As an agnostic person, I have a weird relationship with faith as a concept. Being raised as a Catholic, our idioms, expressions and phrases from everyday life are influenced by Catholicism. Pedir la bendición which is asking your parents, grandparents or anyone that may resemble a father/mother figure for blessings, which is followed by a Dios te bendiga and maybe a kiss on the cheek or a hug. My mother usually makes the Cross sign with her right hand. It's a serious thing. I ask for my parents' blessings, and sometimes I throw a Todo saldrá bien con el favor de Dios, which stands for "Everything will be alright, God willing".
Anyone believes whatever they want to believe, or not to believe at all. That's the beauty of the freedom of choice. However, as a Venezuelan, I can't deny that La Vinotinto is a subject where believers and non-believers gather around and leave their heart and soul for 90 minutes full of joy, union and, most importantly, hope.
We millennials tend to go against our parents' conservative upbringing. A lot of us do not consider themselves liberals or left-leaning due to whatever the left is as a co-opted term by the Venezuelan authoritarian government for the last few years. We're in a weird spot where we try to steer away from conservatism but won't fully embrace TikTok, "because that's for young people". What about faith? No, there are a lot of certainties like we will never buy a house, the country we grew up in is gone, we may not be able to see our friends or family together ever. But hey: When La Vinotinto plays, we believe everything is possible.
I believe this is a mix of wishful thinking and a gateway to reclaim what we have lost over the years. As cynical as we are, we know our place in this world, but at the same, we allow ourselves to let go and pour our desires into a soccer match, hoping that the chance of winning (or even a tie) can bring us something to celebrate.
Historically, La Vinotinto is not a team that makes the headlines or even qualifies to world tournaments. But that was a while ago. Now that La Vinotinto has managed to have a wonderful knockout season prior the 2026 World Cup, and a really hopeful performance at last Copa América, we can only hope for this trend to go on.
As you may have heard, things are not going well in our home country. Abroad, things are slightly better, by we're often the end of hurtful anti-immigrant rhetoric. It's not persecution complex: more than 8 million Venezuelans have migrated abroad over the last 10 years, being this one of the largest displaced groups in the world. So there's a lot to be mad, sad about, or even mourn in some cases. It's hard to get some good news from our mother land.
And that is precisely why La Vinotinto is important. It reminds us of what we can do as a team. It helps us to reclaim who we are and where we come from, and to separate our nationality from a failed political project that has brought misery and death to our people. The meaning of it goes beyond anything else we can relate to, in an almost universal fashion. It is spontaneous, organic, but more importantly: it's ours to preserve, raise and celebrate. Even if they not make it, they give us what we need: hope.
Photos below are from a match between La Vinotinto and Jamaica, which happened here in Austin a few weeks ago. They were shot with the only film camera I was allowed to bring to the Q2 Stadium. I gotta say: it was one of the best days I've ever had since I left my home country. It was our first time seeing La Vinotinto on the field, ever. More than 30,000 people cheering on, screaming, laughing and crying. Once we started to sing our National Anthem, I started to cry uncontrollably. My kids were worried about that, to which I replied: "It's ok, I needed it".
La Vinotinto won 3-0 against Jamaica. It was glorious, beautiful. The crowd was roaring. We were the loudest to step a foot on Q2 Stadium. It felt like home, like the good days that may never come back. And, for once, I had faith. We all had it. We forgot how that felt.
