Argentinos Juniors  4  Independiente  3

I have a confession to make. I prayed at today’s game since I have faith. How could I not have? We were three-one down and not getting the breaks. The title was slipping away from Argentinos Juniors. So I prayed to the God of Football who I imagined must be floating above the pitch or sitting high in the stands above the press boxes. I didn’t ask that my team should win. That would have been unfair to the opposition team and to the Independiente fans, some of whom no doubt deserve to be rewarded with regular victories for their good work in the shanty towns or for looking after their incontinent grannies. I merely asked for a just result, that the best team should win, that good football should dominate, that a bolt of lightning should strike that servant of the devil, otherwise known as the linesman, for ruling offside a perfectly good goal.

I didn’t go down on my knees or face Upton Park or anything like that. It was just a gentle: “C’mon God. You appreciate attacking football. Don’t you think we deserve this one?”

And he came through. With goals from Nicolas Pavlovich and Juan Sabia to level the score. “Oh thank-you mighty one!” No, not you Diego! Although he was reported to be sitting up in the only executive box at the ground, the one reserved for his family. I’m referring to THE mighty one who, in added time, allowed a loose ball to fall to Matias Caruzzo who stubbed the ball as only a defender who finds himself in an attacking position can and we watched it chink off of an Independiente player’s leg and into the net.

The word loco does not begin to describe the scenes that followed, both on the pitch and on the packed terraces. The kind of men who you’d move away from if they sat next to you on the bus, were hugging and kissing me and my family. In any other circumstances, I’d have called the police. Here, I celebrated alongside them, not forgetting to look skywards and give thanks. And if that were not enough, the morning’s leaders, Estudiantes, could only manage a 0-0 draw at home to lowly Rosario Central.

And there’s more. “We can’t take any more,” I hear you squeal. But you must. The Estudiantes driving force, 93-year-old Juan Sebastian Veron, was sent off and misses their last game at Colon. Argentinos need to beat Huracan away to be crowned champions for the first time in twenty-five years. Of course there’s a God!

I think there’s some logic to my twisted theory. The basic ingredient for survival as a football fan and as a religious person is faith. Faith that Jesus Christ really is God’s son and did rise from the dead. Faith that, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, God did create the world in six days and on the seventh grappled with the offside law. Faith that league leaders, Estudiantes would slip up against Rosario Central and allow Argentinos Juniors a shot at the title. Faith that Wigan might beat Chelsea on Sunday. Now that last one’s just daft – really eight steps too far.

Much has been written and spoken about Argentines’ almost religious fervour for football and I suppose, that for some at least, it does replace the more conventional religions – the ones that involve Gods and things. The official religion is, of course, Roman Catholicism. It’s still strong in the countryside but less so in the cities where the church establishment lost a great deal of credibility for siding with the murderous military government that terrorised the Argentine population between 1976 and 1983.

The most poignant embodiment of that terror was the priest, Christian Von Wernich, a police chaplain in the city of La Plata. He would take prisoners’ confession then pass incriminating information on to his bosses. He attended torture sessions and visited prisoners’ families, pretending to be sympathetic. He betrayed their trust. Von Wernich was sent to prison in 2007.

I attended his trial in La Plata where the Argentine Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, said in evidence that he’d visited the then Pope who told him the church was justified in siding with the military since they were fighting a battle against Godless communism.

I’ve often thought that Buenos Aires is a city split in two. There are those who go out late on a Saturday night to wine, dine and dance until the Sunday sun comes up. And there are those who don’t.

Among the latter are the growing armies of evangelical Christians — Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the like — who prowl the quiet city streets on Sunday mornings knocking on doors and ringing the bells of the debauched other half who have just crawled into bed.

Many saw the former first lady, Evita Peron, as a saint and her mausoleum in the Recoleta cemetery is treated much like a shrine. Then there’s Gauchito Gil. All over Argentina there are shrines to him, red ribbons and bits of red cloth hanging from trees and fences. There are competing stories about what he did but the one I like best is the following:

Gil was a gaucho or cowboy who fell for an attractive widow. Only her brothers and the local police chief, who fancied her himself, chased him out of town and he enlisted in the Argentine army to fight in the War of the Triple Alliance – Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay versus Paraguay. And you thought Chelsea against Wigan was a lopsided contest!

On his return from the war he was hunted down and captured. As the noose was placed around his neck he told the hangman that he’d better pray for the recovery of his sick son. The hangman did, the son recovered and the executioner returned to give Gil a decent burial.

I’m not convinced, I must say. I’ve heard of better miracles – Greece winning the 2004 European Championship for one. And Carlos Tevez helping West Ham to stave off relegation a few seasons back, for another. But Gauchito Gil seems to provide a lot of comfort to a lot of people in difficult times, so who am I to question that?

Buenos Aires has the largest mosque in Latin America, built during the presidency of Carlos Menem, a Christian convert from a Syrian Muslim family. But there are not that many practising Muslims.

Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, mostly descended from European Jews fleeing the pogroms at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.

Many of them are to be found on the terraces at Argentinos Juniors since their neighbourhood, La Paternal, has a large working class Jewish contingent.

Others live out in the countryside, the so-called Jewish gauchos. Moisesville, in the northern province of Santa Fe, is a typical Argentine country town with a neat plaza. Only the flower beds are laid out in Stars of David¸ and Hebrew writing adorns the facades of the theatre and bank.

The town also boasts a Hebrew school and chola bread in the bakery. The first arrivals were city dwellers in search of a biblical idyll but they proved to be useless on the land since they didn’t know one end of a shovel from the other.

Crops failed and they suffered hunger, racial abuse and general misery. Then word of their plight got out and reached the ears of European Jewish philanthropists who sent funding and technical help.

Moisesville and other similar Jewish towns thrived. Like in many rural communities in Argentina, the youngsters have now moved to the cities and of Moiseville’s five synagogues only one is still functioning – and that for an increasingly aged congregation.

Football and religion rarely seem to mix in Argentina. But there is one notable exception – The Church of Maradoniana. It started as a kind of joke played by four friends in the city of Rosario. Diego Maradona,  reasoned his disciples, didn’t just own The Hand of God but could claim the whole body.  And the church celebrating the stocky Number 10 has grown and grown.

Their holy day is October 30^th – Diego’s birthday and we now find ourselves in the year 49 A.D. – After Diego. Among their ten commandments are:  Thou shalt declare thy unconditional love for football and Thou shalt spread the words ‘Diego Maradona’ throughout the universe.

After today’s result, I find my faith has been strengthened. Faith in football and faith that Argentinos Juniors can clinch that first league title in 25 years.