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.
