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Argentinos Juniors 0 River Plate 0
It’s been a while since anyone saw a 0-0 draw at the humble home of Argentinos Juniors. And with an attack force as flaccid and potent as a week-old stick of celery, it could be a while yet before we see another goal, at least from the home side.
They weren’t bad, Argentinos Juniors, against the team now sitting proudly on top of the Argentine first division. But all the good work from the goalkeeper through the defence and into a creative midfield came to a floppy, indecisive, wishy-washy nothingness in front of goal, which allowed the River Plate keeper, Juan Pablo Carrizo, to admire the rooftops of La Paternal, file his nails and send emails to friends he’d not contacted for a while.
 Evenly matched-Even on paper. Photo: Lucas S River Plate were not much better, only troubling the home side’s goalkeeper, Nicolás Navarro, on a couple of occasions.
One player, however, did stand out – the visitor’s Number Ten, Ariel Ortega. Every time he touched the ball, large parts of the home crowd shouted: “Boracho – Drunkard.”
I don’t think he was. No-one could execute the kind of subtle passes, deft little flicks and surging runs that he did while in a state of inebriation. But he has been and often.
Ortega, at 36-years-old, is currently in the midst of yet another comeback. River fans, who haven’t seen their team lift any silverware since 2008, are hoping that El Burrito will inspire their underperforming stars like he did in the nineteen-nineties when the Millionaires had to employ a full-time trophy polisher.
Back in February, Ortega failed to turn up for training, again. And again his club, which has shown admirable patience with his alcoholic lapses, shipped him off to a detox clinic.
 Ariel Ortega There’s plenty of alcohol coursing through the veins of Argentine society. Most meals are accompanied by fine and very affordable red wines from their very own Andean mountains. They drink some foul, overly bitter concoction called Fernet. They produce cheap whisky with English names like Old Smuggler, Breeder’s Choice and Cow’s Piss. I made that last one up, in case you were wondering.
And when you ask the waiter in most bars and restaurants what they can off offer you from their ample beer selection, they’ll say: “Quilmes.”
“Quilmes,” you’ll reply. “And what else?”
“Just Quilmes.”
“I’d better make that a Quilmes then.”
It’s not a bad beer. I’m going to try now, and no doubt fail, not to sound sexist. But it’s a lady’s beer. It’s light and wispy and delightfully refreshing on a hot day. But it’s not a bloke’s beer.
Thankfully, there’s a nascent proper beer brewing community producing some fine ales such as Patagonia, Barba Roja and Otro Mundo. But you have to search for them.
So when we got on the bus to take us to the game and there were five River Plate fans each clutching a sweaty bottle of Quilmes and trying to look threatening, we merely sniggered. They sang, they bashed the side of the bus and they stomped their feet but then they got into a terrible panic when they thought they’d missed their stop.
I’m not sure what Ariel Ortega drinks. But whatever it is, it’s put the brakes on what promised to be a wonderful career. He didn’t do badly, winning national and international titles with River Plate, appearing more than eighty times for Argentina in three World Cups, including one memorable game against Holland when he got sent off for headbutting Edwin van der Sar. He also briefly shone in Italy with Sampdoria and returned to Argentina to win a further championship title with Newell’s Old Boys. But it could and should have been so much better.
An excessive number of nicknames, El Burrito, Orteguita, El Chango, El Jujuyeno, El Bushito, seems to imply that it’s been difficult to get to know the real Ariel Ortega or that he’s not happy with who he is…at least off the pitch.
 The pre-match line-up. Photo: Lucas S He’s from the distant north-western province of Jujuy, on the border with Bolivia, and some have suggested that he’s simply struggled to adjust to the bright lights of Buenos Aires and the overwhelming demands of playing for a club that expects so much.
Whatever the reasons, like George Best, Paul Gascoigne and, of course Diego Maradona, before him, his mercurial talent has been blighted by the booze. Why is it that so often, such excessive gifts on the pitch are accompanied by the need to get wasted off it?
The newspapers only gave Ortega a five out of ten for his performance on Sunday, making Argentinos Juniors’ Juan Mercier the man-of-the-match with eight. My memory of most of this match will fade quicker than the ice-cubes in a whisky and soda left in the sun. But I did get to see just a few flashes of the brilliance of which Ariel Ortega is capable of. I’d like to say: “I’ll drink to that.” But probably best not to.
* So, like I said, that draw leaves River sitting atop the table with ten points from four games and Argentinos Juniors third from bottom with just two after two draws and two defeats. Boca Juniors won their first game, a nervy 2-1 home victory over Velez Sarsfield. Tigre beat Quilmes 3-0 to lift themselves off the bottom spot where they’re replaced by Independiente, who lost 2-1 at home to Arsenal. Racing’s early promise, as it so often does, is already fading with a 1-0 defeat at newly promoted Olimpo. The other big Buenos Aires team, San Lorenzo, moved up to fourth place with a 3-1 win over All Boys.
Velez Sarsfield 2 Argentinos Juniors 0
Look away now if you’re squeamish because this is going to get nasty. I’m going to whinge and moan and bellyache until I’m raw because I’ve got plenty to be angry about.
It’s one thing to lose when you’re playing badly, when your defence is a shambles, when you’re bereft of attacking ideas – like West Ham for instance in their first two games of the English season.
