21/08
2011

Game Three: All Boys v Atletico de Rafaela

All Boys  1  Atletico de Rafaela  2

In a bid to rekindle my waning enthusiasm for Argentine football, I decided to explore unchartered territory, to venture into the unknown underbelly of this ludicrously large city and visit a ground, a neighbourhood I’d not been to before.

I pored over my street map and bus routes, packed extra clothes, gum, search light and flares. I  contemplated spreading a trail of breadcrumbs out the bus window so that I could find my way home and wrote notes for my children should I not emerge from the heart of darkness.

Floresta, at least the bit I walked through, turned out to be a surprisingly peaceful neighbourhood, very residential and apparently affluent. The kickoff was at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon – exactly when football should be played. And this being El Dia del Nino, or Children’s Day, mums and dads and kids on bikes were out enjoying the crisp, cold winter sun.

All Boys against newly-promoted Atletico de Rafaela from the north-eastern province of Santa Fe is a First Division fixture about as glitzy and glamorous as a one-legged harmonica player in a talent contest at the local community centre.

Islas Malvinas Stadium

Islas Malvinas Stadium

All Boys’ 19,500 capacity Islas Malvinas ground is compact and functional. The home fans, in black and white, were out in numbers while the visitors, in sky blue and white, filled the terrace behind one of the goals.

I hadn’t even properly settled into my spot, taken a glance at the loudmouth know-it-all standing behind me – there’s always a loudmouth know-it-all standing behind me – when All Boys’ striker, Mauro Matos, popped the ball in the net. 1-0 up in the first minute! It was going to be rout. But it so very rarely is.

The great thing about being a neutral fan is that you can appreciate the football being played by both sides without being tainted by emotion…by your blind allegiance to your team. Myself and the referee could plainly see when home players blatantly dived in the penalty area. But those around me clearly could not, almost in unison making crude and disparaging remarks about the private parts of the referee’s grandmother.

I was tempted to remonstrate with these less than objective fans but thought it better to keep my mouth shut after a rendition of that popular Argentine terrace song ‘Jump if you’re not an Englishman,’ followed by a tune with similarly aggressive overtures towards fans of Argentinos Juniors. And this, don’t forget, was in the Islas Malvinas stadium.

Down among the debris...

Down among the debris...

Argentinos Juniors, in case you were wondering, lost 3-1 away to San Lorenzo on Saturday in another display hindered by lack of ambition in front of goal and an absence of cohesion throughout the team. The clear difference between the teams was the former Argentinos Juniors number 5, Nestor Ortigoza, who was as crucial in midfield for his new team as he used to be for his old. I miss him dearly. I watched that one on the tele.

This game I attended in person wasn’t much better, marked by stray passes, a lot of huffing and puffing in midfield, and very little goalmouth action, at either end. Just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse, the half-time entertainment arrived.

Most clubs have dispensed with halftime entertainment which is generally a good thing. I only noticed this one when it was pointed out by the tannoy announcer, on a tannoy that actually worked, that clowns were on the pitch. And there they were – two grown men in baggy trousers hitting one another with balloons. Then, maybe because it was a special day for the kiddies, a Spiderman in a ripped costume climbed on one of the goal frames and got tangled up in the netting. I’m not sure whether or not that was deliberate.

Gloom over Floresta.

Gloom over Floresta.

The restart of the football was a welcome relief. About fifteen minutes from the end, the visitors surprised everyone, even themselves, by playing a decent move down the right, tidied up neatly by Julian Fernandez who chipped the ball over the goalkeeper.

Rafaela had come alive. A few minutes later, Walter Gaitan wrapped up a useful away win from a free kick which everyone in the ground could see was floating into the top, right-hand corner. Everyone, that is, except the All Boys goalkeeper, Nico Cambiasso, who, confused by a deflection off the wall, remained rooted to the spot.

Losing a game in which you’d led from the start, to two goals in the closing minutes, is one of the hardest blows that a home fan has to deal with. Most here sighed a hundred different kinds of sigh as they shook their heads or contemplated the debris at their feet. The terrace philosophers spouted and splurged their own verbal debris before trailing out into the street.

