Velez Sarsfield  2  Argentinos Juniors  0

Look away now if you’re squeamish because this is going to get nasty. I’m going to whinge and moan and bellyache until I’m raw because I’ve got plenty to be angry about.

It’s one thing to lose when you’re playing badly, when your defence is a shambles, when you’re bereft of attacking ideas – like West Ham for instance in their first two games of the English season.

But Argentinos Juniors have been playing quite well. They dominated the first half against Huracan two weeks ago and did much the same away to Velez Sarsfield today. But on both occasions they didn’t made that dominance count and let in goals in the middle of the second half to leave the Red Bugs with just one measly point from a possible nine. This is not championship retaining form by any means. They lost just two games all last season and have already lost two out of three in this one.

But that’s just for starters. I’ve got plenty more that’s pissing me off. There are whole towns, whole provinces that are connected to Wi Fi. Yet for some reason, I’ve yet to fathom why we’ve had four visits from four different teams of Fibertel technicians, each with a different theory as to why they can’t connect our modest home in the heart of Buenos Aires.

Our signal is too weak, apparently, so we need to be ‘reinstalled.’ That’s what the first team told us. The second fellow who arrived two days later wasn’t qualified to do reinstallations so was about as good to us as a book in the hands of the average footballer.

Then a couple of reinstallation guys came but told us they’d need access to the upstairs flat which they couldn’t have since our neighbours were not home. But we’d firstly need a new modem anyway. The modem chaps came two days later and told us they couldn’t do much until we’d been reinstalled. And we couldn’t be reinstalled until we had a modem.

“What you need to do,” one of them told us in all seriousness, “is to get really angry.” My wife said she’d already gotten about as angry as she could possibly get. “No,” said the technician. “Really, really angry.”

We were about to do that when the news broke that the government had cancelled the operating licence for cable TV company, Cablevision, which allowed their offshoot, Fibertel, to supply internet. Not because they’re no good but because they’re owned by the same people who run the Clarin newspaper group and the government of President Cristina Kirchner and her husband, the ex-president, Nestor Kirchner, don’t like the people from Clarin because they say nasty things about them in their newspapers and magazines.

Last year, they took live TV football coverage away from the same people and decided that the state would broadcast all first division games for free. That was a snide, petty, outrageous thing to do but I didn’t complain since I’ve just watched Argentinos Juniors lose 2-0 away to Velez in the comfort of my own living room at no extra cost to myself and with the added bonus of a cup of tea and a slice of carrot cake.

But the decision to stop Cablevision supplying internet services, while also petty and vindictive, benefits nobody apart from Cablevision’s two major competitors. We’re talking one million customers here who will probably have to change their internet server simply because of the damaged sensitivities of a couple of politicians.

There is not even an attempt to justify their decision, to pretend it’s for the general good or something that will somehow improve the way Argentines live their lives.

Another very personal decision that got me going was the appointment of Virginia Maria Garcia as head of the tax office, the AFIP, in the southern province of Santa Cruz. Now I’ve got nothing personal against Virginia Maria Garcia. She may well be very pleasant and excellent at her job.  But her sister is the girlfriend of Maximo Kirchner – Nestor and Cristina’s son.

We all know that nepotism is rife in Latin America, and elsewhere for that matter. But there’s usually some attempt to cover it up, to pretend it’s not happening. Mr and Mrs Kirchner have substantial holdings in Santa Cruz province where Nestor is from and once served as governor. They’ve got houses, hotels and many friends in positions of influence in business and in politics.

There’s a huge conflict of interests here but the appointment has caused hardly a stir. It’s been reported in the media but in a very matter-of-fact, measured, shrug-of-the-shoulders sort of way.

Don’t get me wrong. I generally like living in Argentina and the Kirchners are not nearly as bad as some of their enemies in the media would have us believe. I’ll talk about the positive side to life here another day. But not until Argentinos Juniors start winning the games they deserve to win and we finally get our Wi Fi up and running.