But Argentinos Juniors have been playing quite well. They dominated the first half against Huracan two weeks ago and did much the same away to Velez Sarsfield today. But on both occasions they didn’t made that dominance count and let in goals in the middle of the second half to leave the Red Bugs with just one measly point from a possible nine. This is not championship retaining form by any means. They lost just two games all last season and have already lost two out of three in this one.
 The Kirchners - Mr and Mrs. But that’s just for starters. I’ve got plenty more that’s pissing me off. There are whole towns, whole provinces that are connected to Wi Fi. Yet for some reason, I’ve yet to fathom why we’ve had four visits from four different teams of Fibertel technicians, each with a different theory as to why they can’t connect our modest home in the heart of Buenos Aires.
Our signal is too weak, apparently, so we need to be ‘reinstalled.’ That’s what the first team told us. The second fellow who arrived two days later wasn’t qualified to do reinstallations so was about as good to us as a book in the hands of the average footballer.
Then a couple of reinstallation guys came but told us they’d need access to the upstairs flat which they couldn’t have since our neighbours were not home. But we’d firstly need a new modem anyway. The modem chaps came two days later and told us they couldn’t do much until we’d been reinstalled. And we couldn’t be reinstalled until we had a modem.
“What you need to do,” one of them told us in all seriousness, “is to get really angry.” My wife said she’d already gotten about as angry as she could possibly get. “No,” said the technician. “Really, really angry.”
We were about to do that when the news broke that the government had cancelled the operating licence for cable TV company, Cablevision, which allowed their offshoot, Fibertel, to supply internet. Not because they’re no good but because they’re owned by the same people who run the Clarin newspaper group and the government of President Cristina Kirchner and her husband, the ex-president, Nestor Kirchner, don’t like the people from Clarin because they say nasty things about them in their newspapers and magazines.
Last year, they took live TV football coverage away from the same people and decided that the state would broadcast all first division games for free. That was a snide, petty, outrageous thing to do but I didn’t complain since I’ve just watched Argentinos Juniors lose 2-0 away to Velez in the comfort of my own living room at no extra cost to myself and with the added bonus of a cup of tea and a slice of carrot cake.
But the decision to stop Cablevision supplying internet services, while also petty and vindictive, benefits nobody apart from Cablevision’s two major competitors. We’re talking one million customers here who will probably have to change their internet server simply because of the damaged sensitivities of a couple of politicians.
 Scintillating Santa Cruz There is not even an attempt to justify their decision, to pretend it’s for the general good or something that will somehow improve the way Argentines live their lives.
Another very personal decision that got me going was the appointment of Virginia Maria Garcia as head of the tax office, the AFIP, in the southern province of Santa Cruz. Now I’ve got nothing personal against Virginia Maria Garcia. She may well be very pleasant and excellent at her job. But her sister is the girlfriend of Maximo Kirchner – Nestor and Cristina’s son.
We all know that nepotism is rife in Latin America, and elsewhere for that matter. But there’s usually some attempt to cover it up, to pretend it’s not happening. Mr and Mrs Kirchner have substantial holdings in Santa Cruz province where Nestor is from and once served as governor. They’ve got houses, hotels and many friends in positions of influence in business and in politics.
There’s a huge conflict of interests here but the appointment has caused hardly a stir. It’s been reported in the media but in a very matter-of-fact, measured, shrug-of-the-shoulders sort of way.
Don’t get me wrong. I generally like living in Argentina and the Kirchners are not nearly as bad as some of their enemies in the media would have us believe. I’ll talk about the positive side to life here another day. But not until Argentinos Juniors start winning the games they deserve to win and we finally get our Wi Fi up and running.
Independiente 1 Argentinos Juniors 1
If you’ve never been to Buenos Aires you possibly have an image of a city that moves to the two-by-four beat of the tango, a metropolis where men in nineteen-thirties suits and slicked-back hair lean on lampposts whistling at attractive women in pencil skirts and fishnet stockings before taking them by the hand and dramatically swinging them to within a millimetre of the ground as a prelude to a jerky, seductive dance.
I have seen that happen here but not often. If you were going to see it, August would be the month with the Buenos Aires Tango Festival in full swing, culminating in the Tango World Cup. The festival is a positive orgy of tango and music at venues across the city. The organisers would have us believe that Buenos Aires moves to the beat of the tango.
 Two by Four - Not 4-4-2 But the truth is that you can go days without hearing it and sometimes several long weeks without seeing a woman in stiletto heels and fishnet stockings. This morning my local supermarket was playing, would you believe, Men At Work, my kids and their mates are much more into Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys than Carlos Gardel and Osvaldo Pugliese and a whole generation of Argentines spurned tango in favour of local rockers, Charly Garcia and Fito Paez.
The reality is that the city moves to the beat of leather against leather, or whatever light-weight synthetic material they make boots and footballs out of these days. Football is the fibre of the fabric of everyday life.
When there’s football on, and there’s nearly always football on, the caretakers who maintain the blocks of flats where most residents of Buenos Aires, or portenos, live, the security guards in their cabins on nearly every middle-class street corner and pretty much every bar and cafe have their radios or TVs switched on.
