Boca Juniors  0  Argenetinos Juniors  2

It’s quite an experience to enter into the lair of the dragon then emerge, exuberant,  two hours later with a couple of bags of his goodies. The Bombonera is big, noisy and potentially intimidating. But not to us, the hardy supporters of modest Argentinos Juniors, nor to the players who put on a brave performance and snuck away with two late goals – one from Santiago Gentiletti, the other from Ciro Riuz.

We owe a huge dollop of thanks to the Argentinos ‘keeper, Nicolas Navarro, who put on a performance of breathtaking agility. This game marked the return to the Boca ranks of their miserable but masterful maestro, Juan Roman Riquelme. He’s been out injured for six months and there were times when I could see why he’s been sorely missed. His vision and passing were sublime. Unfortunately for Boca, their aging war horse, Martin Palermo, looked like he needed to be retired to nibble grass in a meadow.

Dragon's Lair

Boca are in crisis. So are their main rivals, River Plate. The two meet in their next match for the so-called superclasico – a fixture looking less and less a clasico and a long way from super.

How they must pine for the days, not so long ago, when Mauricio Macri was their president and if a trophy sparkled, Boca won it. He’s now mayor of Buenos Aires. The city muddles through. It’s hard to know to what degree its successes and failures can be accredited to him.

He is basically the son of a very wealthy businessman who adopted Boca as his toy and then did much the same with the city council, possibly using it as a springboard for a career in national politics.

In my line of work I’ve had what some would call the privilege, others would say was the misfortune to meet a fair few politicians. What has always surprised me, with one or two notable exceptions, is that they always came across as less intelligent than their public image led us to believe they were. Often, they were just downright thick, or somehow lacking in the kind of worldliness you’d expect of a person who represents the people.

The truth is that if you’re not a self-serving, hypocritical, arse-licking, two-faced piece of shit when you go into the business, you’d better become one very soon if you’re to survive and prosper.

Most of us, because we’re nice people with ideals and compassion, look at the options and say: “No thank-you very much. I’m going to earn my living as a carpenter or a professional footballer or work on the supermarket check-out where I get to shout several times a day: “More change please Mavis.”

Intrepid Bichos

But we need politicians, apparently. So we’re left in a terrible situation where none of us, because we’re nice people with ideals and compassion, is willing to take on this essential service. Instead, we’ve got the kind of people making decisions on our behalf we’d certainly not want to share a beer with and probably wouldn’t even let into our homes to unblock our toilets.

Because we’re not willing to take on this task, do we have the right to criticise those who do? Of course we bloody do! So I will. This mild rant is merely a prelude to an attack on an Argentine politician who I’ve not met but have recently taken a particular dislike to as a result of a couple of stupid comments he’s made.

The target of my vitriol is the economy minister, Amado Boudou. He’s a youngish, trendy sort of chap often photographed at the better Buenos Aires restaurants. Economy minister in Argentina is one of the few jobs more precarious than first division football manager. That’s mostly because they’re ineffectual puppets and that’s because the president, or more recently the former president, Nestor Kirchner, until he died last month, runs the economy.

Then, as soon as something goes wrong the minister gets the blame and is sacked and replaced by someone equally as ineffectual. The other reason they’re sacked is if they forget their place and speak out of turn. Boudou’s days are numbered.

Firstly, in a row between the government and the main media groups, he accused the two major newspapers of being like the people who cleared out the Nazi gas chambers. Not surprisingly, he provoked outrage in the Jewish community both in Argentina and beyond.

He was forced to make a half-hearted and none-too-convincing apology. Then, learning nothing from his experience, he said that inflation was a problem that only concerned the middle and upper classes. He added that the true rate of inflation in Argentina is, anyway, what the official statistics office, INDEC, says it is.

Inflation in Argentina is one of the highest in the world. Meat now costs double what it cost last year. Milk and bread are about 50% more. But INDEC would have us believe that annual inflation is no more than 10%.

Boudou. Be-doobie-doo!

Their monthly announcements are met with snorts of derision and incredulity. It’s certainly true that the middle and upper classes are suffering. The price of pilates classes has gone up, taxi drivers recently increased their tariffs and the cost of sending your kids to private schools goes up at least 20% a year.

But the working classes and the people in the shanty towns also need milk, bread and clothes for themselves and their children. Some have received wage increases, many have not. The shanty towns are growing, the number of people sleeping on the streets has gone up, along with the figures for those who have fallen below the poverty line.

But INDEC also changes the figures related to poverty to make the government look better. Since INDEC have all the tools at their disposal and the rest of us simply shop, it was at first difficult to challenge their credibility with our anecdotal evidence. But, eventually, the truth will out.

We shop every day and the prices rise pretty much every day. The workers at INDEC have been known to leave their desks and protest on the streets that they were not being allowed to do their jobs without government interference.

Newspapers employ an army of independent economists to produce an inflation figure closer to the true one that we experience every day.

Last month, a leading delegate at an international conference in Chile complained about the presence there of the head of INDEC, Ana Edwin. The former head of statistics in Canada, Jacob Ryten, called her invitation deplorable.

He said that inviting Edwin was like inviting a convicted thief to discuss the sanctity of private property.

But this blog remains inflation proof. It costs nothing and will continue to cost nothing. It looks to me like Estudiantes are running away with the Apertura title. After a 3-0 Friday night win over Lanus, they’re now clear of second placed Velez, who keep up the pressure with a 3-2 win at Banfield. Olimpo trounced Huracan 4-0. Racing and Arsenal drew 2-2 and Newell’s and Godoy Cruz shared the spoils without goals. With the superclasico between Boca and River just around the corner, River are also in crisis after losing 1-0 at All Boys. The Bichos’s next opponents, San Lorenzo drew 1-1 with Independiente and Colon beat Tigre 1-0. The bottom club, Quilmes, lost 1-0 to the team just above them, Gimnasia. The players’ bus was attacked by their own fans then, when they arrived back at their ground, they found their cars had been vandalised. Football is no fun when you’re losing.