Estudiantes 0 Argentinos Juniors 1
There’s been a full programme of mid-week games which have produced bundles of goals, including the 4-4 draw between Velez Sarsfield and Boca Juniors. And this as the national team finally played the way they should be playing and outclassed Germany on their own soil in an impressive pre-World Cup friendly.
Veron - his eye on the ball.
The Estudiantes playmaker, Juan Sebastian Veron, was on duty for Argentina while the man that ticks at the heart of Argentinos Juniors, Nestor Ortigoza, was with the Paraguay squad. Yet the two teams still produced a throbbing thriller of a game, Jose Luis Calderon netting the much needed winner for the visitors. And this against the South American champions, no less.
So how do they do it? Quality football, both home and away, simultaneously, at the same time? Well, strength in depth is one reason. The other is that they’re not shagging one another’s wives and girlfriends. And even if they were, it wouldn’t be plastered all over the local media. Sex in Argentina is simply not news and coverage of the John Terry-Wayne Bridge affair has been light since they don’t really get what all the fuss is about.
Sex happens in Argentina and it happens in Argentine football. We know that since Carlos and Mrs Tevez have just had a baby.
In this macho society, it’s still a sign of prowess to sleep with many women, even if you are married. It was long a tradition, for those who could afford it, to keep a second and even a third family. There was the official family then the mistress, with the offspring of that relationship kept in a discreet apartment a respectable distance away. Sometimes the wife knew, sometimes she only found out when the mistress turned up at the husband’s funeral, demanding her share of the spoils.
The other reason I know that sex happens in Argentina is because of the vast number of lingerie shops – probably more per head of population than Viagra bottles in —— —-’s bathroom cabinet. (Insert name of least favourite England footballer here)
But the most appropriate symbol of Argentina’s attitude to sex is the Telo. Unless you’re a beady-eyed journalist like myself, trained in the art of observance, you might not notice the Telos. But they’re there, in every neighbourhood, so discreet, so quiet, so unassuming, that you could walk past one twenty times and not notice it.
If you need sex and you need it now, at any time of the day or night, the Telo is there for you – at the standard, the luxury or the deluxe rate. There is no English translation. Some might call it a Knocking Shop but that would be demeaning. The Telo is not a hotel, despite the sign outside reading Albergue Transitorio or Transitory Accommodation. And it’s certainly not a brothel. They simply provide clean rooms that you rent by the hour to take your lover, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife for uninterrupted, noisy sex. (British readers may pause here to titter as if the condoms were being passed around the sex education class)
Most Argentines will have their first sexual experience, not in the back of a car or at their parents’ house while their mum’s nipped out to buy washing powder, but in a Telo. Probably a cheap one in a neighbourhood some distance away to avoid anyone they knew spotting them going in or coming out. The standard of Telo will rise along with your earnings.
Better than the back seat of a car - surely!
Discretion is everything. The car-park is underground and each parking bay is covered by a curtain. It simply wouldn’t do for your wife to drive in with your next-door neighbour to spot your car and realise that you weren’t really going over the January sales figures with Miss Suarez, your secretary. The receptionist sits behind a smoky one-way glass. Drinks are ordered by telephone and then brought to your room and placed in a double-doored hole in the wall. The rooms, according to how much you want to pay, can be equipped with Jacuzzi, huge bed, mirrored ceilings and more. Use your imagination.
Then there are the themed Telos, on the outskirts of the major cities. The Centurion which is all togas and grapes. The Pharaoh if you walk like an Egyptian. Or The Cave for those into wooden clubs and animal furs. A quick internet check reveals one Telo with rooms for ‘two, three or four people.’ Another offers hydro-massage, gym, sauna and mini-swimming pool. Quite how you’re supposed to find the time and the energy for sex, I’m not sure.
There are condoms on the bedside tables, next to the customer survey forms. And cable television showing all the adult channels. They’ve got all the major sports channels too which is useful if you’ve forgotten the Viagra and find the fun is over earlier than anticipated. But I warn you, Bolton Wanderers versus Hull City as a starter does nothing to set the scene for a session of passionate sex.
Not that I’d know, of course. No-one ever openly admits to using a Telo. Say it’s your birthday and the in-laws are round looking after the kids. “Oh dear! We’re out of cat food,” you tell the mother-in-law. “And there’s a sale of bumper bags but only at the pet shop in Belgrano so we’ll need to take a bus and we’d both better go since it’ll be heavy and it’s quite dangerous there at this time of the day and er…”
You and your wife/girlfriend rush out, deliberately forgetting your mobile phones. No matter how good an actor you are, you’ll return an hour or two later feeling guilty and without the cat food. “Sold out,” you say. “And we’re flushed because there were no buses and we walked back, quickly.”
She knows. And she knows that you know that she knows. But that’s fine. That’s the story I read, anyway, in a Sunday magazine – by an anonymous writer.
The point being that sex happens in Argentina and it’s no-one’s business but the man and woman, the man and man or the woman and woman or the man, woman and man for that matter, who are involved.
I really don’t care who John Terry has sex with. But if his off-field activities undermine morale in the England camp which in turn affect performances in South Africa, then I think some kind of chemical castration should be considered. Only temporary, you understand. We are the fans, for Christ’s sake, surely we have some rights!