The rapid-fire commentary broken only by the occasional elongated ‘goooooooooool’ wafts over the city, mingling with the smell of cooking meat and diesel fumes.
Most macho greetings will mix a reference to a recent game with an un-mistakenly hetero-sexual kiss and a hearty back slap.
Monday’s front pages always carry a big photograph of a River Plate or a Boca Juniors player celebrating a goal. If they both lose or draw 0-0 then you might get Independiente or Racing. Tracksuits, socks, pencil cases, bags, hats, ties and mobile phone cases all carry club insignia.
Forty percent of all Argentines support Boca Juniors. A large chunk of the remaining 60 percent follow River Plate with the remainder spread out among the rest.
The chief cabinet minister, Anibal Fernandez, was recently elected vice-president of newly promoted top division club, Quilmes, raising all sorts of questions about conflict of interests. The government, afterall, negotiates multi-million dollar deals to show all top division games live on TV.
Nestor Kirchner, the former president and now head of UNASUR, which groups South American nations together, always gives visiting dignitaries a shirt from his favourite team, Racing Club.
 Riquelme - Reasons to be Cheerful I’ve yet to see either the Brazilian president, Inacio Lula da Silva, or his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, wear theirs as they address their respective parliaments.
There’s a daily menu of murder and corruption and business deals and great cultural happenings in Argentina, as there is anywhere else in the world. But perhaps the biggest talking point and one of the most read on-line stories in recent weeks was whether or not Juan Roman Riquelme would sign a new contract for Boca Juniors. He did. And he got paid several million dollars for the effort. But did he smile? No, of course he didn’t. He’s a great player but I don’t think I’ve seen such a whingeing, miserable personality in my life.
His perpetual sullenness has done nothing to dampen his popularity, I suspect because many Argentines see something of themselves in him. This is a nation that loves to whinge.
My complaint is that they complain too much when the truth is, they’ve got it pretty good.
They’ve got great fertile plains, a long and beautiful coastline and dramatic mountains. They produce some of the best wine and beef in the world. They’ve got a cultured and well-educated population, a fascinating capital city, some of the best footballers in the world and tango.
They’ve also got a long tradition of producing self-serving, corrupt politicians who do a fine job of screwing things up. But they provide a useful service by giving their people plenty to complain about.
And talking of complaining: What’s gone wrong with Argentinos Juniors? Just one point from two games! This was always going to be an anti-climatic season after the unexpected highs of the Clausura.
An obligatory visit to the in-laws out in Chacabuco, about four hours west of Buenos Aires, prevented me from getting to the Independiente stadium for what sounded like a decent game. The reports say the visitors were lucky to come away with a point but did play some decent football in the first half.
Nestor Ortigoza returned only to earn himself a red card and will miss the next game, away to old rivals Velez. Velez are one of five teams with maximum points after the opening two games – the others being Estudiantes, Banfield, Racing and River.
Argentinos Juniors 1 Huracan 2
Of course, everyone tries just that little harder to beat the champions. And with a lot of new players, Argentinos Juniors were still finding their feet. And their midfield playmaker, Nestor Ortigoza, was missing and the wind blowing in a north-north-easterly direction always has an impact on the way the home-side plays, especially on the seventh of the month when that month begins with the letter ‘A.’
Whatever the reasons, this was painful defeat, especially after all the hope and expectation harvested last season. Yes, there were a lot of changes. But the new manager, Pedro Troglio, had the team playing the same attractive passing game. Argentinos controlled the first half, taking the lead with a well-worked goal from one of the new boys, Gonzalo Vargas, five minutes before the break.
 Thanks Champs The crowd liked that and took him to their hearts, immediately giving him a nickname – ‘the Uruguayan’ because he’s, well, from Uruguay.
Everything was running according to plan. There was a big crowd, full of expectation. Someone even spent the close season cutting big letters out of polystyrene, and painting every other one red, to spell out the words: Gracias Campeon.
As I approached the stadium I could smell the newly cut grass mixed with possibly even a tinge of fresh paint. The police hadn’t done much in the way of pre-season training. At the turnstile an officer held us up while he lit a cigarette then leaned on the railing with his belly protruding like a sack of rice hanging on the wall. He kind of half-heartedly raised his free hand and tapped my coat pocket then allowed me through with a barely perceptible nod of his head.
No-one wants to admit that they don’t recognise their own players, but with so many new signings I must confess that I’d scribbled down some notes which I surreptitiously slid in and out of my pocket before announcing boldly to anyone that cared to listen: “He looks useful that Escudero.” Or “Ocampo seems to be settling in nicely.”
Just fourteen seconds after the kickoff I heard my first reference to the referee’s mother’s private parts. In fact, the old guy behind me had obviously been rehearsing his insults during the idle months, abusing the match officials and the away fans with such vigour that at half-time he offered a kind of half-hearted apology to those around him whose eardrums had had to endure his assault. “I’ve had no-one to shout at for two months,” he explained.
And then, in a nightmarish three minutes mid-way through the second half, our dream drooped like a pensioner at an orgy who’s just discovered that he’s mixed his Viagra up with his indigestion tablets.
Firstly, Huracan’s Mariano Martínez blasted the ball home for the equaliser from an almighty bundle in the Argentinos defence. Then, a minute later, Cesar Montiglio put the visitors two-one up after Gustavo Oberman lost the ball in midfield. It couldn’t get much worse. Could it?