I could sympathise with their pain but was grateful that I didn’t have to share it. A banner displayed on the terrace opposite read: “It’s Not 90 Minutes – It’s a Lifetime.”  I like that. The same could have been said of my wait for the 47 bus home.

Another banner, displayed by the away fans, said: “My problem with death is that I won’t see you again.” I’m not sure if it referred to a loved one or to Atletico de Rafaela – or maybe both. An apt, and only slightly exaggerated, expression of their depth of feeling.

Elsewhere, it seems that nearly everyone is a winner. Five teams share the top spot with seven points. Velez kept up their quest to retain their title with a 1-0 win at Arsenal. Challengers Lanus could only manage a goalless draw at San Martin while Colon beat Olimpo 1-0 at their place. Boca won by the same score at Newell’s and go to the very top on goal difference with Racing making up the quintet, also winning 1-0 away, at Banfield.  Independiente beat Estudiantes 1-0.  Tigre, one of the favourites for the drop, defied their critics by beating Godoy Cruz 2-1 and two of the newly promoted teams, Union and Belgrano, won no new friends among the neutrals by bashing out a 0-0 draw.

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30/04
2011

Game Twelve: v All Boys

All Boys  0  Argentinos Juniors  0

I didn’t go to this game although I very much wanted to. It’s the nearest thing Argentinos Juniors has to a local derby since All Boys is just 3km or so up the road and it’s a stadium I’ve never been to. But the local authorities, in their wisdom, decided to ban visiting fans. What did we ever do to upset them?

They cited previous unpleasantness for their decision. OK, I’ve seen a few boggled-eyed angry fans kicking walls and smashing their palms against walls but the only damage they generally do is to themselves.

Shout louder! He can't hear you.

Shout louder! He can't hear you.

The Bichos are a motley collection of boisterous youngsters, grandads wallowing in nostalgia, proud mums and dads with toddlers on their shoulders and enthusiastic footie fans like myself. No harm to no-one.

The decision was met with rightful indignation – of Mourinho-like proportions – by the club authorities. They refused to attend the game in protest. “It’s because we’re a small club,” they bleated, which is probably true. The police fancied a day off and wouldn’t have taken the same decision if they were dealing with a Boca Juniors, say, or a River Plate.

I got to see the game in a dark, cavernous sports hall at the Argentinos Juniors complex where the club had erected a big screen. Entrance was free. We clapped and cheered and abused the referee which was an odd sensation since, obviously, they couldn’t hear us.

Yet another draw in a game Argentinos Juniors really should have won simply because they were the better side. But they couldn’t put away their chances and therein lies one of the fundamental truths of football. If you don’t score more goals than your opponents, you don’t win. I’ve often thought that a career in philosophy would have suited me.

There’s no doubt that the whole system is stacked in favour of the big boys. Relegation is decided on the average results over three seasons. So a big club that finds it is sliding down the rankings can generally reorganise itself and buy its way out of trouble.

That is more or less what River Plate are in the process of doing. They’ve had a few, by their standards, dismal seasons and their average was looking about as healthy as Diego Maradona the morning after the night before.

Sitting comfortably.

Sitting comfortably.

The president, Daniel Passarella, brought in a new manager in JJ Lopez, they’ve kept their disruptive barra brava in check and pretty much turned things around. They might not win the title this season but they’ll stay in the top division. Of that, there is no doubt.

As fans, we know it’s not really fair. We know that the game is riddled with vested interests, bags of money and, sometimes, corruption. Jose Mourinho knows what he’s talking about. OK, we’re aware that he’s only whinging to divert attention from his players in their moment of misery.

But mostly, we’d rather not think about it. Those who run football, like those who run most money-spinning sports, simply cannot afford to admit that their administrations are rotten to the core, that drugs are rife, that they’d bend over and pull their trousers down themselves to satisfy the sponsors. They could but they never will since too many vested interests are served.

And where do we, the fans, fit into all this. We’d rather not rock the boat either. We have also invested time, money, emotion, hopes and expectations into our teams, our sport. To come clean with ourselves and admit that we’ve been had, that we continue to be duped, makes us look pretty dumb. We need our sport, our team, our hopes and expectations.

