12/12
2011

Games 17, 18, 19: v Arsenal, All Boys, Olimpo

Argentinos Juniors 1 Olimpo 0

I’m sorry that I’ve fallen so far behind while so much has been happening. Two wins out of three for Argentinos Juniors sees them finish the season with 22 points and qualify for the Sudamericana Cup…the Intertoto Cup of South America. That was a 2-1 home win over Arsenal, a 1-0 defeat at All Boys and a 1-0 victory over Olimpo on the last day of the season at home.

But I guess more importantly, the world has been saved from the threat of global warming, at least on paper. I’m still in Durban, South Africa, recovering from observing two weeks of negotiation at the United Nations Climate Change talks.

Climate Change Saviours?

My work entailed interviewing anyone and everyone who had some connection with what they call the Conference of the Parties or COP17. They included scientists, negotiators, meteorologists, oceanographers, forestry experts, politicians, youth group representatives, Indonesian dancing girls, earnest Scandinavians, researchers from the Amazon and the Sahara, excited Australians who claimed to have found a way of turning camel dung into a renewable energy source that would provide power for half of Asia and more green pressure groups than you could shake a cucumber at.

We all pretty much know what the problem is. The world, but particularly the rich nations with the United States at the top of the list, have been burning so much carbon fuel – oil, coal and gas – into the air for so long that the world’s temperature is rising. And if we keep on at the present rate we’ll be fried, but not before we’ve suffered floods and droughts and starvation and possibly even plagues of locusts of biblical proportions.

Boca Juniors. A White Rhino?

Many claimed to have the answers. Vegans told us that not eating meat was the cure. His Holiness 1008 Shri Shri Soham Baba, a monk wearing orange robes and sporting a large silver tea pot, puts his money on greater spiritual awareness. He first noticed the effects of climate change while living in a cave in the Himalayas. More electric buses, more bicycles, less petrol burning cars, less long distance flights.

Everyone, it seemed, is green and no-one is polluting. One oil company executive told me his firm was exploiting oil reserves in the Ecuadoran Amazon causing the minimal amount of damage. A US navy rear admiral said he travelled the world and saw the undeniable effects of climate change in all corners, reports his findings to his government which simply chooses to continue polluting.

I visited the boat of a Swiss sailor, a former ski instructor, who noticed the ice melting around his office. Dario Schwörer embarked on a fifteen-year mission to highlight the effects of global warming by sailing the world, climbing all of the world’s highest mountains and using only his sails, his bike and his feet to do it. He’s travelling with his wife and four children. When the seas get choppy he hangs the kids from the ceiling on elastic ropes to keep them out of harms way. “Dangerous?” I asked him.

“No,” he replied. “Our biggest danger is from drunken drivers when we cycle through city centres.”

There were 194 countries represented in Durban. We could all cite many examples of any two countries with unresolved disputes stretching back hundreds of years. Try getting 194 to agree on anything.

The Rest...dung beetles?

Basically, the poor countries say they don’t pollute much yet suffer the worst of the droughts and the flooding caused by climate change which in turn has been caused by the rich world. The wealthy nations admit that there’s a problem but feel the developing countries should stop buring carbon fuels and take on equal responsibilities. And do India and especially China still qualify as developing nations?

The phrase circulating around the negotiating chambers was ‘equal but differentiated responsibilites.’ If ever there was a legal-political term designed to flumox the people then this is it. We’re all in the same boat, but some more than others.

As I’m sure you know by now, after some tense last minute huddling in dark corners, the negotiators saved the process and came up with the wording that pretty much brings all 194 nations on board.

The trouble now is that they’ll all have gone home and will, at this very moment, be poring over the small print with their lawyers to see just how differentiated they are and in what ways they can wheedle out of their full responsibilites. Meanwhile, the world continues to pollute, the temperatures are rising and the floods and droughts are becoming more severe and more frequent.

Of all the many people I spoke to, perhaps the most poignant was a young man from the remote Marshall Islands, somewhere out there in the Pacific Ocean. He was munching on a BigMac and fries during another of the many lulls in the negotiations. Every year, he said, they could observe the sea levels rising. “We move further inland,” he explained. “And one day we’ll have no-where left to go.”

