We go through the motions, don’t we? It’s the start of the new football season – the 2011 Apertura, the Islas Malvinas Nestor Kirchner Julio Grondona Carlos Gardel Diego Maradona championship and we’re excited, aren’t we?

I mean, we’ve been deprived of our regular diet of thrills and skills, action and excitement, glamour and controversy during the close season and now it’s back. Only the first weekend of the new season was flat, uninteresting, lacking in colour and the Monday after the weekend before, horribly uninspiring. This is due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, River Plate are not there. We know that they deserve to be in the second tier because they simply lost too many games. But there’s no Boca Juniors v River Plate superclasico to look forward to. There’s none of that hope and expectation that the arrogant big city boys will fall to some hard-working but glamorous-less side from the provinces. The absence of the gallinas brings home the fact that however useless River may have been, they were glamour and history and football needs glamour and history.

I revelled as much as anyone in their demise but it is nonetheless sad – a little like seeing the Queen sitting on a park bench eating cold pasta out of a plastic container.

Then there was the bursting of the Copa America bubble. Argentina as hosts and with Leo Messi et al among their ranks were expected to do a little better than fall to tiny Uruguay on penalties in the first knock-out game. Uruguay were worthy winners and Argentina deserved no more than what they got but it’s left the world of Argentine football looking and feeling like a sink of unwashed dishes the morning after a not very good party.

Even without all that, Argentine football is and has been for some years in crisis. I’ve said it before but it needs to be said again and again.

The close season saw the usual exodus of promising young Argentine players abroad. Argentinos Juniors’ own favourites, the folically-challenged Juan Mercier went to Saudi Arabia while the miniature Franco Neill went to Queretero in Mexico. Every top club lost players – to France, Ecuador, Italy, Spain and Greece and the transfer window hasn’t closed yet.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic. Some Argentines came back and a few foreigners signed for Argentine clubs, most notably the Ecuadoran Jefferson Hurtado for Argentinos Juniors.

Mercier - following the money.

So every team is pretty much a new team. Most are fielding fresh players while many favourites have gone and the fans yet again are spending hours on websites acquainting themselves with unfamiliar team line-ups.

But all this activity again raises the question: where does all the money go? Some goes back into the Argentine game but not enough. Too much is simply unaccounted for.

And a huge chunk of the blame for that state of affairs lies at the sweaty feet of the repugnant, reptilian Godfather of Argentine football, Don Julio Grondona, the head of the Argentine Football Association for the past thirty-two years.

There are rumours that he’s losing his grip. But like with any dictator, it’s always dangerous to underestimate the power and influence of a man who has been cunning and clever enough to ensure that people who count are where they are thanks to him.

Of the nine games played over the weekend, six ended in draws. Argentinos Juniors continued where they left off last season by holding the ball impressively for large parts of the match only to do very little with it when they got within range of the goal.

Santiago Salcedo scored the opener just after half-time then went off injured while Union, back in the top flight after eight years, responded almost immediately.

Boca Juniors played out a painfully dull 0-0 down south at Olimpo. Football’s most miserable player, Juan Roman Riquelme, set the tone by complaining about the pitch and the fans. “It’s logical,” he said, “that on this pitch you play badly.”

Another of the newcomers, Atletico de Rafaela, beat Banfield 2-0, Lanus got off to a flying start by winning 1-0 at San Lorenzo and the only other decisive score came at Arsenal where Colon won 2-1. Reigning champions, Velez, took a point at Godoy Cruz, All Boys held another of the newly-promoted teams, Belgrano, 1-1 and Newell’s and Estudiantes ground out an excrutiating 0-0.

Five players were sent off, including Emilio Hernandez from Argentinos Juniors. There’s still eighteen more games to go. Things must get better. Please tell me they must get better! Please!

The season kind of fizzled out to a damp end for Argentinos Juniors. But after the unexpected joy of being crowned champions at this stage of last season, I guess this one was always going to be a bit of an anti-climax.

This match at mediocre, mid-table Tigre typified our season. Thanks to the thoughtful industry of Nestor Ortigoza and Juan Mercier, Argentinos Juniors dominated the midfield but their good work, as throughout much of season, usually came to nothing because of the dearth of ideas and options in attack.

Reasons to be Thoughtful

We were unlucky to go behind in the dying seconds of first half injury time when the referee awarded what was quite clearly not a penalty to Tigre. He was so far from the action that carrier pigeons might have been a better way of relaying to him what was happening in the penalty area than his own eyes.

The Red Bugs came out after the break with all guns blazing and after seventeen minutes Ciro Ruis headed home a well-deserved equaliser. Then they blew and they blew but they couldn’t blow that Tigre house down and 1-1 it finished.

I’m hopeful for next season, but only if the manager, Pedro Troglio, can hide Ortigoza and Merciers’ car keys and burn their passports. I’d also throw goalkeeper, Nico Navarro, into that pot since it’s around these three that a decent team can be built.

They’ve also got a couple of nifty little guys, Hobbits, in Franco Niell and Dario Ocampo, who are great on the ball but sometimes get lost in the long grass.

