Argentinos Juniors 0 Union de Santa Fe 0
The 2012 Clausura season, whichever way you look at it, has begun with a soggy fart, rather than a bang. There was not much in the way of keen expectation during the long, very hot close season. Then – Wey-hey!! – a routine 2-0 victory by the champions, Boca, over those far-southerners, Olimpo, and a drab 0-0 by our own Argentinos Juniors.
I didn’t go since the kick-off was at 10.10pm, way past my bedtime. It was scheduled for 5pm but the television masters decided that the second division clash involving those depleted giants, River Plate, who kicked off against Chacarita at the same time, would be a greater crowd draw. First division should take precedence over second division but that’s not the way it works here.
Just as well then that I’ve just come back from Cuba, a land where there’s no football to speak of but they’re passionate about other sports, especially rounders. Only this is played with bigger bats and funny gloves and is known in some parts of the world as baseball.
I always like to catch a game wherever I travel so I hopped in a taxi — a 1951 Chevy with a 1990s Lada engine and a Toyota dashboard, supplemented by bits and discarded bobs from Hondas, Renaults and VWs – to the Latinoamericano Stadium, the home of Havana giants, Los Industriales, the Industrials.
Jonron!!
In true Cuban fashion, the pizzeria next to the ground only sold beer. I thought the crowd pressed against the railings was waiting for a glimpse of the players coming out of the changing rooms but no! This was the ticket office.
There are two currencies operating in Cuba: the Cuban peso which is used by the locals and buys very little and the Convertible Peso or CUC which is used by tourists and buys you much more at a much higher cost.
A CUC is worth 85 US cents. There are 25 Cuban pesos in one CUC. The entrance fee is one Cuban peso. Unless you’re a foreigner in which case you pay one CUC. Only I didn’t know that until I’d fought my way through the throng and attracted the attention of the ticket lady with the long, curling green fingernails.
She would only accept the exact the money so I had to return to the pizzeria that didn’t sell pizzas and buy a beer that I didn’t really want to obtain the exact four CUCs that would get me and my family into the stadium.
By the time we got to our seats, the game was in its second innings and the visitors, Pinar del Rio from the west of the island, were one run up.
Then the home team pulled one back and the crowd erupted like, well, like a goal had been scored.
It’s wrong to compare baseball with football. It has a different rhythm and the moments of excitement come in varied ways. With all the bases stacked (you see here how I almost seamlessly adopt the jargon) and Pinar’s last batter in at the top of the third, the crowd held its collective breath. Crack! A homerun…or a jonron as the locals pronounce it…and the visitors leapt into a 4-1 lead.
Because the pizzeria didn’t have any pizzas we sampled the fare offered by men who prowled the stadium with baskets selling small brown parcels of some kind of pastry rather frugally filled with something indistinguishable that was neither sweet nor savoury. We ordered more.
Champions...The Boca Juniors of Havana.
This was a big night out for the mostly young Cuban crowd. Boyfriends adorned with bling sat proudly next to giggly girlfriends. Dads explained the complexities of the game to small kids with far greater passion than they’d ever apply to a description of how the Cuban economy has somehow survived despite the fifty-year long US trade embargo and the withdrawal of Russian support after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties.
I find it difficult to take a sport seriously in which the athletes don’t look like athletes. Golfers, darts and snooker players spring to mind. I was surprised to find that several Cuban baseball players seem to have succumbed to the temptations of the good life.
I expect taut limbs, steroid induced muscles and the ability to keep going for several hours that only illegal substances and a dedicated team of medics with criminal records can give you. This is a category often filled by professional cyclists, some tennis players and, if the French are to be believed, any Spaniard that’s ever won anything worth winning.
I saw a couple of Cuban batters, sporting bellies I normally only see on those sellers of Choripan sausages outside Argentine football grounds. They have to hit home runs simply so they can walk rather than run to the bases.
It all ended 8-2 to the visitors but the Industrials had done enough in previous games to progress in the play-offs. We left well before the end with the visitors 5-2 up since this was a game that was going to stretch well into the tomorrow.
It’s always fun to venture into other lands and explore local customs but equally reassuring to be home in familiar territory. And six draws, four of them 0-0, in the ten games of the first day of the Argentine football season was, unfortunately, all too familiar.
The only interesting result was Lanus’s stomping 4-1 win over the should-be mighty San Lorenzo. San Martin beat another of the supposed giants, Independiente, 1-0, while Atletico de Rafaela won 3-0 against one of the favourites for the drop, Banfield.
Racing against Tigre, Belgrano versus All Boys and Colon and Arsenal were all goalless. Estudiantes against Newell’s and Velez and Godoy Cruz all shared a goal apiece.
Tags: cuba, fidel castro, havana, los industriales, union de santa fe