I’ll be expanding my carbon footprint shortly with the flight back to Buenos Aires. By that time Boca Juniors will have finished celebrating their Apertura championship victory – unbeaten and out of sight of second-placed Racing Club.

They talk a lot in South Africa about the Big Five, the five mightiest beasts – lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and dung beetle. Sorry, that last one should read buffalo. I went on safari yesterday and only saw the rhino.

Buenos Aires has its own Big Five. Boca Juniors, River Plate, San Lorenzo, Racing Club and Independiente. Only Boca deserve that title at the moment. The rest? Dung beetles!!

 

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21/11
2011

Game Fifteen: v Godoy Cruz

Argentinos Juniors  1  Godoy Cruz  0

There is no excuse,  no justification for racism but there is often an explanation. Sepp Blatter might do well to come to Argentina to see how far Europe,  especially Britain,  has moved away from the days of monkey chanting,  bananas thrown onto the pitch,  golliwogs,  the Black and White Minstrels and unbelievably bad TV sit-coms like Love Thy Neighbour.

For Argentina in many ways is stuck in a time warp. It’s a long way from everywhere,  except maybe Uruguay and the remoter bits of Paraguay and Bolivia,  which don’t really count. I’m talking major centres of population,  civilization and sophistication here. Places like New York,  London,  Paris and,  dare I say it,  Zurich.

The porteños,  as the residents of Buenos Aires are known,  will tell you that their city is like Paris or Rome,  that they’re as cultivated as the Viennese and the Catalans. In many ways they are. But in plenty of other ways,  they’re not.

I was standing on the terraces at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium when towards the end of the first half the visitors,  Godoy Cruz,  brought on their first substitute,  Armando Cooper.

Armando Cooper

He’s a nifty little player with agile feet and plenty of oomph. He made an immediate impression and it soon became clear to the home fans that if Godoy Cruz were going to get anything from this game,  it would be through Mr Cooper.

What is noticeable about Cooper,  who’s from Panama,  is that he’s black. That’s noticeable because there are very few black players in the Argentine league and none of them are from Argentina since the country hardly has a black population.

What followed from those around me was a barrage of racist vitriol,  spat rather than shouted. Cooper looked like he’d not heard it but Argentinos Juniors has a compact ground with the fans very close to the pitch and he must have heard the words and felt the hatred.

The abuse was varied but unimaginative. I heard someone mention slavery and another shouted something about Kunte Kinte.

If their only cultural reference to Afro-Latin Americans is an over-dramatized and over-simplified 1970s TV series on the African slave trade then I think you get some idea of the depths of ignorance in which we’re wallowing here.

The abuse did not come from all the fans but there were enough of them to be threatening and for it to be apparent that challenging them could result in my being skewered on the sharp bits of the railings that keep us caged in.

It offended my white,  middle-class liberal sensitivities but I was with a French friend,  a black French friend who also heard the abuse. Although none was directed at him and none of those doing the abusing appeared to notice that he might take offence,  he felt the fear and the hatred. That’s what Sepp Blatter doesn’t seem to understand – this is an issue that cannot be solved with a gentleman’s handshake after the game.  

Godoy Cruz in action

It has to be said that the fans will hurl equally vehement insults on a regular basis at the referee and his assistants and the visiting players. It’s nasty enough for me to be grateful that the pitch is ringed by thick metal fences topped with barbed wire. Rabid animals do need to be caged.

If you see black people on the streets of Buenos Aires,  and you can go days without seeing one,  then they are likely to be from Colombia or they’ll be Brazilian or American tourists. Recently,  West African men,  mostly from Senegal,  have set up stalls in the more run-down commercial parts of the city selling  jewelry.

I’ve often heard it said by those modern-day street wise philosophers that we find the world over,  otherwise known as taxi drivers or ignorant idiots,  that Argentines are not racist because ‘we don’t have any blacks.’

There have been books written and several theories put forward as to why that’s the case.

For Argentina,  like every country in the Americas brought in African slaves to work their mines and plantations and once had a substantial black population. Neighbouring Uruguay still has one,  so too does Bolivia.

