Where is it all going so horribly wrong? The answer is a simple one – in attack. Argentinos Juniors have scored just twice in five games, which is bad enough. But it’s the scarcity with which they attack the goal which is so worrying.

If it carries on like this, the next [...]]]> Arsenal  1  Argentinos Juniors  0

Where is it all going so horribly wrong? The answer is a simple one – in attack. Argentinos Juniors have scored just twice in five games, which is bad enough. But it’s the scarcity with which they attack the goal which is so worrying.

If it carries on like this, the next few teams on the fixture list might be advised not to bother with goalkeepers.

“Tell you what boys. Stay at home. Spend some quality time with the kids. We won’t be needing you at the weekend. It’s only Argentinos Juniors so we thought we’d play an extra outfield player in a 4-5-2 or a 3-5-3. It’ll give the goalmouth grass a little more time to grow back.  It’s looking a bit sparse.”

It’s not that they’re playing badly. If points were given for artistic merit then the defence and midfield might be sitting pretty in the middle of the table. And it’s not a problem with possession either. The Red Bugs saw more of the ball than a fortune teller.

But when the midfield’s relationship with the front three is like a mountain rescue team trying to find climbers lost in a blizzard, it’s enough to try the faith of even the most ardent fan.

It’s a well worn cliche but football is like a religion for many Argentines. If you plan your weekend well, you can watch all ten Argentine first division football matches back-to-back on tele from Friday right through to Sunday night, padding out the gaps with English, Italian, German and Spanish top flight games.

But what of those poor lost souls who don’t follow the footy? There are some here. They can be satisfied with a rich cultural life, boosted by the recent reopening of the Colon theatre – an acoustic masterpiece which hosts some of the best opera and ballet in the world.

But with the top tickets going for about half the average monthly wage, it’s a pursuit that only feeds the souls of a few and they’re generally not found in the poorer parts of Buenos Aires.

Some there turn to drugs, others to the growing number of evangelical churches. But a much more disturbing phenomenon came to light last weekend.

San La Muerte - you've been warned!

After a gun battle, police in the rundown neighbourhood of Rivadavia arrested a 22-year-old student known as Marcelito. They then announced that he was responsible for at least seven murders, all sacrifices to a saint known as San La Muerte, the Saint or Lord of Death.

The murders, until then, had attracted no attention in the Argentine media. The victims were all poor people killed in the shanty town. That’s what goes on there. Killings in the wealthier parts of the city attract substantial media attention, increasing security concerns and the subsequent profits of the many security companies that prey on those with something to lose.

But human sacrifices in the name of a death spirit, now that was news. San La Muerte is said to have a large following in Argentina’s prisons and in the growing shanty towns in and around its major cities. The figure is used to ask for favours, such as to win a fight or protect a harvest but can also be used to request the death of an enemy. It evolved in poor communities in the north of Argentina where characters from traditional indigenous religions merged with elements from Roman Catholicism.

The murders were shocking. But more shocking for many was that it revealed a previously unknown side to Argentine life that most in the sophisticated white, European parts of Buenos Aires where ladies in mink coats take coffee in the Parisian-style cafes of Recoleta know nothing about. And even if they did know about this dark underworld of human sacrifice in the drug-riddled shanties or villas of Buenos Aires, their reaction would only be to tut and perhaps dedicate a little more thought to their security situation. It was news for a day or so. Then it was coffee as normal.

A survey out this week showed that insecurity and growing crime were Argentines’ biggest worries while poverty concerned just 19percent of the population. I imagine that’s because the pollsters didn’t dare take their clipboards into the villas – I certainly wouldn’t – where I suspect they’d have found that poverty was the biggest concern of close to 100percent of poor people.

A Buenos Aires villa miseria...

The point I’m trying to make here is that it’s so easy to forget that this widespread misery is there just a few blocks away from our swanky shopping malls. But we choose not to notice it until some extreme manifestation of this misery, like human sacrifices to San La Muerte, is drawn to our attention, for a day or so at least.

The price we pay for ignoring it is that one day the villas won’t be able to contain the misery and it’ll spill out into the shopping malls and coffee shops of the ‘sophisticated’ parts of Buenos Aires. I at least will have the satisfaction, as they loot and pillage my home and present my still beating heart to San La Muerte, of being able to say: “I told you so.”

