Tigre 1 Argentinos Juniors 1

A rather disappointing draw for Argentinos Juniors against the bottom team, but they’re still up there with the title contenders. However, all eyes today were on the big local derby, the Superclásico between Buenos Aires rivals River Plate and Boca Juniors, which also ended 1-1. This one always steals the limelight. This is not just any derby. This is United v City, Red v Blue, Rangers v Celtic, Barça v Madrid, rich against poor, all rolled into one.

The media starts talking about this one weeks in advance. This is one important game. Or at least it used to be. Boca are languishing in mid-table which, by their standards is not good enough. River’s feathers are even more bedraggled. They won their last title in early 2008 then the following season finished in last place. They’ve never really recovered.

There are many reasons for this decline. But the main one is that both clubs simply lose their best players much earlier than they used to – or they never get their hands on them in the first place. In the old days, if a smaller club did well – maybe had the audacity to win a piece of silverware or two – Boca and River would wade in with sacks of cash and buy up the cream. The status quo would be restored.

But now the big European clubs are practically detecting Argentina’s footballing talent in the womb. And they’re descending on the humble homes of the future Messis and Tevezes with offers of gold, frankincense, myrrh, penthouse apartments and more. Who can resist?

But they – and I’m not really sure who ‘they’ are or how they could possibly know with any certainty – say that seventy-three percent of the Argentine population still supports either Boca or River.

Over the years the big two have won more than their fair share of silverware. Between them, they’ve picked up fifty-six championship titles – 33 for River and 23 for Boca. So that makes River the better team, obviously. But hold on a minute! Boca have won more international trophies, including six Libertadores Cups, than River. So that makes them top dog.  Surely!!?

It all began in the flat cap and baggy shorts days when both Boca and River were neighbours, and fairly friendly neighbours at that, in the working class dock area of La Boca. River won the first clash 2-1 in 1913. Then River had the audacity to move house and in 1923 settled in the much posher Núñez neighbourhood in the north of Buenos Aires. It’s a mere 7km but a whole other world away. They’ve now played each other one-hundred and eighty-five times in proper competitions, with Boca having the slight edge.

These days La Boca is, in parts, a picturesque touristy area. But the Riachuelo river that runs alongside it stinks, a pungent souvenir of the neighbourhood’s industrial past. The fans are known as Los Bosteros, politely translated as The Shovellers of Pig Excrement. The site of the club’s Bombonera stadium was once a factory which used pig manure in the manufacture of bricks.

La Boca’s corrugated-iron houses were painted different colours, from whatever was left in the tins after coating the ships that stopped there. A necessity then, quaint now. The immigrants, mostly Italian, were crammed into narrow ramshackle homes, tighter than an Inter Milan defence.

Today’s Boca shirt bears testimony to their roots with the word Xeneizes – Genoan dialect for Genoese – on the back. The story goes that the club administrators, trying to decide which colours to adopt, said they’d pick the flag of the next ship to dock. It was Swedish and blue and yellow it became.

The Núñez neighbourhood, which is dominated by River’s stadium, doesn’t smell, unless your nose is attuned to the aroma of money. The residents of Núñez and the barrios to the north are rolling in it, hence the club’s nickname, Los Millonarios or The Millionaires. They’re also known as Las Gallinas or the chickens, after bottling it in a couple of key games way back when.

So this rivalry is about rich versus poor and middle and upper class versus working class. In Argentina the team you support plays a big part in defining who you are. Most fans support their neighbourhood team – that would be Argentinos Juniors if you live in or have some connection with La Paternal. Vélez Sarsfield if you’re from Liniers. The city of Rosario is split down the middle between Newell’s Old Boys and Rosario Central and La Plata between Estudiantes and Gimnasia. But that means that the vast majority of Argentines simply don’t have a first or second division team in their neighbourhood. And so they’ll pick either Boca or River, depending on their political inclination or their family allegiance.

All the women in my wife’s family support Boca. That’s never been a problem for me since I don’t think they’ve ever met West Ham. And I can say with some certainty that if they ever did, the Hammers would teach them a footballing lesson or two!. But my sister-in-law has foolishly married a River Plate fan. Their battleground is in the bringing-up of their two sons. The oldest has sided with his dad, all white with a red diagonal stripe down the middle. The youngest is still undecided but the trauma is such that I suspect he may opt for a life in ballet.

The bosteros can even remain fans after they’re dead. There’s a nifty line in yellow and blue coffins, with a very tasteful yellow and blue silk lining and the club crest on the lid. There’s also an urn version for those more inclined towards cremation. And there’s a Boca Juniors cemetery south of Buenos Aires, decorated with yellow and blue flowers.

Having spent a lifetime in conflict with River fans, imagine the ignominy of having to spend eternity lying side-by-side with one of them!

All of this attention focussed on the big two, of course causes a certain amount of resentment among fans of the smaller clubs. So a little dash of gloating I think is in order as Argentinos Juniors look down the table from our lofty championship-contending place on Boca and River in the lower echelons. Can you hear us down there?