El balón pasó por delante de la portería y la afición guardó silencio.

Both can refer to a ball, but balón is especially common for a sports ball, particularly in football/soccer contexts. Pelota is more general and can also mean a ball in many situations, but in this sentence balón sounds more natural because the scene is clearly a football match.

So:

• balón = a sports ball, especially football/soccer
• pelota = ball in general

In Spain, sports commentary often uses balón.

Pasó is the pretérito indefinido of pasar. It is used because the sentence describes a completed event in the past: the ball went past the goal, and that action is seen as a single finished moment.

• pasó = it went past / it passed
• infinitive: pasar

This tense is very common in sports narration because commentators often describe quick, completed actions.

Por delante de means in front of or past the front of. In this sentence, it suggests movement: the ball moved across the area in front of the goal.

A helpful distinction:

• delante de = in front of
• por delante de = passing in front of / along in front of

So por adds the idea of movement through or across that space.

Yes, you may hear pasó delante de la portería, and it would still make sense. But pasó por delante de la portería is more idiomatic when you want to emphasize that the ball moved across the front of the goal.

Compare:

• está delante de la portería = it is in front of the goal
• pasó por delante de la portería = it went past in front of the goal

So por delante de fits movement especially well.

In football Spanish, la portería means the goal structure: the posts, crossbar, and net area. It is the physical goal.

El gol usually means a goal scored, not the structure itself.

So:

• la portería = the goalmouth / the goal frame
• el gol = a goal, as a point scored

That is why la portería is the right choice here.

La afición is a collective noun. Grammatically it is singular, but it refers to the fans as a group.

So even though many people are involved, Spanish treats la afición as singular:

• la afición guardó silencio
• not la afición guardaron silencio

This is similar to English words like the crowd or the audience, which are singular in form even though they contain many people.

Here, la afición means the supporters, the fanbase, or the crowd of fans. In sports Spanish, especially in Spain, it is a very common word.

Be careful: afición can also mean hobby or fondness in other contexts.

For example:

• Mi afición es la fotografía = My hobby is photography.
• La afición del equipo = the team’s supporters

So the meaning depends on context.

Literally, guardar silencio is to keep silence. In natural English, we usually translate it as fell silent or became quiet, depending on context.

This is a fixed expression in Spanish:

• guardar silencio = to remain silent / to keep quiet

Here guardó is the preterite of guardar, so la afición guardó silencio means the crowd became silent at that moment.

It is a very natural, slightly more formal or literary expression.

Spanish uses definite articles more often than English does. In this sentence, the articles sound natural because the speaker is referring to specific things in a known scene:

• el balón = the ball in the play
• la portería = the goal on the field
• la afición = the crowd at the match

English might sometimes drop an article in certain styles, but Spanish usually keeps it.

Yes. The sentence uses two completed past actions joined by y:

• El balón pasó por delante de la portería
• y la afición guardó silencio

This creates a clear sequence in narration:

1. the ball went across the front of the goal
2. the crowd fell silent

It is a very typical way to narrate events in sports, storytelling, and match reports.

The accent mark is important because it distinguishes forms of the verb.

• paso = I pass / step
• pasó = he/she/it passed

So in this sentence, pasó tells you the subject was el balón, not I.

The same is true with afición and balón: the written accent shows the correct stress pattern.

Yes. In Spain, la afición is very common in football language. A native speaker in Spain would find it very natural.

In other Spanish-speaking countries, you may also hear:

• la hinchada
• los aficionados
• el público
• los fans

But for Spanish from Spain, la afición is a very standard and natural choice in a sports sentence like this.

Yes. Some more conversational alternatives are:

• se quedó en silencio = fell silent
• se calló = went quiet / shut up
• enmudeció = fell mute, was silenced

But guardó silencio is elegant, idiomatic, and very common in written narration. It sounds slightly more polished than se calló.