But that’s why we watch football – so we don’t have to concern ourselves with all that. Although football is not really producing the distraction from misery that Boca Juniors fans might like. They’re in a similar situation to  Argentinos Juniors but because they’re so much bigger and their expectations so much grander their grief is apparently greater. They lost again, 2-1 at home to San Lorenzo, and the new job of the former Argentinos Juniors boss, Claudio Borghi, is looking precarious. River Plate, who started brightly, are already fading and lost 2-1 to Velez who jointly top the table with Arsenal.  All Boys beat fellow newly-promoted side, Olimpo 1-0 and Newell’s and Independiente fought out a 1-1 draw. Estudiantes, as always, are looking strong with a 2-1 win away to Godoy Cruz and Lanus beat relegation contenders, Gimnasia 2-0.

Argentinos sit two places off the bottom but are really not much worse than the top two teams. Either they’re all nearly as good as one another or nearly as bad.  I’m erring on the positive side and going for the former — for now at least.

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 [...]]]> 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.

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 [...]]]> 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.

The main reason I adopted Argentinos Juniors as the team to write this blog about was that they were crap. I watched them a couple of times a year or so ago and thought their ramshackle ground, their tubby players and their comical goalkeeper would give me plenty of amusing anecdotes [...]]]> Huracan  1  Argentinos Juniors   2

The main reason I adopted Argentinos Juniors as the team to write this blog about was that they were crap. I watched them a couple of times a year or so ago and thought their ramshackle ground, their tubby players and their comical goalkeeper would give me plenty of amusing anecdotes to string together.  Their manager had the kind of mullet hair arrangement that didn’t look good when it was fashionable in the nineteen-seventies, let alone on a fifty-something year old man in 2009. They finished last that season and for some reason Nestor Gorosito was poached by River Plate.

Gorosito and mullet

Claudio Borghi, who played for Argentinos Juniors during their glory period in the mid-eighties, was lured to the club and has turned a team on a par with Accrington Stanley into one that could hold its own against Chelsea.

They finished sixth last season, losing very few but drawing far too many. But this season, those draws turned into victories, the team never lost its shape or its desire to attack or its character. Borghi sat in his dug-out, rarely expressing any emotion. Argentine football fans all seem to agree that this team are worthy champions — for their stylish football, for their refusal to accept defeat and for their humility.

Humility is not a quality that comes easily to most Argentines. But with the brash arrogance of the big clubs, River Plate and Boca Juniors, and the brash stupidity of the likes of the Diego Maradona infecting the game here, the feet firmly on the ground approach of Claudio Borghi was exactly what was needed.

Nearly twelve thousand of us squidged into the Huracan stadium, a beautiful, nineteen-thirties style structure on the other side of town. It was a crisp, cold winter’s day and we were in fine voice. I’ve always found it a bit of challenge to understand all the lyrics of the Argentine football songs. I’ve got some of the key words but tend to adopt the same practise as when singing Auld Lang Syne at New Year – a lot of enthusiastic but unintelligible burbling.

Like a Huracan

So I had the bright idea of printing some songs off the internet and trying to learn them. But my memory is not what it was. I can’t, for instance, remember all eleven members of the 1980 West Ham FA Cup winning team. So I hide the lyrics inside the match magazine and take sneaky peaks when I falter.

There’s a lot of ‘nobody loves us but we don’t care’ attitude reflected in the lyrics, loyalty in the face of adversity and downright fatalism.

“The day I die, I want my coffin painted red and white like my heart,” sung to a jaunty tune is one of my favourites.

Argentinos Junior’s big rivals, the brown and white-shirted Platense, are nicknamed the calamares or squid and feature a fair amount in the lyrics.

“I don’t care what they say, the squid whores, the journalists, the police – wherever you go, your fans will always be with you, breathing life with lots of alcohol and marijuana.”

Squid whores!!! Try that one as an insult the next time you get really angry and see where it gets you.

The anti-squid taunting has lost a little of its potency since, while Argentinos Juniors bathed themselves in glory, Platense were tumbling into third division obscurity.

“Reds – my great friend, this season we’re back again with you. We’ll support you with our hearts, we’re your fans and want you to be champions.”

Reasons to be Cheerful

And champions we are. Argentinos started brightly against Huracan and mounted several attacks that came to nothing before Juan Mercier got his bald head to a cross and tucked it into the net. This was a game the Red Bugs had to win to clinch the title since Estudiantes, just a point behind, were wiping the floor with Colon up in the north-east of Argentina.

But we were made to sweat. Facundo Coria put us two up ten minutes from the end by tapping in a rebound after Ismael Sosa had blasted against the post. Then three minutes from the end, Alan Sanchez pulled one back for Huracan and we were subjected to several  of those elongated minutes that leave you biting nails, clenching buttocks and glancing at your watch every ten seconds. And in situations like these, the referee will always add about a year of extra time.

