Seattle snafus ahead of the Club World Cup: from the credential delay to the Chicago fan working at Lumen Field

Some surprising and strange things can happen at Seattle's Lumen Field . First, having the Club World Cup badge pinned on your chest wasn't as simple as a colleague had predicted the day before, saying it doesn't take more than 10 minutes. It can go wrong...

At the stadium, there are machines underneath a seating area where passports are scanned, facial recognition is performed, and a ticket is issued. The ticket can then be picked up at a ticket booth outside after being printed there.

However, for the Clarín and Olé correspondents, the process took longer than expected . When they arrived, they found the machines weren't working. After scanning the passport, the screen returned a red message saying the application couldn't be found. Dangerous. But no. They were wrong . Because everyone was getting the same result. To top it all off, they didn't know how long it would take to recover. "This is the first time this has happened. We called IT to help us resolve it, but we don't know how long it will take to recover," commented a Spanish-speaking employee.

Resignation took over, given the time we were going to lose and the fact that we didn't know at that moment if we'd have to return the next day. But there's nothing better than filling your stomach in times of uncertainty, especially when you're hungry. To get through the bad times, there was a divine bar across the street, typical of restaurants near stadiums in the United States, with a large counter in the middle and plenty of tables.

There, not only was lunch served, but work was also done. After about an hour, they returned for a second attempt. And then, the machines worked well, and the goal was achieved. However, there were moments of anxiety for two of the envoys , who initially failed to complete the process. Both swiped their Argentine passports and couldn't remember that one had used an Italian passport and the other his ID. Fortunately, both had those documents, and the issue was resolved at the ticket office when they showed them.

Just when it seemed like nothing was going to be strange anymore, the three envoys were about to head toward the Lumen Field playing field, and suddenly a man walked in wearing a winter hat and a Chicago jacket. But not a Bulls jacket, eh, no, no. They were green and black. Yes, from Chicago, from Mataderos. "What's this guy doing here dressed like that?" we asked ourselves. And we asked him. On top of that, he's American and lives in Seattle. His name is Christopher Smith, and he works at Lumen Field. How could that be?

He himself told it. “I'm bringing Chicago with me. I became a fan because I have a friend who lives in Mataderos, whom I met through my wife, who's Argentinian. But she's a Boca fan,” said the man, smiling. He's fascinated by the Mataderos neighborhood and also loves San Juan and Boedo, one of Buenos Aires' iconic corners, in the Boedo neighborhood.

And what was it like the first time at Chicago's stadium? “It was incredible the first time. You guys really know about football. It's a neighborhood thing. And in Chicago, which is in the second division, there's no negotiation, it's not about money, it's about the neighborhood,” he said. And then he talked about the experience of going to see Chicago. “Every weekend everyone gets together in groups of fans, everyone sings, the colors, the smoke, the bottles of soda with Fernet being shared by everyone... It's magical, it's magical.”