I still vividly remember the 1988 Olympic 100m final between Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson. It was one of the best sub-ten second chunks of sporting history ever, an event that surpassed the hype that had preceded it. Then, a couple of days later, Ben Johnson, who’d won, was tested positive for steroids and his gold medal was taken from him and awarded to second-placed Carl Lewis. Like millions of others, I felt cheated, duped.

I was living in Madrid when it became known that Real Madrid had a debt the size of a small country. But to many, Real Madrid is more important than most small countries and, like a small country, couldn’t be allowed to go out of business. A company that did something meaningless like build housing for the underprivileged, maybe. But Real Madrid? Never!

Spectating - but not as we know it.

Spectating - but not as we know it.

The city authorities conjured up a deal where they bought the club’s training ground for an inflated sum and rented it back to them for a pittance. The local tax payers paid, Atletico Madrid fans included. There should have been a furore but there wasn’t.

Few were surprised when Diego Maradona was sent home from the 1994 World Cup after failing a drugs test. But c’mon! Was he the only one? I don’t think so. He maintains that he was targeted for openly and loudly criticising the footballing authorities, which I think is likely. They need to show that they care every now and then by making an example of someone and who better than the loud-mouthed number 10?

But to put their house in order, to really put their house in order would mean lancing a very big boil and that would hurt. It would hurt the Grondonas and the Blatters, it would hurt the corporate sponsors and it would hurt us, the fans. So they’ll pick the odd scab occasionally. But that’s all they’ll ever do.

A big moan, I know, for a relatively small injustice. But sometimes these things have simply got to be said. Then not said for a long time while we immerse ourselves again in the drama, the controversy, the hype and escapism that is football.

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23/10
2010

Game Twelve: v All Boys

Argentinos Juniors  1  All Boys  0

If you so wished, you could start your weekend early on Friday evening watching football and, pausing only to eat, sleep and visit the bathroom, continue with back-to-back football matches until late on Sunday night.

Each of the ten Argentine first division matches, thanks to the demands of television, runs consecutively. You can pad out the gaps with some second and third division games and then, gracias a los time differences, spend your mornings wallowing in the best from the English, Italian and Spanish first divisions. Some Saturdays, I’ve got three Premier league games running simultaneously.

Believe it or not, I’ve got a life away from football. But it’s early evening Saturday and I’ve already been to two Argentine games and watched Chelsea beat Wolves 2-0 on the tele.

The clash to watch, the one that no-one should miss, was the top of the table encounter between second placed Velez Sarsfield and top of the table Estudiantes. “It’ll be the game of the season,” at least three people told me.

Big Time

Big Time

Of course, it was the dullest 0-0 draw I’ve seen for some time. Neither side managed to string more than two passes together and both goalkeepers were practically redundant. But what I will say about the Velez stadium, built for the 1978 World Cup, is that it’s a proper football ground.

It’s got metal posts, a big screen, the players all wear matching shirts and the seats are made from authentic plastic and are bolted firmly into the concrete. The stands are packed with fervent blue and white clad fans, the red and white adorned Estudiantes supporters were packed neatly into their corner and the ball was well-rounded and fully pumped up.

Argentinos Juniors against near neighbours, All Boys, was a whole other scene, with the home side playing with red shirts. Only the number eight’s mum forgot to put his in the wash after the last game and he had to play in his vest. The number 12 brought the wrong boots and had to borrow a slightly too small pair from the assistant manager.

It was coats for goal posts and they had to make do with a slightly deflated plastic ball with Toy Story characters on.

I’m exagerating here, obviously, to emphasis the huge contrast between the two clubs – Velez huge and glittery, Argentinos Juniors humble and a little ramshackle. But what they have in common is that both represent their barrio or neighbourhood. The other point I’d like to make….pause here for dramatic effect….is that Argentinos Juniors, who cycle to away matches and sometimes play rush goalies when they can’t muster a full eleven, are champions of Argentina and Velez Sarsfield, who have a press room with electric plug sockets and showers with hot running water, are not.