With the Huracan fans setting fire to their own stadium, the referee cut short the added time and the celebrations began.

“C’mon Red Bugs, C’mon, Put your balls in place and let’s win this one, we’ll keep on da da de da da, we’ll be champions and not de do du da da, Come on Bugs.”

That might have lost a little something in translation but the spirit, I think, is clear. Argentinos Juniors are champions of Argentina for the first time in twenty five years. I certainly know how to pick a loser!

How joyous it must be to have the best player in the world pulling on your club shirt. They had that for a while at Argentinos Juniors when on the 20th October 1976 a stocky, young cherub ambled nervously onto the pitch. Diego Armando Maradona went on to play 166 [...]]]> San Lorenzo  1  Argentinos Juniors  2

How joyous it must be to have the best player in the world pulling on your club shirt. They had that for a while at Argentinos Juniors when on the 20^th October 1976 a stocky, young cherub ambled nervously onto the pitch. Diego Armando Maradona went on to play 166 games and score 115 goals for the club, before moving on to big city rivals, Boca Juniors.

I’ve never met him but by all accounts, Diego is what people here call a boludo. I’m not quite sure how this word translates into English, but it’s not nice. However, Maradona is a legendary boludo, a much-loved boludo, held dear to the hearts of millions of Argentines for the wonderful moments he gave them wearing the shirts of both Argentinos and Boca Juniors. Fans of a certain age talk with tears in their eyes about those golden days when they saw, or claim they saw, the Number 10 perform his magic. It’s something to tell the grandchildren.

Stan Bowles - Magic Moments

I was never a QPR fan and can’t quite remember why I was at Loftus Road on a wet Wednesday night in November some time in the nineteen-seventies. I don’t remember the team they were playing or the score or, for that matter, where I’ve put my coffee cup. But firmly etched on my obviously soddled brain are a couple of moments of exquisite play by QPR’s Stan Bowles. I was close to the touchline, so was he. It’s moments like those that restore and maintain your faith in football, especially when you’re waiting at a bus-stop in the rain after a one-nil home defeat.

You tell yourself that you’re giving up football, that you’re not wasting your money on any more games, that next time you’ll stay at home and find spiritual enlightenment by baking bread, or something. Only you do go, always hoping for a Stan Bowles moment.

But you don’t get any of that with Lionel Messi, at least not in Argentina. He may turn out to be better than Diego, he may be the best the world has ever seen. He might even achieve legendary status if he can help Argentina to lift the World Cup. But he’ll never have the same place in Argentine hearts as the podgy, obnoxious Maradona.

And that’s because almost no-one here witnessed his early days. No-one can tell their grandchildren about the magic he weaved in the last minute against Independiente to clinch the title for Newell’s, or how he humiliated River Plate with three goals in ten minutes, leaving their defenders dizzy and bumping into one another. Because he was gone, out the door before his voice had broken, him and his family whisked away from the poor neighbourhood he’d grown up in in the city of Rosario and installed on the other side of the globe in Barcelona.

Sid Lowe, in an excellent article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/mar/22/leo-messi-barcelona-la-liga-spain), recently wrote how they’d run out of superlatives in Spain to describe Messi’s awesome performances. We catch all of that second hand here in the newspapers and on the tele. But the real dilemma in Argentina is why young Leo can’t reproduce his club form at national level.

Best of Legends

One theory is that the team coach, that very same Diego Maradona, the man with an ego bursting out of his belly, deliberately plays him out of position and ensures that he doesn’t get the service he requires so that, at international level at least, Messi will never overtake him on the road to footballing sainthood.

Another theory, recently explained in the newspaper, Pagina12, is that having gone to Spain so young, Leo doesn’t have any affinity for the sky blue and white of Argentina and can’t really be bothered to break sweat for the national cause. So he employs his unknown twin brother, Jose Messi, to play in his place. Only Jose is no good.

A far more plausible, but much less entertaining theory, suggests that Pep Guardiola simply understands how best to play Messi and ensures he gets adequate service from his teammates. And Diego doesn’t.

In the run-up to the World Cup, foreign film crews are flocking to Rosario to tell the world where this footballing prodigy came from. You may not know this, but the collective term for a pack of journalists is a ‘shitload,’ as in ‘there’s a shitload of journalists heading to Rosario to do the Messi story.’

