With this victory Argentinos Juniors become king makers and party-poopers at the same time.

Lanus had launched a late challenge to Velez Sarsfield who had looked like the only title contenders for some time. If Lanus had won this one, they’d have been just a point behind Velez with a game to play.

But true to form, the Bichos played much better away from home to win this game with a Nico Blandi goal in the second half that leaves Velez, who’d beaten Huracan 2-0 earlier in the day, four points clear at the top of the table and uncatchable.

The hero of the afternoon was our goalkeeper, the young Luis Ojeda who was outstanding.

One to watch -- Luis Ojeda

So now that the title has been settled, we’ve still got the Copa America to look forward to, beginning in Argentina on July 1^st. And then the presidential elections in October.

That looks like being duller than this football season that’s drawing to a lacklustre close. There really is only one contender for this one, and she’s not sure she wants to play. The opinion polls all put President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner out in front.

But she’s rumoured to be: a) still mourning the death last October of her husband, the former president, Nestor Kirchner. b) None too fit herself with regular bouts of illness that have forced her to cancel important trips and meetings. c) Perturbed by scandals lurking in the political backwoods that threaten to sneak up and bite her ankles.

But if not her, then who? Her own governing Peronist party is peopled by thugs, nerds and light-weights. Some boast just one of these less than savoury characteristics, others all three. But what none of them seem to have is vision or charisma.

And the opposition is a confusing mish-mash of bickering individuals. If any of them did, by some quirk, find themselves with the presidential sash draped over their shoulder then the first thing I imagine they’d do would be to run from the presidential palace into the street screaming: “What do I do now?!”

The newspapers are filled daily with page after page about who has met who and who might form alliances and who might not. Ricardo Alfonsin, the son of the former president, Raul, probably tops the pile of ‘the rest.’ There’s Francisco de Narvaez, interesting for the tattoo on his neck, and …..  I’m sorry, I can’t go on. I’ll return to the football.

Another one who decided this weekend that he’d had enough is the old Boca Juniors warhorse, Martin Palermo. He played his last game at the club’s Bombonera stadium in the 1-1 draw with Banfield. But the game was really just an excuse for the fans to celebrate a man who never pulled out of a challenge and never gave less than 100% in any game.

Diego Maradona was back at the ground after a two-year absence to join in the celebrations.

Palermo scored 194 goals in two spells at Boca in 317 games. Most of them were not beautiful. His tended to be the head that reached the ball in the middle of a ruck or the toe that stabbed it home while being muscled by a couple of burly defenders. But they were often vital goals at vital times which partly explains why the Boca fans hold him so dear to their hearts.

Martin Palermo - Old Warhorse

He also put in his fair share for Estudiantes and for the Argentina national team, scoring the goal in extra time in the rain against Peru for the team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup when all seemed lost.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be watching my football from now on in High Definition having had the relevant box delivered by our new providers. But it was prefaced by one of those stories that leaves you asking: “Did they really say that?”

They told us the man with the box would visit us for installation between 8am and 4pm. That lack of precision is annoying but common the world over and we accepted it with good grace. “But he won’t come if it’s raining.”

“What?! It’s an indoor installation that requires no outdoor activity whatsoever.”

“That’s the agreement. If it rains, they don’t work. Health and safety.”

It didn’t rain and he came and everything is now so much clearer, so much more definition. The great irony of course, is that while artificial life on my TV is clearer, outside my front door the real world has gone all blurry.

That’s because of ash blown up from an angry volcano deep down in southern Chile that’s caused havoc with flights in and out of everywhere in this part of the world and has left a thin film of ash coating Buenos Aires.

But that burst of volcanic anger will pale into nothingness against the eruption that will be provoked if mighty River Plate drop out of the top division. They didn’t do themselves any favours with a feeble 1-1 against Estudiantes and still sit precariously above the danger zone with just a game to play.