One theory is that the nineteenth century generals put black men in the front line in their many and vicious wars to eradicate the indigenous communities in central Argentina. Most perished in battle. There’s not much left of Argentina’s indigenous heritage either. Black women were integrated into the population,  at the time expanding rapidly with the influx of European immigrants,  predominantly men from Italy and Spain.

By the turn of the twentieth century Argentina’s black population had pretty much disappeared. But of course the racism remained. It’s all a question of degrees.

Argentina is an immigrant community…from Italy,  Spain,  France,  Croatia,  Greece,  Britain and elsewhere. But it’s a white immigrant population.

With no Afro-Latin Americans to prejudice, the attention turned to darker skinned immigrants of mixed indigenous and European blood from the country’s interior or from Bolivia and Paraguay.

There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants from neighbouring countries in Argentina but they’re kept in their place. The Bolivians sell fruit and veg,  the Paraguayan women are maids and nannies and the men work in construction.

The children at the private schools that dot the neighbourhoods across the north of Buenos Aires are almost exclusively white.

Like I said,  Sepp Blatter should come to Argentina. There are bits of it that are like Europe– the swampy,  rancid smelling parts that he obviously inhabits.

One of those Colombians I mentioned earlier,  Teo Gutierrez,  had a tough weekend too. He was the second Racing Club player to be sent off in their top of the table clash with Boca Juniors. Like so many much-hyped games,  this one ended 0-0.

With just four games to go,  Boca are eight points clear of Racing and have no doubt already booked their party venue.

Independiente beat Olimpo 3-0,  Velez continued their good form with a 3-1 win at Belgrano and Newell’s continued their poor form with a 1-0 home defeat to Tigre. San Martin and All Boys played out a dull 0-0 draw,  Colon beat Rafaela 1-0 and San Lorenzo sacked their manager,  Omar Asad,  after losing 1-0 at home to Union.

Arsenal won 1-0 at Lanus. and the bottom of the table clash between Estudiantes and Banfield was abandoned in the first half,  with Banfield leading 1-0,  after the home fans threw fireworks onto the pitch.

 

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30/10
2011

Game Thirteen: v Velez Sarsfield

Argentinos Juniors  3  Velez Sarsfield  1

Football,  as I’ve often said,  reflects life. But this was a perfect footballing day and how often in life do we have perfect days?

I was up in time to see the second half of Chelsea versus Arsenal – a sublime game if you have no emotional attachment to either team. The Latin American commentators were salivating over the quality of the football.

Then I nipped around the corner where I was the guest on a Saturday morning football radio chat show. They asked me what on earth I was doing in Buenos Aires supporting Argentinos Juniors. People always ask me that. Why them? Why not Boca Juniors or River Plate? Or at the very least Racing Club or Independiente? It’s like an Argentine landing  in London and spurning Arsenal or Chelsea in favour of Fulham or Queen’s Park Rangers. So I explained that I didn’t choose one of their big clubs for exactly the same reasons that I’m not a fan of either Chelsea or Arsenal.

Fenced In.

Argentinos Juniors I said,  with their homely neighbourhood stadium,  their success in producing fine,  young talent and their fans’ consistent demand for attractive football over a win-at-all-costs philosophy,  made them the nearest Argentine equivalent to West Ham United. Plus I can get there easily on the 113 bus.

We also talked about the differences between the game in England and Argentina. As I rambled on it occurred to me that the only fundamental differences are elements that were introduced in England post Hillsborough. Things like the removal of fencing,  the transformation to all-seater stadiums and better policing. Then there was the fact that English stadiums have beer and betting.  And they were very keen to know about the state of the toilets.

I kept telling them how passionate I found the Argentine fans to be because I suspected that that’s what they wanted to hear. But I’m not sure,  on reflection,  that they’re any more passionate than the Liverpool,  Bristol City or Stoke supporters I’ve come across.

Where Argentina does differ from the English game is in how deeply ingrained the violence perpetrated by their barra brava or hooligan element has become. In some ways it’s reminiscent of the hooliganism that blighted the English game in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

The violence here now differs from that suffered in England then in how closely related the thugs are to the club authorities and sometimes even to the local police forces and politicians. There’s violence,  of course. But there’s also money to be made:  in re-selling tickets,  controlling parking around the ground on match days and dealing drugs on the terraces,  among other illegal activities.