They’re interviewing his former teachers, neighbours, distant relatives, football coaches, the owner of the shop where he bought his first football boots, pencil case, socks etc. in the search for something, anything, that might point to what made Messi Messi.

They won’t find much among the fans of Newell’s Old Boys, the club where he played his way through the junior ranks. Because they didn’t realise they’d had him until he’d gone.

Foreign scouts roam along the touchlines of pitches in the shanty-towns and clubs of Argentina, like paedophiles in the park, looking for the next Messi, their sweaty hands firmly grasping the binding contract that will whisk little Jorge or Claudio and his wide-eyed parents across the Atlantic in search of a dream.

Argentines will get behind their national team more passionately than most during the World Cup, they always do. And if Messi produces the goods, then he’ll be hailed as a hero. No-one doubts his nationalism.

But I suspect that in years to come, they won’t be naming football stadiums after him, or hanging his picture on the greasy walls of bars and cafes in the far-flung corners of Argentina, as they do with Maradona’s.

Messi - Gone too Soon!

Because Argentines have never really seen him close up. He’s never given them stories to tell or dreams to dream.

And talking of dreams…ours is still well and truly alive after a 2-1 victory at San Lorenzo in a game that Argentinos Juniors didn’t really deserve to win. Thousands of Argentinos fans trekked across Buenos Aires to see San Lorenzo take the lead in the first half after some defensive chaos from the visitors.

The good players, especially Nestor Ortigoza, did not play their best, passes went astray and there was confusion in defence. But champions win the games in which they play badly. And if Argentinos Juniors do emerge as champions then they may look back on this game as a crucial one. Two goals from Ismael Sosa in the second half making the difference.

This is now a two-horse race. Godoy Cruz lost to Rosario Central and Independiente were beaten 3-2 at home by Boca Juniors. Estudiantes are still leaders after beating relegated Chacarita 2-1 and Argentinos sit just a point behind them with two games to go.

This was one of those trips across town to a nether region of Greater Buenos Aires, Sarandi, requiring a convoluted combination of bus, train and underground travel. And for that, you need loose change which is often as sparse as decent options in a West Ham attack.

Like Gold

The banks will, [...]]]> Arsenal  2  Argentinos Juniors  2

This was one of those trips across town to a nether region of Greater Buenos Aires, Sarandi, requiring a convoluted combination of bus, train and underground travel. And for that, you need loose change which is often as sparse as decent options in a West Ham attack.

Like Gold

The banks will, reluctantly, change ten pesos worth. I, however, choose to queue outside a hole in the wall at the main Retiro train terminal for twenty pesos of clinky, shiny coins. Then, if I’ve got the time and no-one’s spotted me, I’ll queue again and head home with pockets bulging like the cheeks of a hamster that’s just emerged from an ‘All You Can Eat’ granary and jangling like the Tin Man on speed.

This is the only country I know where one peso can be worth more than two pesos. That’s because if it’s pissing with rain and I’m far from home, then I’d gladly exchange my crisp, new but easily obtainable two peso note, which the buses won’t accept, for a grubby, sweaty one peso coin, which they do. And I’d dance a tango and perform a little juggling trick as the tip.

This shortage of change is an inconvenience to public transport users like myself. But it’s also turning me into a liar. “No,” I’ll mumble and fumble when the shopkeeper asks if I’ve got any change. “I haven’t got any, none whatsoever, not a thing.” He knows I’m lying and I know that he knows that I’m lying, but what can I do?

I have to consider the welfare of that huge army of one-legged Peruvian guitar players, blind Bolivian jugglers and banjo-playing waifs and strays that strolls the aisles of the buses and trains to earn a few pennies to feed their hungry families. And of course, I need my own bus fare home.

This shortage of change has never been adequately explained which gives rise to a wide array of conspiracy theories. One is that the bus drivers sell 90 pesos worth of coins for 100 pesos on the black market.

Travelling Bichos

The man behind me in the queue had the idea that the Argentine Central Bank bought their coins for US dollars but were short of readies because President Cristina Kirchner hoarded the greenbacks to finance her shopping trips to New York. There was something in there about Paraguayan gun runners and a large shipment of marmalade from Tanzania but it was my turn to be served and I couldn’t stay to join up the dots.

Conspiracy theories abound, partly because of the manipulation and often downright dearth of official information.

The official government statistics office, the INDEC, quite blatantly misquotes the inflation figures. President Kirchner never gives interviews and rarely attends news conferences and her ministers follow her lead.

Football, as it so often does, mirrors the rest of society. Those who run the clubs are accountable only to shady politicians and the tougher elements of the barra brava to whom they owe favours, so it’s very difficult to get a grasp of what’s going on in the corridors and dark corners of the grounds.

