Ultimate (not that I am obsessed or anything)

 

So…it’s our second day in Madrid and we’re walking slowly home from Ikea, on past the municipal sports complex that is a block from our apartment. These sports complexes, called polideportivos, are massive – the one nearest our house has four full-size soccer fields, a track, a large pool, weight room, outdoor squash courts, padel courts, and tennis courts, multiple playgrounds, and several other unidentified buildings (?). The polideportivo that’s a bus ride from our house is even larger and includes a velodrome – I’ll take pictures when we get over there. 

In any case, we’re walking along and hear excited shouting from the soccer fields, as we often do when going by. Jon peers through the fencing/bushes to see what’s going on and announces it’s a game of ultimate. I was struck dumb; as far as I could tell from a web search, ultimate in Spain is mostly played in downtown Madrid at an incredibly bad time (5 PM Saturdays, which to the Spanish is like 2 PM Saturday, or even like noon Saturday, but to Americans living in Madrid is still like 5 PM Saturday). Having thus given up ultimate for the remainder of at least ’15, I was curious whether I was going to be compelled to un-give-it-up because of the presence of a local league.*

A trip to the fields revealed not a city league, but instead the co-ed Southern European regionals  - three teams from Spain (Madrid, Santander, Girona) plus Portugal, France and Switzerland. Some quick observations (skip if you don’t play ultimate):

1. Much bigger teams – one had about 30 players.

 

2. More women, and more excellent women. I never saw fewer than three women on the field at a time, and saw a few points with 4W/3M. There was always at least one woman handler, sometimes two.

 

3. Lots more yelling.

 

4. But also a lot fewer on-field disputes. And no observers.

5. Major delay of game problems – after each point the entire team runs on the field, cheers, and then kneels down and calls a line. CBS Sports would never figure out how to package this for the TV audience. 

6.  The level of play looked comparable to a typical U.S. Midwestern regionals – generally solid though some throw-aways and drops. However, it was very windy both days, which may have caused some issues.

Madrid won the tournament, beating Girona 15-9.

* My feet and lower back had a lot to say on the un-giving-up-ultimate idea.