Arsenal beat Colon 1-0 on Saturday. Quilmes helped their survival hopes with a 2-0 win at San Lorenzo. All Boys beat Gimnasia 1-0, Tigre and Independiente drew 0-0 and Olimpo and Newell’s 1-1.

This report is late because I’m in mourning, obviously, for the demise of West Ham United football club, relegated to the ignominy of the Championship, the second division of English football, due to a mixture of gross incompetence and bad luck, but mostly gross incompetence.

Inevitably at times like this we all look to where the blame lies. The players must take a huge chunk of responsibility since they simply didn’t score enough goals or win enough games. But when a big club with resources available, good players and enthusiastic fans doesn’t perform, you perhaps have to look a little deeper. Especially when small clubs, with no great individual players, one bus-load of fans and barely enough money for a spare football, performs better than your club.

In the Argentine league I take River Plate and Boca Juniors as my examples of the former. They used to be and should still be the Real Madrid and Barcelona or the Celtic and Rangers of Argentine football. Yet they’re riddled with internal problems. Minnows such as Godoy Cruz and Olimpo are playing decent football and currently sit above the giants. Argentinos Juniors, it must be said, is also a club that punches above its weight. It has a small, tightly run operation with one of the best respected youth schemes in the country on which is built an enterprise that has enjoyed more success than many clubs twice their size.

Avram Grant -- good riddance!

Velez Sarsfield is the only big Buenos Aires club not embarrassing itself at the moment. They’re the only Argentine team in the last eight of Latin America’s Libertadores Cup and they’re atop the first division, threatening to pull away from the rest, despite a defeat at the weekend.

My point being that a team will only perform well on the pitch if things are run well off it. West Ham had too many distractions, too much turmoil, not enough focus.

You’re in a sorry situation when you check the half-time score to find your team is two-nil up and you think to yourself: “That’s it. We’re doomed.” West Ham seemed to be at their most vulnerable when they were winning. One goal leads spurred the opposition to inevitable victory, a two-goal margin was a guarantee that complacency and bungling would set in. And so it proved to be.

Two up against mighty Wigan at half-time in a game West Ham had to win. And they lost it 3-2. I was a regular at Upton Park the last time the team were relegated in 2003. I remember with particular pain a 0-0 draw against Walsall. No disrespect intended but they are a small team from an industrial estate on the outskirts of Birmingham, and we couldn’t beat them. We’re going to be proud hosts in the huge Olympic Stadium again playing the likes of Walsall.

Much is made of the corruption in the Argentine game, how presidents run their clubs like personal fiefdoms, manipulating their barra brava fans for their own political ends.

Sullivan and Gold - Porn Kings.

It’s not so different in the English game. It’s just bigger, glitzier and there’s more money involved. West Ham is owned and run by two men, David Gold and David Sullivan, who made their fortunes selling porn magazines. They took over from a rabble of Icelandic businessmen who were partly responsible for taking their country, as well as West Ham United, to the brink of financial ruin.

These people rub shoulders in the directors’ boxes of other English clubs with Arab princes from countries stuck in the Middle Ages and Russian oligarchs so rich and powerful that few dare to investigate the murky manners in which they acquired their wealth.

So it should be no surprise that our clubs, especially my club, is poorly run. Our thankfully departed manager, Avram Grant, took his last club, Portsmouth, down to the second division. That’s hardly an impressive CV but he was hired anyway.

If I sound bitter it’s because I am. It’s at moments like this, that I’m tempted to turn my back on football and take up making plastic airplane models. Thankfully, Argentinos Juniors saved me from a sad life of sticking stickers on the wings of Spitfires and Stukas and the inevitable sniffing of glue that such a hobby entails.

Here was a fine example of a team learning from its mistakes. Argentinos were dismal last week at home to Boca Juniors. But everything they did wrong last week, they did right this time against San Lorenzo. They battled in midfield, guided and cajoled by an immaculate Juan Mercier. They attacked the opposition goal, Emilio Hernández scoring a beauty early on.

