On the Ground at the World Cup: Spain's Massive Choke Job

The Spanish are now packing their bags and going back home after the worst performance of a returning World Cup champion in the 84-year history of the tournament.

In two games, they scored just one goal—one goal—and took seven. Talk of the incredible Dutch and their dominant 5-1 win over Spain has quickly subsided after eeking out a 3-2 victory over a weak Australian team today. So it appears as if what really occurred is the greatest choke job in World Cup history. Take a bow, Spain.

After the game ended today and the streets were packed with screaming, singing Chile fans, I stopped a few people on the street. One of them said, "Spain's been fucking us for 500 years. It was time for some payback."

So … do you think this exceedingly relaxed Chilean is content with things?

While Chile may have less residents than greater New York CIty, it has a long history of fight. Like the Romans arriving in Scotland, there was a moment during Spanish colonization when the conquistadors drew a line on the map and said, "we aren't going past here, these locals are too crazy." The US threw Salvador Allende out of office and set up a dictatorship in Chile, and as soon as democracy returned, the people elected his niece.

And let's not kid ourselves, it's not as if many people down here in Brazil, on the continent where the World Cup was invented, have much sympathy for the Spanish. During the last 30 years since Brazilian players have started playing on Spanish club teams, there have been scores of incidents where fans threw bananas at Brazilian players and called them monkeys.

Even Dani Alves, hero from Barcelona, had a banana thrown at him last year. And following Spain's first loss, a Brazilian newspaper, monitoring Spanish social networks, documented thousands of cases where Spanish fans called Brazilians "monkeys." Shameful and embarrassing, to say the very least.

Most soccer fans down here in South America are of the belief that the Spanish "pretend" to be the best players in the World, while filling all of their top teams with Argentinians, Brazilians and other South Americans.

Chile, meanwhile, just qualified for the next round in the Cup. This is their best team in the last 30 years, and the victory was well deserved.

Brian Mier is an American ex-pat who lives in Rio. He is the author of Slow Ride. His previous work for Vice can be viewed here.