C’mon! Argentinos Juniors are not likely to win the championship for another twenty-five years, if we’re lucky, so a little infantile gloating while we still can is perfectly acceptable.

It was pointed out to me by the Velez fan I went to the game with that Argentina’s immigrants who flooded into the country from the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century were very quickly ‘Argentinianised.’  They blended, they moulded, they integrated.

There are community groups that practise Croatian folk dancing and societies that maintain links with Asturias and the Basque region. Most Argentines know from which region of Italy or Germany their grandparents or great-parents came from.

But there are no Italian or Spanish neighbourhoods or ghettos. There is a small China town and a tiny Korean enclave but they represent more recent immigrants.  The ties and loyalties those immigrants and their children had with the old country soon withered away and were replaced, to a large degree, by an allegiance to the barrio or neighbourhood.

And nothing represents the barrio more than its football team. All Boys in Floresta is just thirty blocks, about 3km, up the road from Argentinos Juniors in the heart of La Paternal. So their fans were many and much of the chanting was dedicated to praising their respective barrios and deriding the opponent’s.

All Boys - Neighbourly Visit

All Boys - Neighbourly Visit

I thought All Boys were taking this neighbourhood thing a little too seriously when near the end they brought on as substitute a player who quite clearly spent most of his time guzzling beer and eating choripans at his local bar.

Christian Fabbiani was the fattest professional footballer I’ve ever seen. He lumbered onto the pitch with the woman behind me yelling: “Fabbiani, your shorts are too small.”

His first touch was with his hand, his second sent an Argentinos defender sprawling and his third contribution was to step on goalkeeper, Christian Navarro’s foot. The referee ran over to the writhing goalkeeper with a yellow card in his hand about to book him for time-wasting. Then he glanced at Fabbiani, who is nicknamed The Ogre, and put the card back in his pocket.

The neighbourhood rivalry and a steadily improving Argentinos Juniors meant that the home fans were out in force and in fine voice on a glorious summer afternoon. But it was the same old story of solid defending, effective and imaginative midfield play only to wilt in front of goal like Wayne Rooney’s sincerity when presented with a £180,000 a week contract.

Then, just seconds after I’d pronounced with great authority: “I can’t see either side scoring in this game, least of all Argentinos,” Nestor Ortigoza picked up the ball in midfield, impatiently bundled it down the middle, paying scant attention to the All Boys defenders, before slipping it to the tiny Franco Niell who slotted home a well deserved winner.

This was a proper match with heart and passion and a delicious choripan from a grill on the pavement outside the ground. Which only goes to prove that you don’t necessarily need a huge ground with shiny executive boxes and a big car park to produce an exciting and entertaining game of football.

In the other Friday night match, Godoy Cruz beat high-flying Arsenal 3-1 and in the clash of the titans – don’t make me laugh – Racing drew 1-1 with River. There were several derbies, known here as clasicos. Huracan beat near neighbours San Lorenzo 3-0, Boca and Independiente played out a painfully dull 0-0 draw and Banfield beat Quilmes 2-0. Lanus lost 2-1 at home to Colon, Tigre beat Olimpo 3-2 and, to round up one hell of a lot of football, Newell’s clinched a 1-0 win over Gimnasia.

If football heaven is to be judged by the quantity rather than the quality of the games you can cram into the weekend, then maybe I’ve found it.

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08/08
2010

Game One: v Huracan

Argentinos Juniors  1  Huracan  2

Of course, everyone tries just that little harder to beat the champions. And with a lot of new players, Argentinos Juniors were still finding their feet. And their midfield playmaker, Nestor Ortigoza, was missing and the wind blowing in a north-north-easterly direction always has an impact on the way the home-side plays, especially on the seventh of the month when that month begins with the letter ‘A.’

Whatever the reasons, this was painful defeat, especially after all the hope and expectation harvested last season. Yes, there were a lot of changes. But the new manager, Pedro Troglio, had the team playing the same attractive passing game. Argentinos controlled the first half, taking the lead with a well-worked goal from one of the new boys, Gonzalo Vargas, five minutes before the break.

