Of course we took neither rain jackets nor umbrellas. Why would we? It was a little overcast when we left home and the first half was clear and bright. It was only as the referee blew his whistle for the start of the second half that the first drops of rain fell. Then they fell and fell and fell. Something like 88mm came down in the space of a couple of hours, transforming several streets in Buenos Aires into rivers. The Argentinos Juniors’ pitch soon became a swamp and 21 minutes into the second half the game was called off.

The skies opened

When you’re wet, you’re wet. There is no shelter anywhere in the very basic Diego Armando Maradona stadium. When your pants, your socks and the contents of your wallet are all sodden, then you can’t get any wetter. But the fans kept singing and dancing in the rain.

The Newell’s fans had had a four-hour or so trip from Rosario with many arriving at half-time, just in time for the downpour. It was their first visit to Buenos Aires since the death of their 14-year-old fan, Walter Caceres, on the way back from a game in the capital two weeks ago. But while football violence is a very real and unresolved problem, by  far the greatest risk on the way home from any game, on the way to or from anywhere for that matter, is bad driving…especially with the roads flooded or slippery and visibility severely reduced.

Argentina ranks way up there on the league table of most dangerous drivers in the world. For every million cars on the road there are 1,066 deaths compared to 186 in the United States, 123 in Spain and 89 in Sweden. The holiday weekends are the worst when the TV screens and newspapers are full of images of pile-ups, smashed vehicles wrapped around trees and being pulled out of lakes and grieving friends and families.

The promising young River Plate attacker, Diego Buonanotte, was involved in a crash in December in which three close friends of his were killed. Buonanotte was thrown from the car and sustained serious injuries. He’ll survive but it’s not clear what the injuries will do to his footballing career. One of the first to visit him in hospital was the newly-elected River Plate president and World Cup winner, Daniel Passarella, who said all the right things. He showed genuine compassion, partly because he’d lost his own teenage son in a traffic accident.

Buonanotte's car

Many Argentine families are still living with and trying to come to terms with the thirty-thousand people thought to have been killed by the military government in power between 1976 and 1983. But far more are grieving the loss of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters lost in pointless and often avoidable traffic accidents.

Argentines will find a whole series of excuses to explain this situation, from poorly-maintained roads to bad sign-posting to sub-standard vehicles. I’ve driven throughout the Americas and beyond and the roads are far worse in Bolivia, the sign-posting almost non-existent in Cuba and the vehicles infinitely crappier in Peru. The reason for Argentina’s motoring tragedy is simply bad driving. Arrogant, aggressive, inconsiderate driving.

A fine example is that of Rodrigo ‘The Hyena’ Barrios who last month shot round the corner in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata and killed a 20-year-old pregnant woman and her baby. He sped off and only hours later handed himself in to the police. He’s the world Super-Featherweight boxing champion, a national hero, now awaiting trial and unable to walk the streets for fear of the public spitting at him in the face.

The Hyena

I don’t own a car simply because I live in the centre of Buenos Aires which has an adequate public transport system and abundant taxis. But to many Argentines, especially the men, that’s like saying: “I don’t own a penis.” But when I need one, I hire one. A car! I’m obviously talking about a car!

It’s been a long-held, off the top of my head, un-scientific theory of mine that the way people in a certain country drive reflects, to a large extent, their national characteristics and hang-ups. I’m still trying to translate Argentine driving into some kind of coherent analysis of the national psyche. This is, after all, the country with more psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and therapists per head of population than there are llamas in Bolivia. But first I need to suppress my anger, my pedestrian rage, and this rant is a cathartic exercise in releasing some of my pent-up resentment at so often being nearly killed on the roads of Argentina. Sorry if you’re one of the decent Argentine drivers – and there are many – but I need to do this.

There’s a certain self-destructive element in the way some people drive and a definite tendency to blame every other motorist and pedestrian for breaches in traffic-flow. “Not me, no! I’m a very good driver.”