I saw the top two teams meet in a dull 0-0 earlier in the season. It was a match so boring and so bereft of fundamental footballing skills that, if I’d had wool and a couple of needles with me, I’d have taken up knitting.

Time to rest - and replenish paper stocks

It just goes to show that there’s not a huge gap in quality between the twenty teams in the top division. One or two players and a manager who can tell a decent midfielder from a field of corn can make all the difference. The other big factor is having a club administration that is not riddled with corruption, idiocy and general uselessness – and there ain’t many of those in the Argentine league.

Pedro Troglio replaced our championship winning manager, Claudio Borghi, at the beginning of the season. And while he didn’t exactly have to re-build from scratch, he did have to impose his style of play on a squad depleted by a number of departures from the 2010 Clausura.

The start of the season was a disaster with the first victory not celebrated until game eight against Banfield.

There was that delightful three-game winning streak, including the 2-0 thumping of Boca Juniors at their place, in the middle of the season. Boca only finished one place above Argentinos Juniors and fizzled out their season with a 1-1 home draw against dire Gimnasia. Their predicament will no doubt be clouded by the euphoria provoked by Martin Palermo scoring his 300^th goal for the club. I suspect much of their hope for next season will rest on the shoulders of the old war horse and his fellow geriatric, the most miserable man in football, Juan Roman Riquelme.

See You Next Season

River Plate could be back on form. They bowed out in style with a string of wins, culminating in 4-1 thumping of Lanus and look to have secured the services of the manager who made that possible, JJ Lopez.

Newly promoted Olimpo and Quilmes are newly relegated. While Gimnasia and Huracan must battle it out with the teams finishing third and fourth in the division below them to retain their places alongside the elite.

As the champions before last, Argentinos Juniors, along with Estudiantes, Godoy Cruz and Velez Sarsfield, will be playing international football next season, in the Libertadores Cup. Independiente, who finished last, will join them since they won the regional trophy that only the winners take much notice of, the South American  Cup.

So it’s football from a distance for me for a few weeks. I’ll be watching the Premiership from my living room with the windows open, the fan whirring and a cold drink at hand, laughing uproariously at the bizarre but no doubt effective woollen clothing items that European fans don to survive sub-zero temperatures.

Hasta la vista, babies!

Much has been written about this Clausura 2010 championship since pretty much every Argentine is a football expert and some of the lucky ones even manage to earn a living by adding a tinge of authority to their rantings and ravings.

The Moment

Nearly all seem to agree that the Red Bugs were worthy winners – not for their money because they ain’t got much, not for their sturdy defence for they shipped a fair few and not for their power and influence in the Argentine game since this is a small neighbourhood club with a ramshackle but often intimidating ground.

The word I’ve seen more than any other is ‘dignified.’ They were dignified champions who brought dignity to the Argentine league.

The manager, Claudio Borghi, brought together a collection of strong personalities and melded them into a team. It was a team in which the first priority was always to play attractive, attacking football. They held their shape, the midfield created options and, what always struck me, was that the whole team seemed to be enjoying themselves.

The player who perhaps best symbolises this team is 39-year-old Jose Luis Calderon. A fine physical specimen, he ran as much as the youngsters. “With his experience, he calmed us in moments of madness,” said teammate, Nicolas Pavlovich.

Borghi brought him out of retirement, convinced he still had much to give. Calderon played seven-hundred and forty-three games in his long career, after making his debut for Estudiantes in 1992. He played for Napoli in Italy, America and Atlas in Mexico, won the Argentine league and the Libertadores cup with Estudiantes and the Copa Sudamericana with Arsenal.

Borghi substituted him ten minutes before the end of the Huracan game and the crowd erupted. His teammates crowded around him and tears were no doubt shed. “It was a dignified way to end my career,” said Mr Calderon.

But he wasn’t alone. There was also that magical midfield partnership between Nestor Ortigoza and Juan Mercier. “It’s like a marriage,” they said. I think I know what they meant but I’d rather not pry into their private lives.

In attack, there was Ismael Sosa, uncomfortable at Independiente, he was borrowed by Borghi who knew how to bring out the best in him. He’s fast, wears bright yellow boots and was the club’s top scorer with nine goals.

The names will be remembered by the young Argentinos Juniors fans when they’re in their nineties and have forgotten where they left their false teeth. The slightly eccentric goalkeeper, Nicolas Peric, that defensive rock, Matias Caruzzo, the tireless running of Gustavo Oberman and the personality of Ignacio Canuto.

And then, of course, the man at the helm – Claudio ‘Bichi’ Borghi – a fine player in his day and Argentinos Juniors lynchpin the last time they won the championship twenty-five years ago. Whether the team was winning or losing, playing well or not, he sat like a frozen Buddha in his dugout, calm, collected and confident that the team was on the right track and that eventually they’d win through. They usually did, losing only two games all season and often leaving it until the final five minutes to plop the ball in the net.

So a great team but a one off, frozen in time. No sooner had those millions of scraps of paper thrown by the fans washed into the gutter to block the drains the next time it rains, than the talk of dismantling had begun.