There are parts of the Diego Maradona stadium I simply can’t see from where I stand, even with a bit of jigging and jumping about. Most of the bottom right-hand corner of the pitch, for instance, is obscured by the managers’ dugouts and more metal posts, fencing and barbed wire than you’d find around most prison compounds. So I’m not really sure what happened next. But the result was that another Argentinos Juniors new boy, Gabriel Perez Tarifa, was sent off just eight minutes after he came on as a substitute in his first ever game for Argentinos Juniors for what the newspapers called ‘excessive abuse.’ Not, I hope, another reference to the referee’s mother’s private parts!
 Restricted Vision One of the reasons that Argentinos Juniors became champions was because they made a habit of carving results out of lost causes. Two-nil down away to Lanus in the second game of last season to win six-three. Three-one down at home to Independiente in the penultimate match to clinch a crucial four-three victory, and more.
But not today. There were a couple of chances and the crowd managed to rally a bit of chanting along the lines of “we may be losing this one but we’re still champions, so there!” But it wasn’t going to be.
Argentinos Juniors were fine champions last season. And modest Banfield worthy winners the season before that. But I can’t help feeling that the planets are being realigned to what are generally perceived to be their rightful places.
Boca Juniors and River Plate don’t win everything all the time. But if two or three seasons go by without at least one of them being the dominant team in Argentina then people start to feel a little uneasy, like things are not quite right. As if Sir Alex were not chewing gum or Alan Shearer were saying something interesting. It’s OK but it’s not quite right.
Boca, of course, have poached Argentinos Junior’s championship-winning manager Claudio Borghi, the backroom staff and one of his best players, Matias Caruzzo. River, who have been dismal for several seasons now, began to show signs of recovery towards the end of the last campaign and have bought wisely during the close season.
When Boca and River fade it’s usually Independiente or San Lorenzo that pick up the slack and Estudiantes, the best Argentine team in recent years, are still strong, their 103-year-old talisman, Juan Sebastian Veron scoring the penalty today in a 1-0 win over Newell’s Old Boys.
The three promoted teams are Quilmes, who yo-yo between the top two divisions, Olimpo from Bahia Blanca way down south and modest, some might say ramshackle, little Buenos Aires outfit, All Boys. Since football is very much a man’s game in Argentina, I expect their stay in the top flight to be brief.
Argentina 0 Germany 4
Argentina is now going through the same post-World Cup dejection thanks to German superiority that England suffered last week. The destruction was remarkably similar – early German dominance converted into goals, followed by solid defending and swift and ruthless counter-attacking.
The absence of vast chunks of both the England and the Argentine defences was noteworthy. Another likeness was the failure to seriously challenge the German goal, although England were hindered by dodgy Uruguayan refereeing.
 Argentina v Germany England, led at great expense by supposedly one of the best managers in the modern game, failed to respond to German tactics. Argentina, led at great expense by a man widely recognised as being a useless coach, failed to respond to German tactics. So further similarities there.
But what are the differences between the two losing sides? Which should feel the most dejected?
England, let’s face it, really only have one player who, if he were Argentine, could claim a place among the albicelestes. If Wayne Rooney doesn’t perform then England can’t beat Algeria.
Argentina on the other hand, have roughly twenty million men who can kick a ball in a straight line. I must exclude from that list Pablo, who sells newspapers outside my local train station, since he only has one leg. But he can catch a ball better than most English goalkeepers.
There was much debate in the Argentine media before the World Cup about Maradona trying out over one-hundred players. But he’s got more than one-hundred players who are worth considering. More than one-thousand Argentine professional footballers ply their trade abroad – those in Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Portugal, Germany and England we know about.
But they’re also performing in the US league, the Greek, the Thai. They’re scoring and stopping goals in Russia, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil.
And their own Argentine league ain’t half bad either. Argentina churns them out like the Japanese and the South Koreans produce cars. And like the Japanese and South Korean motor industry, there is no great secret.
Argentina simply boasts a well-run, enthusiastic, knowledgeable network of football schools. They ensure that talent is spotted early and nurtured. The other thing to be said is that they play a lot of football.
My point being that even with Messi not doing for the national team what we’ve seen him do for Barcelona, there are plenty of others willing and able to pick up the slack. Carlos Tevez for one. Then there’s Higuain, Di Maria, Milito, Heinze and Pastore. OK, so they didn’t do it against Germany.
 The Nation Awaits... But Argentina can look forward to a bright future since they’ve got a huge pool of talent and a new generation coming off the conveyor belt. They’ll have that clever little midfielder at Argentinos Juniors, some nifty left-winger playing in Belgium and, if he could get someone to mind his newspaper kiosk, Pablo from outside my local train station.
You don’t see that many kids kicking tin cans around on the street of Buenos Aires. Instead, they play on indoor pitches of which there are many. But just try booking one! I’ve played at 10pm and when I staggered off an hour later, there were always two teams keen to move into action until gone midnight.
It was suggested that England’s players were tired after a long season. Pathetic! Most of the Argentine selection plays in Europe for those same hard-working European teams. The difference is that when their country calls them they’ve got to jump on a long and arduous trans-Atlantic flight to Buenos Aires and then, quite possibly a connection to Quito or Caracas. And Buenos Aires to Quito or Caracas is not the equivalent of Heathrow to Berlin or Budapest. Europe could fit many times into South America and still leave ample room for Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego.