I hired a car over Christmas to escape Buenos Aires and visit the in-laws. I’d gone no more than 1km when, being the kind, considerate British driver that I am, I stopped at a pedestrian crossing because my light was red and little old ladies, mothers with pushchairs and blind people were crossing. Someone smashed into my rear end. When I got out to remonstrate, he was livid, with spittle flying like bullets from his mouth and veins on his temples ready to burst.

“If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t have hit you,” he shouted. “You should have been somewhere else.” True! Very, very true!

Now the people of Buenos Aires can be some of the politest, most courteous you’ll meet anywhere in the world. Good manners still matter here, especially among the older generation. In most countries you don’t converse with strangers in lifts, most of us content to fix our eyes on that big red spot on the top of that bald fellow’s head or to see how far down that cleavage we can peak without anyone noticing. But not here.

“Good morning, how are you?”

“I’m fine. What floor are you going to? Number 9? Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“It is. Thank-you. Have a good day. No, after you.”

“No, after you. You have a good day too. Goodbye.”

And all this in the 15 seconds it takes to get from the ground floor to the ninth. But you put these very same polite, courteous people behind the wheel of a car and those good manners evaporate into the humid Buenos Aires air. No-one let’s anyone out of side-turnings, people hoot their horns at railway crossings while the barriers are still down and red traffic lights are more often seen as a hindrance rather than a life-saving device.

On the open road, it’s common to sit just 1cm behind the car in front while driving at 140kph waiting for an opportunity to overtake. And that’s regularly done on blind corners and over the brow of hills.

There’s a common tendency in Argentina to disregard the smaller, what are sometimes seen as intrusive, rules and regulations. Seat-belts are compulsory but only sometimes worn, motor-cycle crash helmets even less so. Helmets are carried but usually on the rider’s elbow which means that while Argentine bikers often split their skulls open, they suffer far less elbow trauma than anywhere else in Latin America.

I’m a more frequent pedestrian than I am a motorist but that also has its hazards. When the crossing light is quite clearly telling me that I can proceed, vehicles turning from the left and right are also allowed to go – but should give way to pedestrians. Only they quite often don’t, especially if the vehicle is very big, like a bus or a truck. And I’ve had my ankles nipped more than once by barely attentive motorists in a hurry, babbling on their mobile phones.

But it doesn’t do to shout and swear. Oh no! You don’t see a great deal of open road rage. In fact, you’re considered to be a bit of a wimp if you complain. With one foot on the ground and another on the step, the 184 bus sped away with me grabbing onto the door frame for my life. When I complained to the driver he snorted derisively and retorted, very calmly: “You limp-wristed, nancy-boy wimp. Just grow up!” I’m not sure if that’s gained or lost something in translation but that’s the kind of abuse you leave yourself open to if you have the audacity to insist on being able to climb aboard a public bus without risking your life.

After four years here I’m now quite good at crossing the road. And when jumping on to a bus, I try to nip in front of that woman with the huge bag of shopping, so that if the driver does speed off prematurely it’s her, not me, left sprawling in the gutter. Hey! It’s a jungle out there and I’ve managed to survive this far.

That’s two Argentinos Juniors’ games out of four so far this season suspended because of heavy rain. I’m dripping rain water into the keyboard and seriously considering investing in an umbrella for the next game.

Note: Possibly one of the longest games in footballing history, taking ovethirty days to complete. The game kicked off on February 16 and was completed on March 17 with one 12 minute half then a 13minute second half. Argentinos Juniors took the lead after six minutes of the resumed match, Newell’s equalised in the second half. Few went to the stadium for the completion and almost no-one watched it on the tele. It was raining again.

It’s quite a trek to reach the southern suburb of Lanus. First I had to take the 113 bus to the Argentinos Juniors ground in La Paternal to buy my away ticket, then a half an hour walk to La Paternal station for the train to Retiro, one of the main terminals in Buenos Aires, then the whole length of Line C on the underground to Plaza Constitucion and from there four stops to Lanus. I then had a another half hour walk to the ground and arrived about two minutes before the kick-off.

After twelve minutes, I was wondering why I’d bothered. Lanus were two up and Argentinos Juniors were struggling to string two passes together. I don’t know about the team, but I was missing the nippy, little attacker Gabriel Hauche and the goalkeeper Sebastian Torrico, both of whom were sold during the close season. Torrico was always hesitant coming off his line but was a quality ball-stopper.

