Argentinos Juniors  3  Colon  1

Argentines will criticise their government for many things but I hope they give them a standing ovation for the latest announcement.  The education minister, Alberto Sileoni, has said that schools should show the Argentina games during the World Cup. Not only should they show them, they will be incorporated into the curriculum. Mr Sileoni called the World Cup a ‘party with a huge effect on teaching.’

So no clandestine listening to radios behind the bike sheds, no phoning in sick, no sneaky calls home during the break to check the latest score. The Argentine Football Association is even going to work with the education authorities to produce a folder on the games. Wonderful!

So when the World Cup is over, you’ll be able to stop any Argentine child on the street and ask him or her about recent Nigerian religious and ethnic strife, or the current state of South Korean cinema or perhaps whether they think the European Union should bail out the leaky Greek economy.  They’ll also be learning about recent South African history and whether Argentina is more suited to a 4-4-2 or a 4-3-3 formation.

So Juan’s school timetable will look something like this: 0900-1000 Maths. 1015 Mid-morning break. 1015-1115 History. 1115-1315 Argentina v South Korea. (Homework: 1,000 words – Lionel Messi has never reproduced his Barcelona form for the national side because he doesn’t get the same quality of service – Discuss.)

During the 2006 World Cup, many schools did suspend classes to show the key games. Some closed altogether in the knowledge that half the class simply wouldn’t turn up – because the kids wouldn’t come if they didn’t have to, obviously, but also because the parents wouldn’t have brought them and half the teachers would have called in sick.

It’s been said in one of those surveys commissioned to confirm what we already know, that 91% of Argentines are interested in the World Cup and will at least watch the games in which the national side is involved.

The week Argentina met Germany in the 2006 quarter finals, a national newspaper took a photograph of the busy 9 de Julio junction with Corrientes right in the centre of Buenos Aires at two on a weekday afternoon when it was chocoblock with angry, frustrated, impatient motorists all with somewhere very important to get to. The following day at the same time they took the same picture which showed just one car, a dog sniffing a dustbin and what looked like a couple of bemused-looking tourists, probably Canadians.

Every shop, restaurant, newspaper kiosk and petrol station will have their TVs on for the World Cup. I’ve even seen shoeshine men out on the street with small battery-run screens positioned next to their polish.

Football in Argentina is infused into children from birth. Boys play football at school and in the parks like they do anywhere else. It’s also a tradition here for all the kids in the class to have birthday parties to which all the others in the class are invited, even snotty-nosed Carolina who no-one ever wants to sit next to. That means you get at least 20 parties a year and a lucrative industry of fiesta salons has developed, providing entertainers and food.

A popular version among the boys is to hire an indoor pitch with trainer and play footy for an hour-and-a-half, followed by hot-dogs, fizzy drinks and birthday cake.

That’s tough for that 0000.1% of boys that don’t like football. They simply have to play with the girls and then wait until they’re older and can pursue their interest in model trains, music or clothes design.

And those same kids will continue playing football together beyond school and into adulthood. I’ve seen groups of elderly men, too frail to kick a ball, but still meeting for the post-football pizza and beer as they have every Tuesday evening for the past fifty years – just without the football.

Argentina boasts a well-run and well-coached network of football schools which ensure that little potential talent falls through the net. The professional clubs all have nursery teams and both the clubs and parents will invest a massive amount of time and effort in nurturing little Carlos or Javier’s footballing genius.

But if Argentina falls down in the latter stages of this World Cup, I think I know what the problem is. They never had enough sleep as children and will simply run out of steam.

Tonight’s game kicked off at 8.30 and didn’t finish until well gone 10. By the time you’ve left the stadium and arrived home you could be talking about close to midnight. The terraces were crawling with children, yet Tuesday is a school day, kicking off at 8.15am.

There’s many a time that I’ve been leaving a restaurant at elevenish at night, early by Argentine standards, to see families arriving – with their children. It’s perfectly normal for my kids’ friends to phone at gone 10, on a school night, and ask to speak to them. I’m not allowed to say that they’ve gone to bed since that would make them the subject of ridicule the following day.

I think I’ll drop a note to Diego and tell him that the squad needs to be in bed by ten and then be fed a hearty breakfast the next morning.

Argentinos Juniors have obviously been getting plenty of sleep and eating lashings of porridge for breakfast since, despite a nervy performance against Colon, they seem to be staying the course.

Argentinos Juniors goalkeeper, Nicolas Peric, gets my man of the match award. He saved a Colon penalty on twenty minutes, blocked a couple of fine shots and was hugely entertaining as he stamped the ground in rage and harangued his colleagues after Colon scored a last minute consolation goal. First half goals from Oritigoza and Calderon and a second half strike from Ismael Sosa also helped, as did the fact that the match officials don’t seem to grasp the offside rule.

This win plants Argentinos Juniors in second place behind Godoy Cruz on goal difference. Earlier in the day, they put six past Tigre. Independiente and Estudiantes are sniffing our backsides, just two points behind with five nerve-tingling games to go.

Tags: Alberto Sileoni, argentina schools, cebollitas, colon, nicolas peric

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