One of the biggest footballing mysteries of all is that surrounding Argentina’s 1978 World Cup win, with their place in the final rumoured to have been bought by the then military dictatorship.

There were two groups of four in what passed for the semi-finals, with the top team in each going through to the final. The Dutch clinched their spot but Argentina needed to beat Peru by at least four clear goals to meet them. They scored six.

Worthy Winners?

It could simply have been that a very good home team, boasting Passarella, Ardiles, Kempes and Tarantini, did what they had to do – and more – against a tired Peru.

But the Peruvian keeper, Ramón Quiroga, was born in Argentina. There’s been talk of men in funny jackets making clandestine visits to the Peruvian players, of phone conversations between the Argentine military and their counterparts in Lima and Argentine ships laden with goodies sitting off the Peruvian coast just waiting for that fourth goal to go in before upping anchors and sailing into port while the crew danced a victory jig on the poop deck and tossed presents from the crow’s nest.

None of this has ever been convincingly proved nor satisfactorily disproved and is likely to be discussed for as long as football is played and beer is drunk – or Alex Ferguson discards that piece of gum he’s been chewing for the past forty years. Whichever is the sooner.

It’s all a bit like the debate over whether England’s third goal in the 1966 World Cup final crossed the line or not. Except without the ships and the military and the llamas. Didn’t I mention the llamas? But apart from that – almost the same.

There  were plenty of theories circulating the terraces at this game. Arsenal is where the Argentine Football Association boss, Julio Grondona, began his long career. So every dodgy refereeing decision – and there were plenty here tonight – is met with a chorus of abuse insinuating that the fellow in black had been ‘got at’  by the top man.

Argentinos were a tad unlucky but were really not good enough to grab all three points. That would have put on them on top but perhaps they were struck by stage fright. They started well with an early goal from José  Luis Calderón,, who is old enough to have been a ballboy at that ‘78 final. But Arsenal pulled one back before half-time then took the lead early in the second half with a penalty which really shouldn’t have been.

The visitors were unusually disjointed and gave the ball away far too often. They were just not themselves. But Facundo Coria did equalise just before the final whistle and Argentinos Juniors now sit just one point behind the joint leaders, Estudiantes and Independiente with four games to go.

I couldn’t tell you exactly how many beauty parlours, hairdressing salons, tanning shops, gyms and plastic surgeries I pass on the journey from my house to the ground but it’s a lot. They’re all over Buenos Aires, a city where many claim that they’re the most beautiful people in South [...]]]> Rosario Central  0  Argentinos Juniors  1

I couldn’t tell you exactly how many beauty parlours, hairdressing salons, tanning shops, gyms and plastic surgeries I pass on the journey from my house to the ground but it’s a lot. They’re all over Buenos Aires, a city where many claim that they’re the most beautiful people in South America, perhaps the world.

And there are days, when strolling along the sun-baked streets downtown, I have to admit that, although I’m a happily married man getting on in years, my head is turned more often than a tennis spectator on speed.

No Beauty Contest

I think it’s fair to say that the people of Buenos Aires, both men and women, straight and gay, pride themselves on their appearance. Not surprising perhaps when you consider that they’ve got a mix of Italian and Spanish style with a touch of French panache and a lick of debonair British polo-player thrown in for good measure.

In one of those ridiculous surveys commissioned by the cosmetics industry that has no scientific basis whatsoever but which I’m going to quote anyway to prove my point, it was found that 69 percent of Argentine women thought that their boyfriends and husbands spent far too much time and money on their appearance.

They enjoy ridiculously long holidays on the beaches of Punta del Este in Uruguay or the Argentine Atlantic coast where it’s important to look your bronzed best. They’ll spend all year getting there if necessary.

The plastic surgery industry is one of the most highly developed in the world. Teenage girls are given breast implant operations for their birthdays and last year disco’s were offering boob jobs as lottery prizes. I read about one fellow who bought up all the tickets he could in the hope of passing the winning number on to his girlfriend. But he only ended up with the third prize – a bottle of non-alcoholic pineapple fizz. The first prize went to a bus driver from Mendoza who shortly after the operation left his job to pursue a new career in cabaret.

Style in Buenos Aires is important. I see them on the bus casting furtive glances at my slightly too short jeans and faded and fraying replica 1960s West Ham shirt. They can giggle all they like. I can handle it.

But the more common reaction to this intense pressure from society to conform, to look good is a growth in eating disorders and tens of thousands of young people who simply don’t go out.

