And so ends this journey through an Argentine first division football season.  But my word, what a way to end it! The sun was shining, the Argentinos Juniors fans were in fine voice, Huracan supporters had travelled in numbers and there were goals galore. The home side went ahead after just [...]]]> Argentinos Juniors  5  Huracan  1

And so ends this journey through an Argentine first division football season.  But my word, what a way to end it! The sun was shining, the Argentinos Juniors fans were in fine voice, Huracan supporters had travelled in numbers and there were goals galore. The home side went ahead after just eight minutes with a debatable penalty slotted home with confidence by the consistently impressive, Nestor Ortigoza. The Bichos were two up by half time thanks to a Juan Mercier strike from the middle of the penalty area. In the second half they passed the ball exquisitely to shouts of ‘Ole’ from the home supporters. Gabriel Hauche notched up a hat-trick.

I shall miss you....

It’s long been my ill-researched theory that football in so many ways is a reflexion of real-life – all contained within the confines of the stadium. You experience all the hopes, the anger, the expectation, the exhilaration, the disappointment and the unpleasant smells of life on the outside. Only you do it vicariously, safely, through the actions of the players and the officials and that obnoxious bloke with the huge belly who keeps shouting the same insult at the referee throughout the game.

It therefore follows, in my malt-whisky addled mind, that a league will reflect the characteristics of the country in which it’s played.

The English premiership, with its dodgy club owners, glitzy corporate executive boxes, expensive foreign imports and greasy cuisine, I think sustains my theory.

The Argentine league, like the country itself, should be up there with the big boys, but isn’t. It’s become a seedbed for foreign clubs to come in and exploit. A few clubs thrive but the majority are victims of their owners’ greed and ineptitude, further weakened by their rotten barrabrava, the organised, hardcore fans.

Grounds are decrepit and no-one ever adequately explains where all the transfer money goes, however politely you ask them. But the depth of player talent is awesome, the atmosphere on match-days is never less than interesting and the passion for and knowledge of football is second to none.

The weekend newspapers said that this season’s climax was more exciting than ever. They always say that. For some weeks there had been a two-horse race for the title between Newell’s Old Boys and humble Banfield, with Newell’s going into their final game two points adrift.

Playing at home, they had to beat San Lorenzo and hope that Banfield wouldn’t get a result away to Boca Juniors. Both lost their games 2-0 and Banfield, for the first time in their history, were crowned Argentine champions. Buenos Aires was awash in a sea of green and white.

Huracan - Glowing like a soggy sparkler

The season was marked by the big clubs, Boca Juniors, River Plate, Racing Club and Independiente, all failing to challenge at the top and all bobbing about in mid-table. An Argentine side, Estudiantes, did win the South American club championship, the Copa Libertadores, and the national team snuck into the World Cup with a less-than impressive fourth automatic qualifying place. But with Dumpy Diego at the helm the journey to South Africa was always going to be a strain on the suspension.

Argentinos Juniors, after finishing in last place last season, could only get better and they did so in style, finally resting in sixth place. For one brief moment, halfway through the season after a win against Estudiantes, the Bichos fans even whispered about perhaps, just maybe, you never know, winning their first silverware in more than twenty years. But then, like a Maradona diet, it all came to nothing, with a rash of draws against teams from the soggy section of the table.

The man I mocked at the beginning of the season, the lumbering awkward Number 5, Nestor Ortigoza, has become my favourite player for his precision, intelligent passing and willingness to battle for every ball. I shall follow him with interest in the Paraguay squad in South Africa.

The little goalscorer, Gabriel Hauche, was also impressive – too impressive, I fear, to linger for long at Argentinos Juniors. I’ll be surprised if he pulls on a Bichos shirt next season. The other man unlikely to be stretching the red and white shirt over his expansive belly is the manager, Claudio Borghi, who I suspect will be plucked from his dugout by one of the vultures from Argentina’s big, underachieving clubs.

There was much less crowd violence this season. And all the matches finished on time, despite a delayed start to the season because of a crisis over television rights and coverage.

Argentina is a bit like that. Things rarely progress as you would like them to. But after false starts and prophesies of doom, gloom and corruption, everything tends to work out alright in the end.

This is the end

In the week the season ended, the trial finally began of one of the most hated figures from Argentina’s military dictatorship, Alfredo Astiz, a former naval commander, known as the ‘Blond Angel of Death.’  He operated at the Naval Mechanics School, the biggest and most gruesome detention centre where he’s accused of killing, among others, two French nuns.

He also led an elite squadron during the Falklands War. He surrendered without firing a shot to British troops in South Georgia. It’s taken more than thirty years to bring him and his cohorts to trial. But after sustained pressure from the families of the victims and human rights groups, and some help from the government, it finally happened.

I went to fourteen of the nineteen games this season. There was some fine football, just one 0-0 draw in the rain, a few appalling refereeing decisions and a fair number of chorizo sausages which make me wince to think about them even now.