Borghi is hot favourite to take over at slumbering giants, Boca Juniors. The thinking is: “If he can produce a championship-winning team with everyone else’s flotsam and jetsam, just think what he’ll do with Boca’s money and influence!” Mercier and Caruzzo may well follow him.

The Celebration

Now that Independiente know what Sosa can do, they’ll want him back and I doubt they’ll even say ‘thank-you.’ Calderon has already swapped his boots for carpet slippers and Ortigoza – my own favourite – would grace any team in the world with his effective tackling, pinpoint passing and inability to give up.

So what now? Well, let’s enjoy the moment for a little longer. The rump of a good team remains and the spirit and tradition are still there. So much depends on who takes over from Borghi and how many players the club manages to hold onto. They will be playing in the Sudamericana and the Libertadores cups which should bring in cash to bolster the squad.

And Argentinos Juniors is not known as the seedbed of Argentine football for nothing. A healthy crop of youngsters is sprouting up through the ranks and there’s hope that we won’t have to wait another twenty-five years to reap a harvest like this one.

I’m off now to do a bit of research, scouting the backstreets and alleyways of Buenos Aires for the best bars and cafes in which to watch the World Cup. I may be gone for some time.

The main reason I adopted Argentinos Juniors as the team to write this blog about was that they were crap. I watched them a couple of times a year or so ago and thought their ramshackle ground, their tubby players and their comical goalkeeper would give me plenty of amusing anecdotes to string together.  Their manager had the kind of mullet hair arrangement that didn’t look good when it was fashionable in the nineteen-seventies, let alone on a fifty-something year old man in 2009. They finished last that season and for some reason Nestor Gorosito was poached by River Plate.

Gorosito and mullet

Claudio Borghi, who played for Argentinos Juniors during their glory period in the mid-eighties, was lured to the club and has turned a team on a par with Accrington Stanley into one that could hold its own against Chelsea.

They finished sixth last season, losing very few but drawing far too many. But this season, those draws turned into victories, the team never lost its shape or its desire to attack or its character. Borghi sat in his dug-out, rarely expressing any emotion. Argentine football fans all seem to agree that this team are worthy champions — for their stylish football, for their refusal to accept defeat and for their humility.

Humility is not a quality that comes easily to most Argentines. But with the brash arrogance of the big clubs, River Plate and Boca Juniors, and the brash stupidity of the likes of the Diego Maradona infecting the game here, the feet firmly on the ground approach of Claudio Borghi was exactly what was needed.

Nearly twelve thousand of us squidged into the Huracan stadium, a beautiful, nineteen-thirties style structure on the other side of town. It was a crisp, cold winter’s day and we were in fine voice. I’ve always found it a bit of challenge to understand all the lyrics of the Argentine football songs. I’ve got some of the key words but tend to adopt the same practise as when singing Auld Lang Syne at New Year – a lot of enthusiastic but unintelligible burbling.

Like a Huracan

So I had the bright idea of printing some songs off the internet and trying to learn them. But my memory is not what it was. I can’t, for instance, remember all eleven members of the 1980 West Ham FA Cup winning team. So I hide the lyrics inside the match magazine and take sneaky peaks when I falter.

There’s a lot of ‘nobody loves us but we don’t care’ attitude reflected in the lyrics, loyalty in the face of adversity and downright fatalism.

“The day I die, I want my coffin painted red and white like my heart,” sung to a jaunty tune is one of my favourites.

Argentinos Junior’s big rivals, the brown and white-shirted Platense, are nicknamed the calamares or squid and feature a fair amount in the lyrics.

“I don’t care what they say, the squid whores, the journalists, the police – wherever you go, your fans will always be with you, breathing life with lots of alcohol and marijuana.”

Squid whores!!! Try that one as an insult the next time you get really angry and see where it gets you.

The anti-squid taunting has lost a little of its potency since, while Argentinos Juniors bathed themselves in glory, Platense were tumbling into third division obscurity.

“Reds – my great friend, this season we’re back again with you. We’ll support you with our hearts, we’re your fans and want you to be champions.”

Reasons to be Cheerful

And champions we are. Argentinos started brightly against Huracan and mounted several attacks that came to nothing before Juan Mercier got his bald head to a cross and tucked it into the net. This was a game the Red Bugs had to win to clinch the title since Estudiantes, just a point behind, were wiping the floor with Colon up in the north-east of Argentina.

But we were made to sweat. Facundo Coria put us two up ten minutes from the end by tapping in a rebound after Ismael Sosa had blasted against the post. Then three minutes from the end, Alan Sanchez pulled one back for Huracan and we were subjected to several  of those elongated minutes that leave you biting nails, clenching buttocks and glancing at your watch every ten seconds. And in situations like these, the referee will always add about a year of extra time.

With the Huracan fans setting fire to their own stadium, the referee cut short the added time and the celebrations began.

“C’mon Red Bugs, C’mon, Put your balls in place and let’s win this one, we’ll keep on da da de da da, we’ll be champions and not de do du da da, Come on Bugs.”

That might have lost a little something in translation but the spirit, I think, is clear. Argentinos Juniors are champions of Argentina for the first time in twenty five years. I certainly know how to pick a loser!

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.

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.