Thanks Champs

Thanks Champs

The crowd liked that and took him to their hearts, immediately giving him a nickname – ‘the Uruguayan’ because he’s, well, from Uruguay.

Everything was running according to plan. There was a big crowd, full of expectation. Someone even spent the close season cutting big letters out of polystyrene, and painting every other one red, to spell out the words: Gracias Campeon.

As I approached the stadium I could smell the newly cut grass mixed with possibly even a tinge of fresh paint. The police hadn’t done much in the way of pre-season training. At the turnstile an officer held us up while he lit a cigarette then leaned on the railing with his belly protruding like a sack of rice hanging on the wall. He kind of half-heartedly raised his free hand and tapped my coat pocket then allowed me through with a barely perceptible nod of his head.

No-one wants to admit that they don’t recognise their own players, but with so many new signings I must confess that I’d scribbled down some notes which I surreptitiously slid in and out of my pocket before announcing boldly to anyone that cared to listen: “He looks useful that Escudero.” Or “Ocampo seems to be settling in nicely.”

Just fourteen seconds after the kickoff I heard my first reference to the referee’s mother’s private parts. In fact, the old guy behind me had obviously been rehearsing his insults during the idle months, abusing the match officials and the away fans with such vigour that at half-time he offered a kind of half-hearted apology to those around him whose eardrums had had to endure his assault. “I’ve had no-one to shout at for two months,” he explained.

And then, in a nightmarish three minutes mid-way through the second half, our dream drooped like a pensioner at an orgy who’s just discovered that he’s mixed his Viagra up with his indigestion tablets.

Firstly, Huracan’s Mariano Martínez blasted the ball home for the equaliser from an almighty bundle in the Argentinos defence. Then, a minute later, Cesar Montiglio put the visitors two-one up after Gustavo Oberman lost the ball in midfield. It couldn’t get much worse. Could it?

There are parts of the Diego Maradona stadium I simply can’t see from where I stand, even with a bit of jigging and jumping about.  Most of the bottom right-hand corner of the pitch, for instance, is obscured by the managers’ dugouts and more metal posts, fencing and barbed wire than you’d find around most prison compounds. So I’m not really sure what happened next. But the result was that another Argentinos Juniors new boy, Gabriel Perez Tarifa, was sent off  just eight minutes after he came on as a substitute in his first ever game for Argentinos Juniors for what the newspapers called ‘excessive abuse.’ Not, I hope, another reference to the referee’s mother’s private parts!

Restricted Vision

Restricted Vision

One of the reasons that Argentinos Juniors became champions was because they made a habit of carving results out of lost causes. Two-nil down away to Lanus in the second game of last season to win six-three. Three-one down at home to Independiente in the penultimate match to clinch a crucial four-three victory, and more.

But not today. There were a couple of chances and the crowd managed to rally a bit of chanting along the lines of “we may be losing this one but we’re still champions, so there!” But it wasn’t going to be.

Argentinos Juniors were fine champions last season. And modest Banfield worthy winners the season before that. But I can’t help feeling that the planets are being realigned to what are generally perceived to be their rightful places.

Boca Juniors and River Plate don’t win everything all the time. But if two or three seasons go by without at least one of them being the dominant team in Argentina then people start to feel a little uneasy, like things are not quite right. As if Sir Alex were not chewing gum or Alan Shearer were saying something interesting. It’s OK but it’s not quite right.

Boca, of course, have poached Argentinos Junior’s championship-winning manager Claudio Borghi, the backroom staff and one of  his best players, Matias Caruzzo. River, who have been dismal for several seasons now, began to show signs of recovery towards the end of the last campaign and have bought wisely during the close season.

When Boca and River fade it’s usually Independiente or San Lorenzo that pick up the slack and Estudiantes, the best Argentine team in recent years, are still strong, their 103-year-old talisman, Juan Sebastian Veron scoring the penalty today in a 1-0 win over Newell’s Old Boys.

The three promoted teams are Quilmes, who yo-yo between the top two divisions, Olimpo from Bahia Blanca way down south and modest, some might say ramshackle, little Buenos Aires outfit, All Boys.  Since football is very much a man’s game in Argentina, I expect their stay in the top flight to be brief.

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