Rather than sit on that lead, they kept attacking. San Lorenzo equalised but there was only ever one team going to win this game. Germán Basualdo made it safe to move the Bichos up to sixth place.

Pedro Troglio -- Well done!

Unlike the embarrassingly clueless West Ham manager, Avram Grant, the Argentinos boss, Pedro Troglio, made changes, he addressed the shortcomings, he took chances and it paid off.

This game was part of a weekend feast of sport served up to relieve me of the stresses of visiting the in-laws out in the countryside. The country air, tinged with the fresh aroma of genetically modified soya, was a welcome relief from the chug of bus and taxi fumes in Buenos Aires.

Firstly, because of the four hour time difference with the UK, I had an 11am serving of FA Cup final fare and Manchester City, a tad luckily I thought, making hard work of beating Stoke City. There was time for lunch and a spot of Andy Murray not quite being good enough to beat Novak Djokovic in Rome before watching San Lorenzo against Argentinos Juniors.

Then on Sunday we were treated to the Wigan v West Ham fiasco, a little bit of Chelsea against Newcastle then the event that dominates the Argentine sporting calendar, the superclasico, the only game that really matters – Boca Juniors versus River Plate.

River, due to the quirky manner in which relegation is decided here, are now at risk of having to fight for their top division status. Boca won this one two-nil with the second goal scored by aging war-horse, Martin Palermo, who’s announced his retirement at the end of the season. This was his final superclasico and what a way to go!

The Monday morning papers dedicated their front pages and more than half their sports sections to this game — the teams now in seventh and eighth place in the table. The top side, Velez lost 3-2 to Lanus, an event that warranted a few feeble paragraphs.

They’re followed by modest Godoy Cruz, who beat Quilmes 2-0 on Friday night and could be the surprise package this season. Another small side making a big noise, Olimpo, lost 2-1 at home to Independiente, Racing beat Newell’s 3-0, Gimnasia were 2-0 winners over Banfield and Estudiantes and Tigre drew 2-2.

This was a tense game, a very tense game against tough opposition. The winning goal came six minutes from the end, a scrambled, confusing own goal by Velez defender, Marco Torsiglieri. Despite the home side’s dominance, their inability to tuck away their chances meant that it could have gone either way. The tension showed on the faces of the crowd and in the ear-splitting noise at the end as the relief at a much-needed win was expressed in exuberant rejoicing.

Sunday night therapy

But is all this tension good for us? Is it necessary? I don’t know about the history of the Velez number 5, whether he was an ex-Argentinos player who somehow betrayed his former club or carried out a particularly nasty tackle in a game in 2005. Memories are long and grudges are rarely forgotten. But he took a tremendous amount of abuse every time he had the ball and whenever he came close to the touchline, some fans would hurl themselves at the fence that keeps us caged in and expertly lob balls of phlegm in his direction.

Referees everywhere take constant abuse, it’s in the job description. I thought Saul Laverni had a good match, authoritative without getting in the way of a game that always threatened to boil over. Yet he must have been aware of the constant, none-too-kind references to his mother’s, his sister’s and, rather unnecessarily I thought, his grandmother’s private parts.

However well he performs, he’s going to go home thinking: “No-one loves me.” It must get to you, eventually. There’s no doubt in my mind that a Sunday night game, and especially a Sunday night victory, is hugely therapeutic. If you’ve spent all week driving through Buenos Aires traffic or selling kitchen worktops or dealing with complaints from cable television customers then you probably save all that pent up fury for Sunday night to spew in the direction of the referee or that opposing number 5.

Laverni - leave his grandmother alone.

No city in the world is better prepared than Buenos Aires to deal with its psychological problems. It’s got more therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and other assorted brain specialists per head of population than any other city in the world, including New York.

There’s a neighbourhood that’s unofficially been dubbed Villa Freud since so many of the above mentioned specialists work there. It’s got bookshops that deal in the art, newspaper kiosks display magazines on the subject and there are ample coffee shops with sumptuous couches where customers can continue, after their session with their shrink, to analyse over a latte.

