccer teams, the stadiums and the tournaments. Explaining
how this sport is very popular in our country and also the origin and the develop of the
Chilean soccer, maybe a person who doesn’t watch soccer can think that soccer is the sane
in all countries, but it is not, so what differences exists in Chilean soccer and European
soccer?

What we know today as football was played in English schools from the 17th century
otherwise at the end of the 19th century, soccer arrived in Chile along with British immigrants
through the ports of Valparaíso (to later pass to Santiago), Coquimbo and Talcahuano, among
others. According to tradition, the first field where soccer was played in Chile was in the
grounds of the British school The Mackay School, in Alegre Hill, Valparaíso.

Actually, in our country there are 3 official Chilean leagues tournaments; “Primera División”,
“Primera B”, “Segunda División”. There are lots of differences between the tournaments,
one of them is the number of teams that participate in a tournament, as well as “Primera
División” and “Primera B” have the same number of participants (16), “Segunda División”
has 10. One of the disadvantages of these tournaments is that just the “Primera Division” is
televised by a special channel of Chilean soccer (CDF), so that is a disadvantage for people
who don’t have economic resources or don’t have enough money to watch their favorite
soccer team.

Otherwise, in European countries we see more official tournaments, for example England
has 8 official tournaments and each league has more than 20 participants teams. The
tournaments are televised by national channels, sports channel and special channels of their
country or of the world. The Premier League (one of the most important soccer tournament
of the world) is televised around the world.
In Chile there are 51 stadiums, 3 of them have capacity for more than 30.000 people and the
rest of the stadiums have a very less capacity, on the other hand in Italy there are 56 stadiums
and 15 stadiums have capacity for more than 30.000, and 4 stadiums can resist more than
50.000 people inside. One advantage of the stadiums in Italy is that there’s no wall to separate
the fans with the field, so you can be near of the play and the players. In Chile most of the
stadiums have walls to separate the fans with the field because the kind of fans and people
who go to see a soccer match are very different than Europe, in Europe you don’t see
delinquency and their stadiums have the best security for the people in case of something
dangerous, things that in Chile we have to learn, and obviously a ticket for a match in a Italian
stadium is more expensive than here in Chile, for example Juventus is a very famous and
good team around the world, they have a beautiful stadium in a beautiful place in Turín, they
have very famous players like Cristiano Ronaldo in the team and the most famous and
expensive sponsors. Compare that with any team of Chile, you will never see that on an
important Chilean soccer team.

One advantage of the Chilean soccer is that is more competitive than Europeans leagues,
there was a time that only 3 teams were relevant here in Chile (Universidad de Chile,
Universidad Católica and Colo Colo) because they have money for buy good players and
coaches now all the teams have very good leaders and dealers to bring good players to fight
the tournament with all teams, otherwise in European countries like Spain there are 2 teams
that always win the tournament (Barcelona and Real Madrid) because they have the best
players in the world, so it’s boring. Another advantage of the Chilean soccer is that the teams
use amateur players, so they give young people an opportunity to be a professional.
In my opinion, Chilean soccer it’s not bad at all, the soccer in Chile has changed a lot since
the generation of new players and their motivation for the kids, also the European teams
with their famous players are a motivation for the people who wants to be a football player
and the presidents and dealers of soccer teams are doing a good job with them and with the
team. To conclude, there things that need to change in our country, one of them it’s that
national channel should broadcast all matches because there are people that don’t have
money to buy the special channel, but the most important thing that Chilean soccer needs to
change very quickly is the security for stadiums and the implementation for stadiums. It’s
not a safer place when you are inside or outside the stadiums with criminals, because takes
away one of the most beautiful and entertaining show of sports in the world.

Patricio Rivera Castro.