But if ever there was a day when football, pure, quality passing, skilful football had to win the day, then this was it. And Argentinos Juniors delivered with a couple of goals before half-time to level the score and then four in the second half, including a penalty from my favourite player, Nestor Ortigoza and a peach from the Chilean, Emilio Hernandez. For the record, Nicolas Pavlovich scored two, there was an own goal from Rodrigo Erramuspe and one from Ismael Sosa.

Pavlovich nets two

That quality football was necessary to help disperse the dark cloud hanging over the Argentine game. Just a few hours earlier the 244^th victim of football violence in Argentina died in hospital in the city of Rosario.

Fourteen-year-old Newell’s Old Boys fan, Walter Caceres, had been shot on his way home from a mid-week game in Buenos Aires. The bus he was travelling in was, it seems, ambushed by a rival faction from the same club.

They managed to puncture the tyres and while the passengers waited for a replacement bus in the early hours of the morning, the vehicle was sprayed with machine-gun bullets. Walter took three bullets in his head and one in his back. Two other fans were wounded but are likely to recover. The nation watched and waited. The police announced that the young fan had died then said: “Oops, sorry! He’s still alive.” But he died a day later. As I write this, no-one has been detained in connection with the murder.

Before the Lanus game, the players and crowd were asked to observe a minute’s silence which was not respected by a contingent of home fans who bashed their drums throughout. A hefty defeat for their team was the least they deserved.

But the Lanus fans’ behaviour was not the most sickening aspect of this tragedy. That accolade might be given to the president of Newell’s Old Boys, Guillermo Lorente, who was quick to tell the media that “this incident in no way stains Newell’s but is related to a problem beyond the club and has to do with all the problems of insecurity suffered in Argentina. Newell’s is the obvious reference point in this case but Newell’s has nothing to do with it.”

Thanks for your sympathy, Mr Lorente. The dead boy’s father, Carlos, had a different point of view. “These people, the police, the bosses, the judges, know perfectly well who was responsible. They’ve all washed their hands and are looking the other way.”

In 2003, two Newell’s fans died after a clash with River Plate fans involving guns and stones on a main road to the north of Buenos Aires. In 2005 a 21-year-old Newell’s fan, Gonzalo Ferraro, died after receiving a bullet in the belly in the local derby with Rosario Central. Last year, Newell’s fans Martin Gomez and Maximiliano Sanchez died in an internal club feud. Nothing whatsoever to do with Newell’s Old Boys, eh, Mr Lorente?

Pancho Varallo - a goalscorer and a gentleman

But the club owners throughout Argentina work with local politicians who work with the barra brava, or organised hard-core fans, who collaborate with the police. They’re all in it together, lining their own pockets at the expense of the loyal fans and are rarely brought to account, except on the handful of occasions each season when fans are killed. And there are a handful of occasions each season when fans are killed and I suspect that won’t change until Argentina suffers a tragedy of Heysel or Hillsborough-like proportions.

You have to wonder what Francisco ‘Pancho’ Varallo makes of it all, although I’ve no doubt he would have revelled in the game I’ve just seen. He is the last survivor of the first ever World Cup final played in 1930 in which Uruguay beat Argentina to lift the trophy. Mr Varallo was on the losing side on that occasion but went on to win plenty of other silverware, including three Argentine championships with Boca Juniors (1931/34/35) and the South American nations cup, the Copa America, with Argentina in 1937. He was a ruthless goalscorer, netting 181 times in 210 games for Boca, but always was and still is a gentleman.

Last week he celebrated his 100^th birthday, telling the local media that that 1930 defeat to Uruguay still hurts.

Walter Caceres only lived fourteen years and he missed his team’s thumping 4-2 victory over Boca Juniors. Newell’s Old Boys next game is against Argentinos Juniors on Monday. I suspect several fans will stay away. All we can hope is that it’s a game played how Mr Varallo would have played it and not in the spirit encouraged by the likes of Mr Lorente.