I’m from a land where the generally held view is that only ‘nutters’ need therapy and a good cup of tea will solve most problems. “Just pull your socks up and stop feeling sorry for yourself,” is considered sound advice if you’ve just discovered in the space of a day that your girlfriend’s left you for a female work colleague and your team has put your favourite striker up for sale.

In Buenos Aires, there is no stigma attached to regular visits to a therapist. “Sorry, can’t join you for coffee since I’ve got an appointment with my therapist,” is no more embarrassing than saying: “I’m afraid I’ve got the dentist at four o’clock.” My initial reaction was: “But there’s nothing wrong with you. You seem perfectly sane to me.”

And the response was: “That’s because I see a therapist.” It starts from an early age. Trouble at school is not met with 100 lines, detention or a smack over the knuckles with a ruler. Oh no! There are therapists who talk to parents about parenting and therapists who talk to children about who knows what since the sessions are confidential.

Freud or football?

There are even therapists who deal with people who are addicted to therapy. I understand the attraction. For a mere 150pesos you can ramble incoherently, divulge your intricate theories on the subject that fascinates us all more than any other – ourselves.

“Everybody hates me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. Why do you say that?”
“Well, just yesterday I had twenty thousand people spitting at me and saying horribly unpleasant things about my mother’s and my sister’s private parts. Someone was even rude about my grandmother.”
“I’m sure you’re imagining things. Now let’s talk about your childhood. What were your ambitions? Football referee? Hold on a minute. It was you, wasn’t it? Last night at the Velez game? That was never a free-kick! What are you, blind as well as stupid?! Your grandmother’s a whore and … get out of here, and pay my receptionist on your way out.”

One of the most pleasant afternoons I ever spent in Buenos Aires was at the Jose T Borda psychiatric hospital. The patients run their own radio station, Radio Colifata, broadcast to the neighbourhood and beyond. Colifata is the local slang, or lunfardo, for ‘loveable fool.’

They sing and recite poetry, talk politics and discuss their condition. The show attracts an audience of family and friends of the patients as well as medical experts from around the world interested in this voice which is available to people who are so often pushed out of sight and not listened to.

The French singer, Manu Chao, has recorded at the hospital, incorporating the musings and music of some of the patients into an album full of wit and intelligence.

It’s not all easy listening. While I was there, one patient told me repeatedly that he was going on a trip to Uruguay. The nurses gently removed him. Then the show was interrupted when a man in pyjamas lay down in the middle of the patio where the makeshift studio had been set up and ate a banana.

Argentines, with their recent history of military terror and economic madness, have plenty to be disturbed about – as well as the routine problems that the rest of the world also endures, like getting to work, wayward children, obnoxious bosses and centre-forwards that can’t seem to put the ball in the net.

The Argentine mental health system is private and not cheap so is pretty much only available to the affluent middle classes. But thanks to referees who can take a bit of abuse, everyone else has got football.

That first defeat had to come one day and there’s no shame in it being away to the reigning champions, Velez Sarsfield. But the Red Bichos could and should have won this one. They played the better football but missed a couple of sitters. So a sad result, compounded for me on the way home when, bizarrely, I walked into an underground train carriage to be met by the wailing of a bagpipe playing busker. Of all the train carriages in the all the world I had to walk into this one!

I hate the bagpipes and this one sounded, to my un-tartan ear, like an especially rabid sack of guinea-pigs being squashed to death. That was the down side. On the plus side, Argentinos Juniors’ away support was impressive, thousands making the trip across the city to the Liniers neighbourhood. This is one of the shortest journeys they have to make but Buenos Aires is a huge city and traversing it is never easy – for all sorts of reasons.

Unaccustomed to Defeat

I began my voyage from the Once train station, right in the heart funnily enough of the Once (pro: On-Say) neighbourhood. This is smack-bang in the centre of Buenos Aires and has traditionally been the magnet for Argentina’s newly arrived immigrants. East European Jews came here, then Koreans. Nowadays you’re more likely to buy your less than original Nike trainers from a Bolivian or a Paraguayan. There are also Peruvians and a fair smattering of West Africans and Chinese.