In the wealthier Buenos Aires suburbs, there is a breed of middle-aged to elderly woman which is incredibly well-dressed but frighteningly over-groomed. They usually have rasping voices since they smoke incessantly, under the impression that it keeps them thin. And thin they are, with brown leathery skin and hair frizzled to straw after half a lifetime in the hairdressers. They were almost certainly beautiful in their youth and beyond but have not matured gracefully. The plastic surgery shows. They often look like they’ve been taken apart and reassembled but using the wrong instructions. Mieuow!!

It should also be taken into account that the weekend nights out in Buenos Aires don’t get going until after midnight. And if you’re not looking your best after four or five hours of preparation in front of the mirror, then forget it. Go to the football instead.

For that is where Argentina’s ugly people go. The ugly, the overweight, the underweight, the under-prepared and the couldn’t care lesses. There are fellows in their sixties sporting hairstyles that were in fashion at the same time as high-waisters, platform shoes and Showaddywaddy. And even then, they were crap.

Bellies flop freely over too-tight jeans, barely covered by nylon replica Argentinos Juniors shirts. No-one cares.

Ortalora - Ugly but Proud

A couple of years ago I interviewed Gonzalo Ortalora who had written a book called Feo or Ugly. He was a pretty ordinary looking chap but said that as a teenager he’d been a real eye-sore, with greasy hair, prominent teeth and spots. He was proposing a tax on the beautiful people since he said they had all the advantages in life. They got better jobs, better girlfriends and boyfriends and were not discriminated against in public. He wanted Carlos Tevez to sponsor him but I don’t think anything ever came of that.

Pretty much every other club in the Argentine first division has got a better-looking ground than Argentinos Juniors. And a fancier team bus and swishier changing rooms. I’ve been in the Argentinos Juniors changing rooms and they’re not much better than the ones at my old school. The graffiti is in Spanish, obviously, and a little wittier.

But the football that the Red Bugs are playing at the moment is a sight to behold. It’s beautiful. A few more goals and it’ll be winning beauty contests.

This game against second-from-bottom Rosario Central was not one of the prettiest, but it was enough. Fresh from a victory over Boca Juniors at the weekend, the home side had the edge in the first half, hitting the crossbar and having a goal disallowed for offside.

But Argentinos Juniors put on their best face after the break and wrapped up the three points with a well-worked goal slotted home by Ismael Sosa.  With just six games to go, the Red Bugs are just two points behind the leaders, Independiente. River Plate lost yesterday and Boca Juniors were beaten 3-0 by Colon. Who’d have thought it?!

It’s now been four days since the superclásico, the twice yearly clash between Boca Juniors and River Plate which Boca won 2-0. The newspapers are still full of it. There were front page photos of celebration that might have left a stranger to Argentine football thinking that Boca had just [...]]]> River Plate  0  Argentinos Juniors  1

It’s now been four days since the superclásico, the twice yearly clash between Boca Juniors and River Plate which Boca won 2-0. The newspapers are still full of it. There were front page photos of celebration that might have left a stranger to Argentine football thinking that Boca had just won the South American championship, rather than snuck up to 14^th place in the first division table.

And the defeat left River Plate in the depths of a crisis that makes the current Middle Eastern situation look like a minor tiff. In fact, the Argentine media carries far more coverage and analysis of the River Plate crisis than it does of the rift between Israel and the United States and Britain.

I think it’s fair to say that it’s a very self-indulgent media, pandering to the interests and the prejudices of its staff rather than the readership. There are two major newspapers. La Nacion, which is a conservative broadsheet aimed at those who own and run Argentina – the farmers and businessmen, the politicians, judges and football club owners. It’s the River Plate of the newspaper world.

Rivals - Clarin and La Nacion

Then there’s Clarin, the Boca Juniors of newspapers, which pretty much serves everyone else – it’s comprehensive, bulky, poorly designed and, at the moment, involved in a bitter dispute with the government which has skewed any objectivity it may previously have had in its political reporting.

There are other papers – Pagina12 which caters for the left-leaning intelligentsia, full of wordy, barely comprehensible, navel-gazing articles about human rights and the environment. Then there’s the tabloid Cronica which is wall-to-wall tits, bums, soap opera gossip, football and gory crime and car crash details. And there’re a couple of sensible, serious business newspapers, Ambito Financiero and El Cronista, which is printed on pink paper. Now where have I seen that before?

