Chacarita Juniors 2  Argentinos Juniors 2

Argentinos Juniors have lost their way a bit lately – just two points from a possible nine in three games against opposition from the bottom of the table. Chacarita Juniors, newly promoted last season, needed to win this one and it showed, especially in the effusive way they celebrated their two goals. I just hope someone has spoken to them about the risk of unwanted pregnancies!

Argentina is a very touchy-feely society anyway, no-where more so than on the football pitch. The men kiss one another. Oh yes! Quite openly and without any shame. And not one of them is gay – that’s what they’ll tell you anyway.

Picture a similar scene in England: the pre-match niceties as Manchester United prepare to do Premiership battle against Arsenal. Sir Alex approaches Monsieur Wenger, slips his chewing gum into the side of his mouth, hugs Arsène and smacks a big kiss on his right cheek. Nothing fancy. No tongues or anything,  just a blokey hetero-sexual kiss. Implausible – certainly. Unimaginable – definitely.

But similar scenes take place during the pre-match warm-ups in Argentina every weekend.  It’s also happening on the street, in the workplace and beyond. Bloke on bloke kissing is rampant, and this in one of the most macho, meat devouring, hairy chested, some would say homophobic societies on the planet.  Of course, you kiss pretty much all women – bank managers, dentists, school teachers and your kids’ friends’ mums – definitely your kids’ friends’ mums. But not waitresses, unless you go to that café every day or she’s brought you an especially large steak and extra chips.

Goooollll!!!!

Don’t get me wrong. You can’t just kiss just any bloke you fancy.  You kiss your mates and your male relatives. In the pre-match handshaking ritual, those players from opposing teams who perhaps know one another from a previous club or the national team, will kiss. The referee and line officials, most definitely not and probably not the ball boys either.

It never used to be the case. About twenty years ago, male relatives kissed one another and that was it. It stopped there. I live here and have had to get used it – walking into any social setting with lips puckered. The trouble is that as a foreigner, you’re not always aware where the boundaries lie and when you’re overstepping the mark. I know that the rule is when you meet a man for the first time you proffer your hand. And when you depart, as a sign that you’re now friends, you kiss – perhaps accompanied by a matey slap on the upper arm.

Once that first kiss has broken the ice, you’ll kiss at every subsequent meeting. I’ve kissed male work colleagues, an insurance salesman, the headteacher at my sons’ school, a lawyer and assorted dads at the school. I’ve never kissed the ticket collectors on the trains, waiters or taxi drivers. If you’re meeting six mates in a bar, you’ll kiss them all on arrival and when you leave.

I’ve learnt that Sunday morning stubble and heavily food encrusted beards can be deeply unpleasant. Women and gay men – I now know your discomfort. But I know for sure that I’ve kissed men I did not know well enough and sometimes, confusing them with someone else, men I didn’t know at all. I just wasn’t sure and thought it better to lunge in rather than risk offending them.

All Alone and No-one to Kiss

Visits back to England have proved embarrassing. I now kiss as a matter of habit and it takes a day or two to re-accustom myself to the limp-handshake or rather weak ‘Alright,’ which pass as a greeting over there. I’ve simply been left dangling.

No-one seems to know how an act that twenty years ago would have got you a punch in the abdomen has become an intrinsic part of Argentine hetero-sexual culture.

Maybe it has helped to soften attitudes just a little – at least in Buenos Aires which nowadays has a vibrant, not quite open but certainly tolerated gay scene. Many bars and restaurants have been designated gay-friendly and every year gay cruise ships dock in Buenos Aires and the passengers paint the city pink. The Argentine government is proposing that gay marriages be legalised.

But like in Britain – Justin Fashanu apart – no professional Argentine footballer has ever come out of the changing room locker. All accept that a certain proportion of professional footballers, as in the rest of society, must be gay. It’s simply that no-one is prepared to be the first to admit it – not yet anyway.

Despite a woman president and woman defence minister, politics and big business are still dominated by men. It’s still a relatively unusual sight to see men pushing pushchairs and few will admit to having changed a nappy, although attitudes are changing. Men will generally only cook the Sunday meat barbeque.

Women are refereeing reserve team games and running the line in the top flight matches. The abuse hurled at the officials is incessant and vitriolic – to add sexism to the charge I don’t think would make a great deal of difference.

All this kissing is all very nice but it does nothing to lessen the aggression in the game. A defender will still scythe the legs from under a forward who ten minutes earlier he’d slapped his lips on.

Argentinos Junior’s Juan Mercier was sent off in the first half for violent conduct, Chacarita’s Mariano Echeverría went the same way in the second half for behaviour that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a dog fight. Another Chacarita player was stretchered off with a neck brace on. A last minute equaliser from Argentinos’s Mauro Bogado, with a blast from the edge of a crowded penalty area, meant plenty of relieved kissing all round.