When imagining a football match in Buenos Aires many visualise La Bombonera shuddering to its foundations by the jumping mass of blue and yellow Boca Juniors fans or the majestic Estadio Monumental bedecked in streams of ticker tape when hosting Argentina’s World Cup victory in 1978. My experience earlier this month was different, very different indeed.
As I discovered when planning my trip to Buenos Aires, gaining admission to one of the Argentine capital’s largest clubs, such as Boca or River Plate, is by no means straightforward. Both clubs have significant numbers of members or socios, with over 340,000 each (only Real Madrid have more). These socios have priority when it comes to buying match tickets so there is limited availability for non-members. One of the only ways of buying tickets in advance is through a third party, who charge a heavy premium with the cost ranging from $150 upwards.
Additionally and bizarrely, the kick-off times of the clubs’ domestic fixtures are only announced a week or so in advance so it makes life even more complicated. Fortunately, like London, there are plenty of other clubs in Buenos Aires, with over twenty in the greater metropolitan area, of which eight play in the current Primera Division. We bought tickets through an agency along with a guide to accompany us to ensure a smooth passage as we were warned that many of the clubs are based in rough neighbourhoods or barrios.
I plumped for the reigning Primera Division champions, Vélez Sarsfield, a club that is very proud of its local support base. Our guide Daniel explained how one of their regular chants is focused entirely on how they are not like Boca or River Plate, who attract swathes of international tourists and a fair degree of scorn from Vélez fans. The club motto also reinforces their traditions – ‘The First to be a Great Club’.
There is an emphasis on producing home grown talent, with World Cup winner Nicolas Otamendi the best known academy product. Otamendi joined the club when he was seven and progressed to the first team before moving to his first European club Porto. Alongside Otamendi, the most famous Vélez player came from Paraguay, José Luis Chilavert who played for them in the 1990s. Chilavert’s claim to fame stemmed from the fact that he scored around forty goals for the club, a remarkable record that was the result of him not only taking penalties but also being pretty adept at scoring direct free kicks.
Through a combination of factors this was a low key affair, with the 45,000 capacity stadium barely half full. Firstly, the match was scheduled at the rather inconvenient time of 9.15pm on a Monday night, secondly Vélez had been in poor form and lastly this was very much a mid table clash with one of the less glamorous clubs, Sarmiento. Despite the relatively sparse crowd there were phalanxes of heavily armed police in attendance as the spectators filed past through a variety of security checks before entering the José Amalfitani Stadium. Like most Argentinian club grounds there is terracing at both ends and it felt a little odd to be standing at a football match for the first time in over two decades.
At the outset, our guide Daniel admitted that he was actually a Boca fan and was wearing a long sleeved shirt to hide his array of tattoos. “When I was a guide at another ground a few months ago I was identified by one of the home fans as a Boca fan and was told to be very careful and warned that I should never return.” He also explained that he no longer attends matches at La Bombonera as during one of the many economic crises that Argentinians have suffered in the last decade he briefly stopped paying his monthly membership and was then excluded, to be placed on a very long waiting list to return.
Vélez are based in the suburb of Liniers, which is a 30-minute bus ride from the centre of town. Daniel took us to the quite shabby social club just outside the stadium for a pre-match beer and choripan (chorizo sausage in a bap). He pointed out that there is no alcohol allowed inside the ground because of the issues with crowd trouble in the past. Another ramification of the disorder is that there is a total ban on away fans, which leads to a slightly surreal atmosphere inside the ground, with none of the usual ebb and flow between opposing fans that generates the energy and spark normally associated with games at home.
We stood next to the ultras who were positioned under the streamers that stretched from the top of the terracing all the way down to the pitch side fences. To give them credit, their support was steadfast, chanting almost continuously throughout the game even though Vélez did not create a great deal to get excited about. The standard of football was akin to the English Championship with plenty of effort and the odd dash of skill but not too much finesse and a distinct lack of goalmouth action.
One of the other surprising elements of the composition of the crowd was how many young children were in attendance, especially considering the game was due to finish after 11pm on a weekday night. There were a fair few precariously perched in their prams on the steep steps of the dark blue terracing while some of the older children were being held up by parents with their faces right up against the perimeter fence.
Vélez’s stadium is known as el Fortin (the Small Fort) but this season the ramparts have been breached so many times that those fans who attended seemed a little subdued, almost resigned to their fate. When they won the title last season they were undefeated at home while this season out of their six Primera matches so far they had won just one, lost four and drawn once. In those six games they have scored only one goal in their victory over the league’s bottom side, San Martin.
The game was drifting towards a goalless draw before Sarmiento substitute Frias scored from close range with around twenty minutes remaining. It was greeted by near silence apart from the whistling of the ultras combined with the shouts of delight by the Sarmiento players who were joined in their celebrations on the pitch by all the substitutes in the absence of any of their fans.
Vélez were handed a lifeline in added time when a penalty was awarded for a handball. There followed an interminable delay for the spot kick to be taken as Sarmiento players protested and the referee spent ages checking all was ready. While waiting for the referee’s whistle the veteran striker Michael Santos lost patience and tucked the ball into the corner. To howls of derision, he was ordered to retake it and almost inevitably his second effort was not so successful as he blasted it over the bar and the host’s 1-0 loss was rubber-stamped, extending their lamentable home record.
In keeping with the stadium’s name, and maybe as an alternative bouncy castle for the massed ranks of children attending, an inflatable fort was used as a tunnel to usher the players off the pitch. As the fans drifted disconsolately away into the night, the fort was symbolically deflated along with any faint hopes of reaching the championship play-offs. Where was Chilavert when they needed him?
A version of this article will appear in the Guardian next week
‘It Started With a Kick’ – Episode 54
Journalist/broadcaster Andy Brassell is this week’s guest. Andy is a regular contributor to one of the leading football podcasts, “Football Ramble” as well as reporting on European football with the Guardian, TNT Sports, talkSPORT and BBC5Live. Andy’s formative years following football were centred around the old Plough Lane, where he used to sneak in with his mates and have a kick-about on the pitch.
One of his lasting memories was seeing his mum, who had shown little interest in football, burst into tears when Dave Beasant saved John Aldridge’s penalty in 1988 FA Cup Final. He also talks about how the sad demise of Wimbledon FC was swept away by the rapid emergence of AFC Wimbledon, leading to the happiest period of his support.
Part 1 – https://bit.ly/3RsY8jC
Part 2 – https://bit.ly/3Gmdh3Q
The Football Mine 