Then, of course, there’s Olé, a daily sports newspaper which mostly covers football but sometimes recognises that other sports exist. Now what’s that called? When you get those five tall blokes running around a small indoor pitch, trying to lob a ball through a hoop? And that other one where two people who grunt a lot hit a small ball over a net hoping the other one won’t hit it back. Both are sports which Argentina often does quite well at. The names will come to me in a minute, but probably not to Olé.

Argentines like nothing more than to sit in pavement cafes, their half-moon glasses perched intellectually on the end of their noses, reading newspapers and magazines.  An intrinsic part of the urban landscape is the kiosco or newspaper kiosk which you find on many street corners and often in between. They’re draped in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines. These metal boxes are often social centres where dog walkers, commuters and joggers stop to buy their paper and catch up on the neighbourhood gossip.

Source of all Knowledge

Because the canillitos, as the owners are known, know everything. They’re often a better source of information than the newspapers they sell, whose reporters rarely seem to stray far from Buenos Aires. And even in the city, they’re usually found lurking around government buildings, hunting in packs or sitting in cafes competing to see who can concoct the most convoluted opening sentences.

I know a couple of ex-journalists who said they left the profession since their bosses restricted what they could report and many of their colleagues were collecting envelopes stuffed with cash from their political or business ‘contacts.’

But there is also a fine tradition of investigative journalism in Argentina, most notably during the military dictatorship in the nineteen-seventies and eighties. And many reporters suffered for their integrity.  Among those on the roll of honour is the English-language Buenos Aires Herald which fearlessly reported on the human rights abuses being committed by the regime, until several of its leading lights were forced into exile. I worked there for a few months during more tranquil times and am not sure if I contributed to its decline, but unfortunately the paper is now languishing in the third division.

Another newspaper hero was Jacobo Timerman, the editor of La Opinion newspaper, who later wrote extensively about the kidnap and torture he suffered at the hands of the dictatorship. There were many others.

And it wasn’t all easy after the military stepped down either. One of the most notorious murders in later years was that of Noticias magazine photographer, José Luis Cabezas. In 1997, he managed to snap the dodgy businessman, Alfredo Yabrán, a man who prided himself on never having had his picture taken, ‘not even by the secret services.’

True Fan

Cabazas had also been investigating the protection afforded to a number of brothels by the notoriously corrupt Buenos Aires provincial police force. He was handcuffed, beaten and then taken to a remote spot where he was killed with two shots to the head.

Some of the usual suspects were rounded up and sentenced to prison but most in Argentina suspect that those who were really behind the killing got away with it. A campaign for justice, with the slogan ‘Don’t forget Cabezas’ continues to this day.

There seems to be little room in today’s daily newspapers for original, investigative reporting. But it does go on and usually reaches the kiosks and bookshops in the form of books written by high-profile journalists. The one at the top of the current bestseller list is El Dueño or ‘The Owner’ by Luis Majul – an expose of the dodgy dealings carried out, allegedly, by the former president Nestor Kirchner. Or Gustavo Grabia’s La Doce or ‘The Twelve’ about the Boca Juniors barra brava and its links to politicians. Like I said, you just can’t get away from Boca and River.

Argentinos Juniors caught River on the rebound from the Boca game, in the depths of a crisis when they had much to prove. But all that River managed to prove in this game is that they’re not very good. Argentinos really should have won by more but a fine goal by Ismael Sosa after twenty minutes was enough and a victory is a victory. This one leaves them in fourth place, five points behind the leaders, Independiente.

After their victory in the superclasico, Boca crashed 4-1 to lowly Chacarita Juniors. Both the giants of Argentine football now find themselves in deep turmoil. Life in the Middle East will go on. But the problem here in Argentina is really, really serious.

I’m not going to say it since when I said it last season after Argentinos Juniors strung a few victories together, they went on to lose and draw their next batch of games. But three wins on the trot and….no! Resist! Resist!

And the winner is....

It’s a week now since [...]]]> Racing Club 0  Argentinos Juniors  1

I’m not going to say it since when I said it last season after Argentinos Juniors strung a few victories together, they went on to lose and draw their next batch of games. But three wins on the trot and….no! Resist! Resist!

And the winner is....

It’s a week now since the Oscars were handed out but the glitz is still glittering here in Argentina and no-one wants to roll up their red carpets. For an Argentine film, El Secreto de sus Ojos or The Secret In Their Eyes won the best foreign film award. That’s the one they present between the Oscar for Most Comfy Director’s Chair and Best Sandwiches Sold on Set.