Something to shout about...

There is no political will to change things since plenty of people are doing very nicely thank-you with how things are. There’s an incident pretty much every week,  sometimes resulting in the death of a supporter. This week’s drama was a little different in that a fan ran onto the San Lorenzo training ground and whacked a player,  Jonathan Bottinelli. He’s said he wants to leave the club.

The national security ministry insisted that San Lorenzo’s game this weekend against All Boys be suspended while a full investigation is carried out.  San Lorenzo is one of the biggest clubs in Buenos Aires and it’s in crisis. Its barra brava wander around the club’s facilities at will. The players are in dispute over unpaid wages,  there’s talk of splits between groups of players and in the boardroom where the president,  Carlos Abdo,  has been in office for a chaotic ten months.

I explained about the restructuring in the English game after Hillsborough,  Heysel and Bradford and the lack of political will to do much about the problems in the game until there had been a Hillsborough,  a Heysel and a Bradford.

“And the toilets really are clean?” they asked again.

Then I went home to check on the English league scores in that frantic,  obsessive way that you do as a fan living abroad and disturbed my neighbours with a loud “Yesss!!!” and a rendition of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” as I clocked the result from Upton Park. Even the team I used to watch as a teenager and still retain a soft spot for,  Aldershot Town,  did nothing to ruin my day with a 3-1 win over Crewe in League Two.

But as I waited for my bus to the La Paternal neighbourhood for Argentinos Juniors against Velez Sarsfield on a sunny,  cloudless afternoon,  I asked myself whether I could,  whether I should hope for all three cherries to line up on the same day? Was that just being greedy?

This was the bottom placed team,  with just one win all season,  against the reigning champions.

But as Lou Reed put it:  ‘Oh such a Perfect Day,  I’m glad I spent it at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium…’ Or something like that.

The home side played coherent,  attacking football from the beginning,  their Uruguayan midfielder,  Roberto Brum,  battling for and winning nearly every ball.

They were not rewarded until the cusp of halftime with a strike from Santiago Salcedo. Velez helped things along with an own goal in the second half.

Then to add bring just a slight whiff of Upton Park to the proceedings,  the former West Ham striker,  born in Argentina,  nationalized Mexican and now playing in Argentina,  Guillermo Franco,  pulled one back for the visitors with a headed goal from a free-kick.

The Bichos wrapped things up with a Salcedo penalty and our ramshackle stadium,  possibly the most decrepit in the division,  reacquainted itself with victory – the first home win since April.

I suspect it’ll be some time before I next enjoy a footballing day quite like it.

Meanwhile,  those giants of Argentine football,  River Plate,  suffered a setback in their battle to climb out of the second division with their first defeat of the season,  2-1 against Aldosivi.

Back in the top division,  Newell’s Old Boys and Olimpo drew 2-2 and Independiente and Arsenal dragged out a dull 0-0. Colon won by the single goal at Belgrano and Lanus beat Godoy Cruz 2-1.

But all eyes were at Boca,  both on and off the pitch. Boca increased their lead at the top to nine points with a 3-1 win over their nearest rivals,  Atletico de Rafaela. But the imminent battle is on the terraces where the previous head of the violent barra brava, Rafa Di Zeo, returned to the ground after serving a prison term for violence at the ground. The club authorities hand him his season ticket on a silver platter and Di Zeo arrived in a convoy of cars and vans with his supporters. The stand-in boss of La Doce,  Mauro Martin,  will not stand aside. War is inevitable but it’s a war manufactured by the authorities — the Boca club officials, the police and local politicians. Both shameful and remarkable.

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17/10
2011

Game Eleven: v Colon

Argentinos Juniors 0  Colon  0

The Clarin newspaper said that if ever football’s world governing body decides to change the rules and punish both teams for playing dull, negative football then this game would be a fine example of what brought the change about.

The goalkeepers were hardly called upon,  the ball rarely left midfield where it bounced from leg to knee like in a demented game of pinball and two players,  one from each side,  were sent off following a clash after just twelve minutes,  probably glad to be out of it.

So just as well that I missed this match. Instead,  I found myself outside the Bombonera,  the home of Boca Juniors before their clash with Belgrano – in another less than satisfying 0-0 draw.

