What do you make of this?
A little background might help. I was at the Mestalla stadium on sabado for the Valencia-Athlético Madrid clash. The Mestalla is Valencia's home ground. It's a pretty raucus place on a normal match day, but this wasn't a normal match day. At kick-off, Valencia were in second place, Athlético were third. It was a four o'clock start and the ground was pretty full, including a couple of hundred Athlético supporters. ('Away' fans are much rarer in Spain than they are in the UK.) So it was pretty noisy and the Valencia fans, in their 'Curva Nord' (north curve) section were adding plenty to the afternoon's entertainment. Then the match kicked off...
6 minutes, Valencia score. The Curva Nord explodes in celebration.
7 minutes, they score again. The second celebration is just a continuation of the first.
13 minutes, 3-0. Old men wearing jackets and ties are dancing in the aisles and waving their brimmed hats in the air.
And then this happens...
It took a few moments before I connected the chant to the message on the hoardings around the ground, but then I had heard variations on the ¡Que bote! chant many times before so I soon made the link. It's often chanted during fiestas and celebrations, and is usually directed at a particular person. I was in the town square of Vila-Real a couple of years ago when they were promoted and the crowd chanted '¡Que bote pres-i-dent!', forcing the club's president (normally quite a reserved old gentleman) to bounce up and down on the Ayuntamiento balcony in front of 25,000 cheering fans.
Now for the 'lesson'. Bote comes from 'botar', the verb 'to bounce'. And 'Que bote' is that tricky old Spanish subjunctive which is so difficult to define. I've read that it often expresses a wish or desire, so '¡Que bote Mestalla!' could be translated roughly as a wish, 'that the Mestalla bounces'.
And as you can see by my rather unprofessionally shaky video, it certainly bounced!
P.S., if you're interested, and if you're good!, your teacher might agree to show you the highlights of the match (5 minute video) at the end of the lesson. It's worth seeing, and the match didn't end 3-0!
And yes, the commentary is in Spanish so you will still be learning! (Well, that's what I call learning anyway!)
Un saludo and 'Amunt, Valencia!'
Ummm, that's not Spanish, it's the local Valenciano lingo and it means something close to 'Go, Valencia!'
If
you enjoyed this resource, you might enjoy reading about my life here
in Spain as an immersion teacher of a class of primary children. Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher´s Spanish Adventure is published as an eBook by Monday Books. There´s a free sample chapter available to download here: Zen Kyu Maestro