The streets are a bustling hive of activity, with the shops selling assorted plastic things wholesale. The pavements are crowded with trestle tables, rugs and boxes displaying an array of bras, umbrellas, watches, baseball caps and odd, pointy implements for massaging your scalp. It’s a colourful hodge-podge of slightly squalid urban life. You wouldn’t be totally surprised if a young waif popped out of the shadows and in a Cockney accent asked if: “You couldn’t spare a farving for an hungry lad, could you guvnor?”

The train out of Once was more of a metal tube on wheels. The seats had lost their padding long ago, the entrails of the door mechanisms hung loose and many of the windows had no glass. Light bulbs were missing. The passengers were different to those you see in the north of Buenos Aires. They were generally darker skinned for a start. Many looked exhausted. Those lucky enough to grab a seat, slept, their skin blotchy and unhealthy. Rolls of fat told of cheap hotdogs eaten on the move.

The train rattled through dark stations taking these people, known locally as ‘the poor’, on their arduous daily trek from the wealthy centre and north of Buenos Aires, where they work as maids and security guards, to the urban sprawl that surrounds the city.

There are two very different sides to Buenos Aires. There’s the European part of the city which the guide books talk of. The German timber frame houses and cafes, the Italian fresh pasta shops and the English schools – with names like St Swithins, St Georges, St Catherines – all blazers and cricket and polo. The wealthy ladies of the Barrio Norte neighbourhood wear their fur coats in the summer while they walk their poodles to their hair-dressers. These people look outwards, taking their holidays in Miami or Europe, visiting their clubs at the weekend. They simply never go to the poorer parts of the city, there’s no need. They’re only reminded that the poverty exists when they catch a glimpse of the cartoneros, residents of the shanty towns who scavenge in the rubbish containers outside our houses for any cardboard, paper or glass, anything, that can be recycled.

And if you’re reduced to travelling on public transport, then you’ll meet a constant stream of grubby children trying to sell you pictures of saints. They’ll be followed by mothers with babies, blind guitar players being led by their children, disabled people with lottery tickets, not very good jugglers and men selling chocolate just on or just past the sell-by date.

My ticket to this game cost 30 pesos, a little less than five pounds. That would feed a family for several days. So football in Argentina, while cheap compared to Europe, is out of reach for many Argentines. When Boca Juniors play, there are always fans outside the ground who can’t afford to enter. They listen to the game on their radios hoping to catch some of the vibes and atmosphere from inside the stadium.

One of the clichés about Argentina is that it’s a land of great unfulfilled promise. It’s got the lot. It’s got mountains and pastures, oil and cows, great lakes, huge glaciers, a rich coastline and yet it seems to lurch from one crisis to another. It’s a country riddled with corruption and poor quality politicians.

It’s difficult to know exactly how bad the poverty in Argentina is since the official figures can’t be trusted. What you can see with your own eyes are growing shanty towns both in and around the main cities, whole families sleeping in shop doorways in the city centres and rising crime.

While the shanty towns, or villas, and other marginal neighbourhoods are growing, they’re also having to battle against the increasing problems brought by the spread of crack cocaine, or paco.  But it’s still football that provides relief and often an escape for the boys who live there. Diego Maradona was one high profile example, Carlos Tevez another.

A recent newspaper investigation into what happened to the boys Tevez played with found that one had been killed in a shoot-out with the police while another was serving time in prison for robbery.

We take a short break now from domestic football while Argentina faces the small life or death issue of whether its national team will qualify for the 2010 World Cup. It’s hanging in the balance with two games to go, against Peru at home then old rivals, Uruguay away.

I’m convinced Argentinos Juniors will bounce back from tonight’s defeat, renewed, refreshed and not a bit down-hearted. I, on the other hand, must do something to get the wailing of those bagpipes out of my head.