My missus and I spent the last few weeks in Santiago, Chile. People really questioned our decision to stay in a big city, especially those from Chile, but we had our reasons. Traveling for as long as we’re planning can be a bit draining, so we decided to ease our way into it. We thought Santiago was a great place for that. And it was!
During our time there, Leeds played twice. Once against Brentford and the other against Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup. I’m only going to discuss the build up to Brentford, because we decided to take a road trip to another Chilean city during the Accrington Stanley match.
In all honesty, this was a bit of a nightmare. But, I learned a few lessons.
Finding a place for the match
Google maps was oddly poor in Chile. Not every place would show up on the application, and some places didn’t have correct hours.
So I did a quick google search and found a place to watch the match. I also put out the tweet below to see if any local fans agreed that this was a good approach.
I was put in touch with Leeds United Chile who gave me some great advice. They confirmed that Sport Café was a decent place to watch the match. They also mentioned that Flanery’s, an Irish pub in the city, is another decent option. If Leeds aren’t on when you arrive, you can ask them to switch to Star+ or ESPN, which will likely have the game.
As mentioned above, I went with Sport Café because they’re open at 1200 and everywhere else opened at 1300. Kick off for the Brentford match was 1100 local time.
Before heading over to the match, I sent Sport Café a message on WhatsApp, confirming they’d be open, but they never got back. I figured they must’ve missed the message, and didn’t think much of it. This turned out to be a mistake…
Watching the match
Since Sport Café was due to open at 1200, I streamed the first half of the Brentford match at home. I got a nice beverage for around $2 to keep me warm.
After the first half had finished, my missus and I ordered an Uber to go to Sport Café. All seem pretty standard until we arrived. It was closed.
Google Maps had let us down again! We thought the place was permanently closed, and maps wasn’t updated, but a passerby let us know that the family that owned the place was on a summer vacation. I don’t know why but this made it sting a little bit more. Maybe a social media post confirming they would be on break would’ve been good?
So we ended up walking to a local place for lunch and I streamed the match from my phone. It wasn’t the best way to kick off the South American tour, but there were a few lessons learned.
Overall experience and lessons learned
The experience was poor of course, and not due to anyone’s fault but my own. The major lesson I’ve learned here is to visit the location you’re looking to watch the game beforehand. Sometimes people forget to respond, and doing a phone call in a local language can be difficult.
There’s something about being in person that makes it easier. So for the future, I’m simply planning on heading to the physical location to confirm if the matches will be shown. Especially if they don’t specifically confirm on WhatsApp or telephone.
Also, not every place is going to be on your maps application. So if there’s a decent local bar nearby, ask them if they’d be able to show a match for you on the day. Might be a good way to avoid the google headaches.
Sorry for not having a better report! It was a weird experience, but one that I’m glad happened early on.
PS. Chile was a wonderful country. I really recommend spending some time in Valparaíso. Best food and drink options were Piscola, Terremoto, and Chorrillana. They also have a lot of Peruvian food which was fantastic.