It was a respectable season for Argentinos Juniors that, with a little more luck and self-belief could have been a much better one. They drew against the eventual champions, Banfield, 1-1 and beat the runners-up, Newell’s Old Boys 1-0 away.

I shall be retiring to my hammock for the summer break but I hope to return early next year, rested and rejuvenated, for another season and a preview of the World Cup from the terraces of the Diego Armando Maradona stadium.

It was the first home game of the season and I’m still finding my bearings so was not surprised to go through the [...]]]> Argentinos Juniors 1 Banfield 1

It was the first home game of the season and I’m still finding my bearings so was not surprised to go through the turnstile and emerge in the section behind the goal where the barrabrava or hardcore fans stand. Yes, they still stand at Argentine grounds, leaning against metal posts, behind huge fences topped with razor wire. Ah! The old days.

The barrabrava in Argentina have a bit of a reputation. Not just for violence, which there is plenty of. Their influence, their poisonous stain, seeps much deeper into the Argentine game than it ever did in England. In some cases they control the terraces, dealing in tickets and selling drugs. There are reports of some controlling players’ contracts and, in a system in which club presidents are elected by the fans, having an undue and malignant influence on the running of some clubs.

So I was mightily relieved when I claimed my spot behind the goal to find I was standing near a couple of elderly ladies, grannies to be precise, although I wouldn’t say that to their faces of course. They wore their red Argentinos Juniors shirts stretched over bellies that had spent a lifetime being filled with Choripanes, the fatty sausages obligatory at football matches. They didn’t look like they were going to beat the crap out of anybody, although I wouldn’t want to risk walking muddy shoes over their living-room floor or playing football near their gardens.
There were also couples with babies, boyfriends and girlfriends holding hands and teenage boys with their dads.

Argentinos Junior’s reputation as a friendly neighbourhood club, a barrio club, was confirmed. I was safe.
There were some mean-looking heavily tatooed fellows hanging from the railings and a gentle waft of marijuana tinged the early evening air. There was a line of policemen at the back of the stand sporting an array of moustaches of the variety I’ve only ever seen displayed by Latin American policemen.

And the Banfield fans, decked in green and white, had come in numbers from their industrial suburb south of Buenos Aires.

But elsewhere, with the season still fresh out of its wrapping, the barrabrava had been doing their worst.
At the Boca Juniors training ground their goalscoring hero, a man who sweats blue and yellow blood for the team, Martin Palermo, was threatened by seven fans who called him a traitor for saying nice things, gentlemanly, sportsmanlike things, about a rival club.

“Who sent you?” asked Palermo, knowing they wouldn’t have bypassed the training ground security without some inside help. He once dedicated a goal to Rafa Di Zeo, a friend and former boss of the Boca barrabrava, now on day-release from prison where he’s serving time for beating up rival fans during a supposedly friendly match. While Di Zeo is out of action, a new man, Mauro Martin, has filled the void and there’s talk of a third faction edging into any spare gaps left on the terraces.

Boca 'fan' Rafa Di Zeo

The battle for control of the barrabrava over at city rivals River Plate has spilled out onto the streets, with organised pitched battles and one ‘lieutenant’ being shot dead in a hit worthy of a Colombian drug gang.

The so-called fans at South American champions, Estudiantes, have also been in action. Last week, they went looking for former Manchester United and Chelsea player, Juan Sebastian Veron. They wanted to discuss the weekend’s derby match between Estudiantes and their La Plata city rivals, Gimnasia. Their spokesman was a man called Omar Alonso, recently released from fifteen years in prison for killing a taxi driver and drug dealing. Not the kind of man I’m inviting to my birthday party.

At the very least the barrabrava demand that the players give them tickets and free shirts. The clubs sometimes pay their travel and accommodation costs for away matches. One particularly influential bunch had an all-expenses paid trip to Germany for the 2006 World Cup.

In return, they promise security, loud support for the team and block votes for the candidates in the always keenly fought elections for club president. Let’s face it, if you’re too old, fat or useless to play the game, wouldn’t running your own local club do instead?

And because of this support, because the barrabrava have friends in the police force and in politics, in some cases are members of the police force or work for their local council or trade union, there is little talk about bringing them into line. Whenever they get out of control and there’s a killing or a players’ bus is attacked, there’s a lot of muttering and mumbling about doing something to curtail their influence. But generally they’re left to fight amongst themselves.
I could see none of that from where I stood behind the goal at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium. Simply a lot of noise and flag-waving which is just how it should be. I also saw Santiago Silva put the visitors ahead early on after a defensive blunder by Argentinos.

Gabriel Hauche, developing into a crowd favourite, put the home side back on level terms in the second half and one-one is how it ended – although Argentinos Juniors were probably lucky to escape with a point after some goal-line scares.

So two draws from two games. And I’ve staked my place on the terrace, just to the right of the goal, about fifteen steps up, to the right of the grannies, just behind where a couple spent most of the game snogging and to the left of a gaggle of very small children who accidently hit me often with long Argentinos Juniors balloons that they were given at the start of the game.