Then there’s that old chestnut ‘the pressure of a nation on their shoulders.’ Take that pressure that the expectant England fans put on their national team and double it. Treble it, if you like. Then you might get some idea of the expectation, the hopes and dreams that the 40 million or so Argentines pile onto their players’ shoulders.
My mum, for instance, would recognise Wayne Rooney and David Beckham if she saw them drinking coffee in the town where she lives in rural Hampshire simply because their images have transcended the world of football. But she, and millions like her, would fail to recognise Frankie Lampard, Ashley Cole and Stevie Gerrard even if they knocked on her door selling insurance. And who knows? It sounds like they might have to if the mood over there is as bad as the British press would have me believe. I won’t even mention Gareth Barry or James Milner. OK, maybe I will.
But pretty much everyone in Argentina, even those who say they’ve got little interest in football, know their Messis from their Tevezes, their Higuains from their Di Marias and they know which clubs they play for and in which position. They know their wives’ and girlfriends’ names, their shoe sizes…OK, OK! You get the point.
They might discuss tactics, they might disagree on selection, they might think Diego looks better in a tracksuit than in that suit and tie, but this a nation firmly behind their team. And I don’t mean just when they’re winning.
The pain and disappointment being felt in Argentina is enormous. There will be a post mortems on every street corner, at every workplace, in every bar and cafe. But Argentine football is still strong.
They need to find a new manager, someone who understands the modern game and can mould some of the best players in the world into a team, someone who knows how to play Messi. England, on the other hand, needs to find a whole new generation of footballers, a whole new system, a whole new way of doing things.
Argentina will be challenging for the cup in 2014, I doubt that England will.
Argentina 3 Mexico 1
It’s now just one step away from official – almost nothing else in Argentina matters now apart from the World Cup quarter-final game against Germany on Saturday July 3rd at 11am Buenos Aires time.
The front-pages of even the serious newspapers are now dedicated to the football, people talk about little else and no plans for the weekend or the days beyond are made without a quick glance at the fixture list that we all carry in our wallets.
The one good thing to come out of England’s dismal defeat to Germany is that I can now put my support firmly behind Argentina. I would of course have been 100% behind John Terry and the boys in the always unlikely event of a quarter-final clash against Argentina. But in the meantime, my loyalties and my frayed emotions were split two ways which made Sunday a very difficult day indeed.
 Hung out to dry! We left early for Matt’s place in Palermo to watch both games and it meant packing England and Argentina shirts for myself, my wife and the kids. We had to find both the England and Argentina cardboard cutouts from the Tiki Tiki football magazine, read team reports from both camps and prepare ourselves emotionally for possible convincing victories, crushing defeats or mind-numbingly dull draws followed by extra-time and excrutiatingly painful penalties for two games fuelled only by as much beer, cake and hamburger as we could shove down our throats in the short break between matches. I’d also risen early to prepare a German potato salad to show there were no hard feelings for 1914, 1939, 1970, 1996 etc. There’s still plenty left and we’re feeding it to the cat. Or I might wrap it up and send it to the Uruguayan referee’s association.
It ain’t always easy being a football-loving expat in a football-mad country like Argentina. Especially if your first-choice team would have had trouble matching Accrington Stanley in the first round of the FA Cup, never mind a German counter-attack that moved more swiftly and decisively than Ashley Cole’s agent on speed.
The hundreds of thousands of Paraguayans, the tens of thousands of Chileans, the many Uruguayans and the smattering of Brazilians who live in Argentina still have much the same problem that I, thanks to woeful England defending, am now free of.
The weather is pretty nippy so it’s not a bad idea to wear two football shirts here at the moment. But we’re not doing that any more. The England shirts are in the wash then they’ll be placed carefully in the cupboard where they’ll stay until 2014.
Belief is growing in Argentina that they can win this cup. But alongside that belief there is also growing pressure on the team and the danger of complacency setting in.
 No other news. Commentators in Buenos Aires and South Africa are saying how relaxed and happy Diego Maradona is these days. Perhaps even normal? But his team is winning. It’s easy to be relaxed when you’re winning. We’re all waiting to see how he performs under pressure and we’re still living with the promise, or was it a threat, that Diego made at the start of the tournament to run naked around the obelisk in the centre of Buenos Aires should Argentina bring the cup home.
I think that’s just something we’re going to have to live with since I’ve not seen a team that seriously looks like challenging Argentina – and the albicelestes haven’t even started playing their best yet! Messi is taking his time getting warmed up but when he does, with those around him already in their stride, I think we’re going to see something special.
The trouble with being surrounded by so much football waffle and gobbledegook is that it’s easy to lose sight of the ball. Someone once said, while the balance of their mind was disturbed, that ‘it’s only a game.’
Not here it’s not, amigo! Not here!
Argentina 2 Greece 0
I called the repair company three weeks ago, as the Argentine winter chill was beginning to bite and well before the World Cup kicked off, to ask them to fix the gas heater in the living room.
Juan Carlos rolled up on his motorbike and spent five hours grunting and swearing before he managed to produce a flame, then he sped off into the night, 300 pesos richer.