Democracy at Boca...

What was interesting,  however,  was the campaigning for the election of a new club president. By kick-off we were knee-deep in competing leaflets thrust at us by young,  attractive people clad in tight-fitting blue and yellow clothes. There was a hot air balloon,  conflicting banners stretched across the streets and a bombardment of promises that the future would be bigger,  better and shinier.

It was democracy in football,  giving the fans a tangible say in the running of their club,  a sense of owning at least a tiny piece of something close to their hearts. That vote is perhaps more resonant than an overpriced team shirt bearing the name of an overpriced player who was sold to an Italian club for an exorbitant fee even before the season had kicked off.

The Boca campaign is running in parallel and is infinitely more colourful than the election for national president which takes places on Sunday. That’s dull simply because the outcome is already assured. The incumbent president,  Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner,  will win comfortably. She was way ahead in the primaries held a couple of months ago,  the opposition is fragmented and the Argentine economy is doing alright.

Imagine how dull the Scottish league would be without Rangers challenging Celtic or the Spanish with only Barcelona dominant. The Argentine elections are like that only without goalposts and a crackly tannoy system.

It’s normal,  stable and a little drab. It’s what most people want in their politics. I,  however,  was attracted to Latin America by its loonies and eccentrics.

Abdala ‘El Loco’ Bucaram,  the former president of Ecuador,  for example. With a ridiculous Hitler moustache he would sing at his political rallies,  once presenting the presidents at a regional conference with a CD containing thirteen songs performed by him.

When a political rival was compared to a donkey,  Bucaram publicly apologized to donkeys. He was,  not surprisingly,  turfed out of office by angry crowds.

El Loco...Bucaram

Then next door in Paraguay we’ve got a former Roman Catholic bishop as president. Nothing wrong with that. But soon after Fernando Lugo started campaigning, women across the land held up the children that the sandal-wearing old goat had fathered.

The magical realism that dominated Latin American literature from the nineteen-eighties onwards I believe took hold partly because it only took a surreal step or two beyond real life.

But not any more. Now we look to Europe,  to the mother countries,  for our political scandal and weirdness.

AC Milan owner and part-time president of Italy,  Silvio Berlusconi,  is nearly always top of the ratings for his inappropriate comments and sex scandals. How do you win a confidence vote after suggesting that your party,  the governing party,  be renamed Forza Gnocca….Go Pussy? If you’re Silvio Berlusconi,  you do.

But the British government seems to be making a strong challenge for bizarre silliness.

I can kind of understand what the former Defence Minister,  Liam Fox,  was up to in including his mates in his entourage on an official visit to Sri Lanka.

“It’ll be spiffing fun,”  he no doubt told them over G&Ts in his gentleman’s club a few days before the trip. “Werritty can pretend to be my very important right-hand-man and we can make loads of lovely money.” I don’t condone it but I understand it. It’s a case of pure unadulterated greed and a total disregard for the people who elected him in the UK and a lack of respect towards the people of Sri Lanka.

What I can’t begin to understand is the case of cabinet minister,  Oliver Letwin,  disposing of government papers in public parks. Why? Doesn’t he have minions to do that kind of work for him? Hasn’t he heard of a shredder? Never mind the breaches of security.

It’s the image of the prime minister’s policy advisor wandering the parks during his lunch break in his suit,  no doubt mumbling to himself as he pulls papers from his bulging briefcase and stuffs them into the bins before sitting down on the nearest bench to scoff his cucumber sandwiches and drinking yoghurt,  that is so disturbing.  Is this how countries are run?

Give me randy bishops and singing madmen any day.

Back in the far more staid and respectable world of football,  Boca,  with that 0-0 draw continue six points clear at the top. Racing lead the chasing pack with their own 0-0 draw at San Martin. Rafaela lost ground with a 3-0 defeat at Estudiantes who lift themselves off the bottom.

Newell’s and Arsenal also drew 0-0 but there were goals at Independiente who beat Godoy Cruz 2-1 and at Lanus where Velez won by the same score.

Banfield lost 1-0 at San Lorenzo which plonks them back on the bottom while Olimpo and Tigre and Union and All Boys all drew 1-1.

 

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