YEKATERINBURG, Russia — Thirty-six years is a long time to wait to be eliminated from the World Cup without scoring a goal.
It was surely not the expectation of the tens of thousands of Peruvian fans who brought their banners, their inflatable llamas and their seemingly unsinkable enthusiasm to Russia to cheer on their team in its first World Cup appearance since 1982.
They came from North America, from Europe and of course from Peru itself, whose capital, Lima, is 8,619 miles removed from the chilly, cozy stadium where Peru was beaten, 1-0, by France on Thursday to dash its World Cup dreams after only two games.
“I’m 43 years old and it’s been 36 years of waiting for my team,” said Luigy Cornejo, a United States citizen born in Peru who came from New York to see two of Peru’s matches.
“I also went to their qualifying games in Peru, so I can say I spent a lot of money to follow them but it was worth it. It was not like they played bad. They did a good job. They were just missing goals.”
France will continue on; after winning its first two matches, it has six points and is guaranteed of a spot in the round of 16 even before facing Denmark next week to determine who finishes first in Group C.
Peru, which fell to Denmark by the same score on Saturday, will play Australia for pride on Tuesday in Sochi, although one suspects there will still be no shortage of support on the shores of the Black Sea.
“I think Peru deserved more than to go out like this,” said Hugo Lloris, the French captain and goalkeeper. “They are a really good team. They were unlucky in the first match against Denmark. I think they deserved more from that. They had lots of opportunities, but Kasper Schmeichel played a great match in goal and now sadly, they are eliminated.”
Though Yekaterinburg is a great deal closer to Paris, it felt as if Peru were playing at home: with the national team’s red and white colors the dominant ones in the stands, both permanent and temporary, in Yekaterinburg Arena.
“Our fans, the people were incredible,” said Ricardo Gareca, Peru’s coach. “It is something that brings me joy and also pain. It hurts that we are eliminated and don’t have the chance to give them something more for all their support, all their expectations.”
Yekaterinburg lies east of the Ural Mountains that divide Europe from Asia, and the Peruvians arrived by 14-hour train rides, by multiday road trips and even on a red-eye flight from Kazan that landed in Yekaterinburg shortly before 5 a.m. on Thursday, which was not too early for the fans to bang drums and sing odes to their national team as they waited for their baggage to come off the carousel.
Despite the intermittent rain, the Peruvians kept up the pace and the volume throughout the afternoon as they converged on the stadium, and then they joined together again for a full-throated rendition of Peru’s national anthem — a scene so full of national pride that even the French players said they were moved.
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