I inspected his work and found the control dial in the wrong place and when I tried to relight the heater there was no spark. So the next day I called the office. And the next and the next and the day after that. Every day a polite elderly lady either told me that Juan Carlos was on his way or would call later. He never did.
 Everything Must Go. I kept my cool since it doesn’t pay to lose your temper in these kinds of situations in Argentina. Three weeks later, at ten o’clock on the morning of the Argentina v Greece match, I called again. “He’s on his way,” I was assured. But of course he never showed. When I phoned later that evening I was told that he’d gone home early because of the match.
“But you told me at ten this morning that he was on his way,” I bleated. “The game didn’t kickoff until three-thirty.”
“You’re a foreigner,” she told me, sounding very haughty. “You simply wouldn’t understand.”
“That,” I replied, “is a racist comment.” I was about to go into 1966 and all that when she put the phone down on me.
While my wife and kids watched the match wrapped in blankets, I was downtown. I walked past Plaza San Martin where the big screen has been set up while Uruguay were playing Mexico. The hillside was decorated with Uruguayan flags.
But the rest of Buenos Aires was sky-blue and white. Although it hardly seemed possible, yet more sellers of sky-blue and white hats, horns, flags and shirts have sprouted on Florida, the main pedestrian shopping street. There are even shops now dedicated to the sale of similar but slightly better quality items.
I watched the game in the Richmond – all leather armchairs, oak panels and tea with milk served with proper pots and strainers. It’s more English than Stanley Matthews’ baggy shorts, John Terry’s jock-strap – you get the picture.
It had a big screen and miserable waiters – the kind who pride themselves on memorising the orders in what is a paperless restaurant. We were six and ordered a variety of beverages and cake. I was convinced that our man, with his Hitleresque moustache, would screw up. But no! Teas, coffees and cheesecake all arrived in front of the person they were meant for in time for the kick-off.
This little patch of oak-panelled England in the heart of Buenos Aires very soon became pure Argentine as the ‘albicelestes’ pushed on the Greek goal.
I think they’re getting better with each game, playing like a team and not relying overly on Messi. Two crucial goals have been scored by defenders, Heinze against Nigeria in the first game and the opener against Greece by Martin Demichelis, perhaps confusing his opponents with his Greek surname.
 The Richmond - two sugars, please. Of course, Argentina cheered that one but they cheered even louder for the second goal, tapped in off the rebound by Boca Juniors’ Martin Palermo. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s courageous and he plays his club football in Argentina. A goal from Messi would have been nice and it will come. But the day after the game I heard the word ‘Palermo’ everywhere – on the street, on the radio, from the bloke who delivered our soda siphons at 7.15 in the morning. The World Cup is all anyone talks about.
A fine example of how desperate the Argentine media is to fill its special World Cup TV programmes and newspaper supplements was an interview with Juan Sebastian Veron’s mum revealing that while her son was born in Argentina, he was in fact conceived in Greece. Fascinating! Did that little tidbit have a bearing on the game? Was that the reason Diego didn’t play him against Greece?
After the game, I walked back to Retiro train station, up Florida, against the tide of supporters leaving the Plaza San Martin. This was a nation content, a nation smiling. There is plenty of discussion about selection and tactics but one thing is clear. The Argentine people are fully behind their team. And win, lose or draw, they’ll stay that way. I doubt you’ll hear booing from the terraces or see players swearing into the camera.
The next morning, as I settled down at home for the England v Slovenia game, England shirt on, England team cardboard cut-out on top of the tele, Rooney poster on the wall, blankets and hot coffee at hand, I heard the putter of a motorbike outside. It was Juan Carlos come to fix the heater, finally.
“Who you backing then?” he asked. I could have told him Burkina Faso and he’d have believed me. “African teams not doing too well,” he’d have said. He fixed the heater and rode off before Jermain Defoe had put the ball in the net. I dare not touch it. I want to stay warm at least until Germany have knocked England out on penalties.
Argentina 4 South Korea 1
Eight o’clock on a crisp, cold Thursday morning and the kids are all wrapped in their sky blue and white uniforms enthusiastically skipping to school. Why the rush? Why the excitement? Is it double maths with Señor Rodriguez or is Señorita Lopez taking them on a voyage of discovery through twentieth century Argentine literature?
Bollocks is it! At 8.30 sharp in the school hall it’s Argentina versus South Korea in their second Group B game. The education authorities have ruled that any child who does not attend school while Argentina are playing will not be penalised. Dripping with face paint, draped under the Argentine flag and wearing the latest overpriced national team shirts, Argentina’s school children were lined up in front of their big screens for a lesson in footballing magic that they’ll never forget.
 The Big Screen And all arranged by the schools – the big screen, the supervision, the permission to stay at home – the lot.
With the young ones packed off for a day of learning, I headed downtown to the Plaza San Martin where the Buenos Aires city authorities have erected a huge screen. It was initially to show Argentina’s games but since it’s up anyway they’re showing all the games. So the plaza has become a magnet for stray Americans, Australians, Germans and Dutch to gather when their teams are in action.
The plaza is on the edge of the business district so there were plenty of suited men on the grassy slope for this game. A drunken Russian stood behind me, a posse of city cleaners in front, tossing scraps of newspaper in the air in the way that Argentines do at football matches. I’m not sure they realised in their excitement that it was they who’d be cleaning it all up after the game.