Basically, very few people outside of the countries concerned give a toss. Least of all the film critics. Here are a couple of quotes from critics of that reputable British newspaper, The Guardian. These are people paid to do nothing more than sit in a darkened room eating popcorn and commenting on the films they see. I always used to wonder why actors and directors were so disparaging about film critics, talking about them in the same way the rest of us discuss estate agents and football referees. Now I know.

The first nominee out of the envelope is the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who wrote: “I must now confess that I have not yet seen Juan José Campanella’s The Secret of Their Eyes – it is much liked and admired, but I can’t help feeling that this is a real banana-skin moment. It puts me in mind of Ronald Bergan’s online discussion of how, in the history of world cinema, the Oscar for the best foreign language film is traditionally given to the wrong film.”

His colleague, Xan Brooks, informs us: “OK, so I have yet to see The Secret in Her Eyes and maybe it’s brilliant. Until then, this result strikes me as more than a little perverse.”

Have they no shame? They don’t make films, they don’t write films and they don’t even watch the films they criticise. In what other job can you do that? “I didn’t see the game since I was painting the bathroom at the time. But I thought the United midfield was crap and the referee, when will he get his eyes tested? In my informed opinion, City are dead certs for the title but I’ll let you know more when I finally get to see them play.”

OK, you may say, it’s only the foreign language film. But what First World arrogance! Neither even bothered to get the English translation of the title right. Would they treat a US or a British film with such lazy contempt?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I can tell you that I have seen the film. Pretty much everyone in Argentina has and those who haven’t will be queuing up outside their nearest cinema as we speak.

It’s a very good rather than a great movie. I’ve not seen the other Oscar nominees so I wouldn’t dare to hazard an opinion on whether it was the best of the batch in the foreign language section.

Film Star - the Huracan stadium

It’s a thriller, a murder hunt set in both the nineteen-seventies during Argentina’s military dictatorship and in the present day. It beautifully evokes both eras, is wonderfully acted and football plays a key role in the story.

That’s no surprise when you consider that the Oscar winning director, Juan José Campanella is a River Plate fan and the original story writer and script editor, Eduardo Sacheri, follows Independiente.

But it’s Racing Club, Independiente’s rivals, which have the starring role and Sacheri admits that he found it uncomfortable to have to talk to their fans during the course of his research.

An obsession with football plays a big part in solving the mystery although I obviously can’t reveal more since I’m recommending that you see the film. There is also a great chase scene set in the Huracan stadium in a supposed game between Huracan and Racing.

http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2010/03/08/informaciongeneral/02154969.html

“And the Oscar for Best Football Stadium….wait for it…goes to Huracan’s Tomás Adolfo Ducó stadium in The Secret In Their Eyes.”

The other element which stuck in my mind long after I left the cinema was the way Campanella illustrated how dictatorships encourage the pathetic little people to emerge and rise to positions of prominence. Once there, they’re able to wreak their revenge on a society they feel has slighted them. We all know who they are. How many assistant tax inspectors, estate agents and film critics rose to positions of prominence in Germany’s Nazi Party? Slugs, who in normal society would have been ignored or treated with the contempt they deserved, revelled in and abused their authority. The Secret In Their Eyes shows the same kind of people thriving in an Argentine system that was rotten to the core.

Campanella - River Plate fan

Argentina has only ever won the Oscar once before, in 1985 for The Official Story, again about the military dictatorship that terrorised the country between 1976 and 1983. These winners are an important advert for the Argentine film industry and for the country itself since most foreigners might never see another film from this part of the world.

Argentina simply doesn’t have the money to make many films but it nonetheless has an enthusiastic and knowledgeable cinema-going public and a small but talented movie industry. The same few actors tend to crop up in almost every production because the money-men can’t afford to gamble on the untried and the un-trusted – so you can bet the price of a bag of popcorn that if Ricardo Darin isn’t in the Argentine film you’re about to watch, then Gaston Pauls will be.

There’s a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires that’s been dubbed Palermo Hollywood simply because so many film directors and students from across Latin America have congregated there to discuss the finer points of Buñuel and Bergman…and to make the odd film.

Of course, Hollywood dominates like it does in much of the rest of the world. But the cinemas in Buenos Aires are generally packed, especially for the weekend late-night screenings.

This game didn’t deserve much in the way of prizes, not even a nomination. The only drama came late in the second half. Nicholas Pavlovich scored the winner after a neat move by the visitors. Racing then managed to fluff a penalty which would have given them an ill-deserved draw. It was still more entertaining than an Oscar acceptance speech and the good guys won in the end.

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.

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!