Ortigoza is not, has not and never will be part of the exodus of South American players who have been plucked in their prime by foreign clubs. It’s not that he’s a bad player. He was probably the man of the match in this one with, admittedly, not much competition. His problem is that, to be blunt and a little cruel, he looks like me on the pitch. Me or any other forty-something, slightly out of condition, beer swilling, Sunday morning park slogger. That’s why I like him.

Nestor Ortigoza - like me, but much, much better

The difference between Ortigoza and me is that, despite being more wildebeest than graceful gazelle, he is a deceptively skilful and sometimes very effective player. And he plays with a passion that the fans love and they love it because, to echo a whinge heard around the world, it’s a passion not often found in the game these days.

We’ve all heard about the mercenary nature of modern football. But in the case of Argentina that moan takes on more resonance with the knowledge that more than one-thousand home-grown players ply their trade abroad. That’s more than one-thousand compared to England’s, let me think for a moment, one. At least Mr D Beckham is the only one I could find on a brief scan of the web.

But replace the word ‘English’ for ‘Argentine’ on your search engine and you’ll travel the world. We all know about Carlos Tevez, worth every penny at Manchester City, Lionel Messi advertising razors at Barcelona and Sergio Aguero providing for Diego Maradona’s grandson at Atletico Madrid. And who would begrudge former Argentinos Juniors player, Julio Arca, whatever wealth and happiness he found at Sunderland and Middlesborough?

But what motivates Julian Eberhardt as he pulls on his Lightning Fayetteville shirt in the US fifth division? Or Carlos Martino who plays for Scorpion in the Nicaraguan league? There are more than sixty Argentines playing in Mexican football. One-hundred and seventy four in Spain and nearly as many in Italy. And then of course there’s Mariano Caporale, Hector Parodi and Mariano Sanchez dazzling the home fans at Ahrahami Chittagong in Bangladesh!

Wherever you roam in the world of football – from the Greek second division to the Panamanian league, from Indonesia to Malta, the Maldives to Andorra – there are Argentine footballers earning a crust.

Good for them and good for world football, I say. But the situation does raise a number of points on the bleak terraces back home. Firstly, what has become of the more than thirteen billion dollars paid over the past ten years to Argentine clubs for this lucrative export? I’m not sure how much Bong da Binh Dong of Vietnam forked out for Diego Morales, perhaps nothing at all.

But little of the money generated by Tevez, Mascherano and Aguero has been ploughed back into the Argentine game. Many of those playing abroad have never even been seen by the home fans. Messi was shipped off to Barcelona aged just thirteen and never pulled on a Newell’s Old Boys first team shirt. The national team goalkeeper, Sergio Romero, played just four games for Racing Club before moving to AZ Alkmaar of Holland.

And what does the constant flow of Argentine players do to the quality of the home league? The truth is that there is no shortage of aspiring, talented youngsters and there’s a fine teaching structure in place to bring them on. But the motivation to continue investing time and money in nurturing this young talent is fast deflating. What’s the point if your promising fourteen year olds all end up in the Greek second division?

It’s a problem that has long been reflected in the rest of Argentina. A good education system churns out keen young citizens. What often awaits them at home is a sometimes corrupt, always bureaucratic country in which you’re rewarded by who you know rather than what you know. The temptation of a more lucrative and comfortable life abroad is often too difficult to resist.

This was one of the few games that my adopted team have to play outside of Buenos Aires. Newell’s Old Boys are one of the two teams in Argentina’s second city, Rosario. The other, you’ve guessed it, is Rosario Central.

It’s a fair old trek for a kick-off at ten past nine on a Friday night so being a fair-weather fan I watched this one in a local bar with my taxi driving mate and fellow Argentinos fan, Pablo.

There was just about enough to celebrate on the night. But we agreed, over our ham and cheese sandwiches, a bleak looking future. That’s been exacerbated by two dismal performances in the past week from the Argentine national team, which leaves their qualification for the 2010 World Cup in some doubt. Perhaps, we pondered over coffee as the barmen mopped the floors around our table, a symptom of the malaise in the domestic game.