There was blue and white smoke, there was swearing, there was a very tall, broad-shouldered man who stood in front of me just as the match started. It was just like the real thing, the next-best thing to being in South Africa. Perhaps better than South Africa because all I had trespassing on my eardrums were the ramblings of the drunken Russian and not the incessant cacophony of vuvuzelas.
 Fly the Flags Most Argentines at the beginning of the tournament were cautiously optimistic about their team’s prospects. With each match, with each Messi run, with each minute that passes without Maradona making a complete boludo of himself and shaming the nation, that cautiousness subsides and the optimism grows.
This is a team still finding its feet, its players still getting to know one another. Gabriel Heinze was the hero in the first match, hat-trick Higuain this time round. It could be Agüero, Di Maria or Tevez in the games to come. And Diego Milito, the man who single-handedly won the Champions League final for Inter Milan, hasn’t yet been allowed to take his tracksuit off.
I still believe that Argentina were the best team in the 2006 World Cup. I believed in them but I’m not sure they believed in themselves and went out to an average German side in the quarter finals.
Diego Maradona is no tactical genius but what he is good at is inspiring his players. He’ll whip them into a frothing frenzy. He’s said that if Argentina lifts the trophy, he’ll run naked around the obelisk in the centre of Buenos Aires and that’s something we all want to see. Don’t we?
With Argentina’s fourth goal and a second victory safely tucked away, the workers drifted away from the plaza and to their offices and factories. Form 7c went to their classroom to find that they did afterall have double maths. Mr Rodriguez, probably of mixed Spanish, Uruguayan and maybe even South Korean descent, wasn’t going to let a mere game of football deprive him of an opportunity to inflict sado-masochistic algebra on his pupils.
The Argentine side has shown to a country that takes its football very seriously — a country that suspends school for the big games for Christ’s sake! — that it’s a team to be taken seriously.
If I were in the Greek team, firstly I’d be very surprised. Secondly I’d have to change my name to Papadopoulos and thirdly, I’d be very scared indeed.
Argentina 1 Nigeria 0
Thank goodness for that! I’m not sure I could have tolerated much more World Cup build-up. The newspapers have been producing World Cup supplements for some time now and long ago ran out of useful things to say. My favourite headline on one of the 24-hour rolling news channels was: “The dulce de leche has arrived.”
For anyone who doesn’t know, dulce de leche is a sticky brown milky caramelly sort of mixture that Argentines smear on cakes, biscuits, ice-cream and possibly even each other. They dip bananas in it. It’s as Argentine as Diego Maradona dancing the tango while he chews on a prime cut of beef.
It’s to Argentines what Vegemite is to Australians or decent tea-bags are to Brits. Even if you don’t indulge that much while you’re at home, it’s a point of national pride to make sure you’re well stocked while you’re living abroad.
So it was big news that the dulce de leche had arrived at the Argentine camp in South Africa. That sizzling headline was only pushed off the top spot when it was announced that Messi would be sharing a room with Veron.
Do any other colleagues, when travelling abroad for work, share hotel rooms? I thought not, unless they work for cash-strapped companies and the Argentine team certainly doesn’t fall into that category.
The thinking is, of course, that Leo Messi is young and Juan Sebastian Veron is a knotty, worldly, experienced sort of fellow. But what’s he going to do? Read Messi bedtime stories? Tuck him in? Make sure he’s up on time and cleans his teeth?
There is almost no shop, bank, estate agent or product in Buenos Aires that doesn’t, in some form or another, display it’s allegiance to the national cause. Sellers of sky-blue and white scarves, flags, hats, masks and general plastic and nylon tat have sprouted on every street corner.
The city council has erected two huge screens in public areas and hoardings for fizzy drinks have built in clocks counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the World Cup. The sale of flat-screen TVs has gone through the roof, boosting an otherwise sluggish economy.
 Sky Blue and White It was dangerous to be on the street ten minutes before the 11am (Argentine time) kick-off for Argentina’s first game against Nigeria as all battled to be in front of a screen on time. There was anxious and impatient tutting at the supermarket check-outs where we queued with baskets laden with crisps, beer and dulce de leche. Then a mad dash. Ten minutes after the kick-off Argentines, not known for their punctuality, were still dashing … then – silence.
The birds were quiet, the wind blew the brushwood across the empty streets, the bar-room swing door creaked and a couple of lone Canadian tourists scurried nervously back to their hotel, wondering if perhaps the world had ended or the military were about to take over.
Then there was a collective roar that sent the Buenos Aires pigeons fluttering from trees as Gabriel Heinze, on the other side of the world, strayed into the Nigerian box and, unhindered by opposing defenders who were all attending to Mssrs Messi and Tevez, headed the ball into the net.
This was a solid team performance in which Messi played well. In any other context that sentence wouldn’t sound very dramatic. But given how disjointed Argentina’s recent team displays under Maradona have been and how poorly Leo has played for his national side, it really is very significant.
This was a good start against formidable opponents. Some players, most notably Tevez and Veron, didn’t play particularly well but the team did and the less impressive players will play better. With the likes of Gabriel Milito and Sergio Aguero sitting on the subs bench, they’d better. Most Argentines will be quietly content with this performance which, but for an outstanding Nigerian goalkeeper, would have delivered a more convincing scoreline.
