Argentinos Juniors  3  Gimnasia y Esgrima de la Plata  1

My voice is a little hoarse from all the shouting at this afternoon’s game so you’ll have lean closer to the screen. The Red Bugs were back on form and, but for a nimble visiting goalkeeper, would have won this game 6-1.

Nestor Ortigoza doesn’t miss from the penalty spot and put Argentinos Juniors on their way after Ismael Sosa was brought down in the area. Gimnasia, a big club with relegation worries, equalised in the second half but the home side, with fine goals from Sosa and Santiago Raymonda, clinched it to leave us in second place, just a point behind the leaders, Estudiantes, with three games to play.

World Cup fever is beginning to bite here in Buenos Aires and the reason I can tell is that twelve-year-old boys are huddled in groups swapping their World Cup stickers.

“I’ve got three Stephane Grichtings of Switzerland – I’ll swap you one for Australia’s Luke Wilkshire.” At no other time are players so obscure held in such high esteem across the world.

At the moment, we’ve only got one Mexican but a glut of Cristiano Ronaldos. He’s worth nothing. What we need are more North Koreans. Kim Kum-Il would do or a Pak Nam-Chol. We’ll give you a Dirk Kuyt in exchange. He’s easy.

Got Beckham

I’ve long wondered whether David Beckham collects stickers of himself. He must be tempted, surely? “Ooh look,” he says, opening his packets over the breakfast table. “I’ve got me – again. I’ll give Giggsy a ring and see if he wants to swap me for Diego Forlan.”

“No you don’t,” shrieks Posh. “You’re keeping it. I want to stick you on the wall above my bed.”

“No,” scream the kids. “Beckhams are easy. Everyone’s got them. We want Carlos Costly of Honduras, number 618. He’s much better. Or Slovenia’s Nejc Pecnik. He’s worth three Beckhams.”

Closer to the World Cup, when our album is a little fuller, we’ll head to the Parque Centenario where boys and girls and those with them, otherwise known as ‘grown men who collect football stickers but pretend it’s their kids that are doing it because they’re too embarrassed to admit it,’ gather to trade.

We were there in 2006 when the scene at times resembled the floor of the Buenos Aires stock market just before one of the country’s many economic crashes.

Rumours were flashing around that the lad in the blue coat had a bucketful of spare Junichi Inamotos of Japan and West Bromwich Albion but he only needed a couple of Serb defenders to complete his album. Five-year-olds know that a hard-to-come-by Jermaine Defoe will fetch five easy to obtain Paraguayans. The rules of supply and demand are practised here in their most naked form.

This being Latin America, speculators have moved in. Men in dirty raincoats who have never really learned to shave properly, lurk on the outskirts of the park. They know the cash value of an Edison Cavani of Uruguay sticker. They know who’s rare and whether there’s a glut of Yacine Bezzaz’s of Algeria.

“Psst! I’ve got Chileans,” they’ll hiss through yellow teeth. “And the New Zealand goalkeeper.”

Do these guys have relations working at the sticker distribution plant? I don’t know, but you can guarantee that whenever and wherever there’s a demand, these fellows will come crawling out of the drains. They’re probably the same people who, within minutes of the first raindrop falling, are on every street corner selling umbrellas or before every Argentina game are at the traffic lights flogging sky-blue and white hats, shirts and horns.

I might see if they can come up with the Gerd Muller I need to complete my 1974 collection. And c’mon guys! Who’s hoarding all the Mexicans?

I don't know what this means. Pic by Lucas

We’ve already got Martin Palermo of Argentina and Boca Juniors and so, probably, has his Boca teammate, Juan Roman Riquelme – pinned to his darts board. For the two men, who form the backbone of the Boca team, hate one another with a passion. Their petty squabbling may go a large way to explaining why this usually regal beauty of Argentine football looks at the moment like an overweight tart cadging smokes at her local pub on a Saturday night.

Normally, you’d expect their great city rival, River Plate, to be gloating over this demise. But  they too are slumped near the foot of the table with their own fishnet stockings torn and lipstick smudged across their pudgy cheeks.

Martin Palermo is all blood, guts and passion. He puts his life on the line in every game and even when he’s not wearing a head bandage seeping blood, you feel as though he should be.

Riquelme is a tortured soul, intelligent, independent and some say, just plain weird. The Boca fans are split on whether he’s good for the team. There are those who say he’s one of the best playmakers the club has ever had. Others complain he doesn’t run enough and sows discontent in the dressing room.

He supplied the pass in a recent match that enabled Martin Palermo to score his 219^th Boca Juniors goal – a club record. But rather than join in the back-slapping and buttock groping, or whatever it is they get up to in those celebratory rucks, Juan Roman sauntered off in the other direction to file his nails, his nose stuck snootily in the air.

Claudio 'Bichi' Borghi

Palermo accused Riquelme of a whole host of things from not passing the ball to him enough to saying nasty things about him behind his back to borrowing his soap without asking. Riquelme responded and the club authorities had to ask them to tone it down. It seems to have worked since Riquelme supplied the pass that enabled Palermo to score in today’s 2-0 victory over San Lorenzo and the two men then hugged, kissed and danced the tango together.

What concerns me most about all this turmoil at Boca is that rumours have begun circulating that they’re keen to poach the Argentinos Juniors manager, Claudio ‘Bichi’ Borghi. He’s done fine things in a very short with limited resources at this modest little club. What might he do, so the thinking goes, to revitalise a slumbering giant like Boca Juniors?

Don’t go Borghi! We wouldn’t swap you for a whole team of Mexican stickers, even with a Carlos Costly and the North Korean badge thrown in for good measure.