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For Chile, no part or visit should be neglected. Next Saturday, the stadium of San Carlos de Apoquindo will leave football for a moment to focus on rugby. The XV Condors will receive the Maori All Blacks, the ethnic team of New Zealand, where the oval game is part of the oceanic country's identity.
Although it is not the first national team – the All Blacks -, is a team that can be implanted in terms of superiority in front of many rivals, as she has made before the United States World Cup, which crashed 59-22 against 30,000 people in Chicago on Nov. 3. Or that Brazil is saying, at this point of similar level, that Chile, which sank 3-35 in Sao Paulo in front of those black men who can not play the official matches, is just friendly.
The definition of this fortnight is simple: only players belonging to one of the clans of the Maori ethnic group, a bit like Chile could only be those of Mapuche descent.
The Maori All Blacks are a team rich in tradition and history. Appeared in 1888 as Neland New Zealand Natives, they were renamed in 1910 as they are known today. They are the ones who implemented the traditional haka for the first time because it is a rite of war that represents the oldest Maori tradition, the one that shaped the current New Zealand nation with its Polynesian influence.
Therefore, the first hours of Sunday morning Monday, they were received at the airport of Santiago by a delegation of members of the Mapuche community, who greeted the rugby players one by one and asked the ancestral spirits to have a good time in Chile, in addition to showing them the costumes and instruments typical of araucan culture.
After resting after the trip, arriving three hours late from Brazil, the Maor All Blacks had their first training. It was open to the public and to the main court of the military school, where have arrived a hundred children and young members of rugby sections from several schools of Santiago.
The practice was fluid, an exhibition to get rid of and have the first contact with the Chilean public. When the oval stopped moving, players approached people to sign autographs and pose for photos.
On Saturday, it will also be an opportunity to see at what level the Condors are. The diagnosis will be more important than the result. So also believes the president of the rugby federation, Jorge Araya. "It is very important for a team of this level to take a turn here, we hope to generate more competition for our players, who live their own performance," says the manager.
Comparing the levels, the Maori are all professionals and it is traditional that many integrate at some point in the All Blacks, as for example with Nehe Milner-Skudder (world champion in England 2015 and author of six tries in this event), who was going to participate in this tour, but he was injured in one shoulder against Japan, playing precisely for the senior team.
Fifteen Chileans, rents are only a handful. "It's an unprecedented challenge and a dream for the players," says Araya, hoping to win by rubbing, because if it's about points, the winner of Saturday is known in advance.
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