The only dark cloud hanging over a promising start for Argentina is the presence in South Africa of a number of barra brava … the hardcore Argentine fans, some of them with criminal records.
 More than a Cardboard Cutout... The media here lets us know who they are and what some of them have done. Twelve were turned around and sent home by the South African authorities on their arrival in Johannesburg. Some of them have their trips financed and are given tickets for the games by the Argentine clubs, national football association and political parties. Quite what they get in return is not clear.
Thursday’s game against South Korea kicks off a 8.30am so the schools have installed big screens in the playgrounds and assembly halls so that no child need miss a single moment of the action. Business deals have been rearranged, weddings postponed and non-life threatening operations rescheduled.
Argentina needs football and it needs victory in football, especially on the world stage, to feel good about itself when so much else is not as it should be. And it’s all so much better in high definition on a flat screen that stretches from wall-to-wall.
After strong complaints from bus passengers and members of my family, I’ve put the Argentinos Juniors shirt I was wearing at Sunday’s championship-clinching game in the wash. It’s a symbolic sign that the season is well and truly over and the time for reflection is upon us.
Much has been written about this Clausura 2010 championship since pretty much every Argentine is a football expert and some of the lucky ones even manage to earn a living by adding a tinge of authority to their rantings and ravings.
 The Moment Nearly all seem to agree that the Red Bugs were worthy winners – not for their money because they ain’t got much, not for their sturdy defence for they shipped a fair few and not for their power and influence in the Argentine game since this is a small neighbourhood club with a ramshackle but often intimidating ground.
The word I’ve seen more than any other is ‘dignified.’ They were dignified champions who brought dignity to the Argentine league.
The manager, Claudio Borghi, brought together a collection of strong personalities and melded them into a team. It was a team in which the first priority was always to play attractive, attacking football. They held their shape, the midfield created options and, what always struck me, was that the whole team seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The player who perhaps best symbolises this team is 39-year-old Jose Luis Calderon. A fine physical specimen, he ran as much as the youngsters. “With his experience, he calmed us in moments of madness,” said teammate, Nicolas Pavlovich.
Borghi brought him out of retirement, convinced he still had much to give. Calderon played seven-hundred and forty-three games in his long career, after making his debut for Estudiantes in 1992. He played for Napoli in Italy, America and Atlas in Mexico, won the Argentine league and the Libertadores cup with Estudiantes and the Copa Sudamericana with Arsenal.
Borghi substituted him ten minutes before the end of the Huracan game and the crowd erupted. His teammates crowded around him and tears were no doubt shed. “It was a dignified way to end my career,” said Mr Calderon.
But he wasn’t alone. There was also that magical midfield partnership between Nestor Ortigoza and Juan Mercier. “It’s like a marriage,” they said. I think I know what they meant but I’d rather not pry into their private lives.
In attack, there was Ismael Sosa, uncomfortable at Independiente, he was borrowed by Borghi who knew how to bring out the best in him. He’s fast, wears bright yellow boots and was the club’s top scorer with nine goals.
The names will be remembered by the young Argentinos Juniors fans when they’re in their nineties and have forgotten where they left their false teeth. The slightly eccentric goalkeeper, Nicolas Peric, that defensive rock, Matias Caruzzo, the tireless running of Gustavo Oberman and the personality of Ignacio Canuto.
And then, of course, the man at the helm – Claudio ‘Bichi’ Borghi – a fine player in his day and Argentinos Juniors lynchpin the last time they won the championship twenty-five years ago. Whether the team was winning or losing, playing well or not, he sat like a frozen Buddha in his dugout, calm, collected and confident that the team was on the right track and that eventually they’d win through. They usually did, losing only two games all season and often leaving it until the final five minutes to plop the ball in the net.
So a great team but a one off, frozen in time. No sooner had those millions of scraps of paper thrown by the fans washed into the gutter to block the drains the next time it rains, than the talk of dismantling had begun.
Borghi is hot favourite to take over at slumbering giants, Boca Juniors. The thinking is: “If he can produce a championship-winning team with everyone else’s flotsam and jetsam, just think what he’ll do with Boca’s money and influence!” Mercier and Caruzzo may well follow him.
 The Celebration Now that Independiente know what Sosa can do, they’ll want him back and I doubt they’ll even say ‘thank-you.’ Calderon has already swapped his boots for carpet slippers and Ortigoza – my own favourite – would grace any team in the world with his effective tackling, pinpoint passing and inability to give up.
So what now? Well, let’s enjoy the moment for a little longer. The rump of a good team remains and the spirit and tradition are still there. So much depends on who takes over from Borghi and how many players the club manages to hold onto. They will be playing in the Sudamericana and the Libertadores cups which should bring in cash to bolster the squad.
And Argentinos Juniors is not known as the seedbed of Argentine football for nothing. A healthy crop of youngsters is sprouting up through the ranks and there’s hope that we won’t have to wait another twenty-five years to reap a harvest like this one.
I’m off now to do a bit of research, scouting the backstreets and alleyways of Buenos Aires for the best bars and cafes in which to watch the World Cup. I may be gone for some time.
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