Panorama of River Plate Stadium, Before the Match
Before I came to South America, I wasn't a football fan. I'm still not a gigantic football fan; but when in Rome, you go and see the Roman circuses.
Back in Rio de Janeiro, I attended a Série A (Brasileirão) game between Flamengo (the most popular team in Brazil) and Santo André. At the time (late August), Flamengo was stuck in the middle of the table and lost their last three league games. Meanwhile, Santo André was close to the relegation spot. The game was played at Maracanã Stadium; but with maybe only fifteen-thousand fans, the stadium wasn't even a quarter full. It wasn't great football, and the atmosphere was somewhat lacking, but the limited number of win-starved Flamengo fans at the stadium still screamed and cheered as loud as they could. Flamengo won 3-0.
A week after the Flamengo match, I was sitting in a bar in Ipanema, watching Brazil play Argentina in a 2010 World Cup Qualifying Match in Buenos Aires. I learned a few things during this game: that the Brazilian / Argentine football rivalry is intense, that Argentina was in serious danger of missing out on a World Cup berth, and that Brazilians really, really dislike Diego Maradona. The Argentinians' World Cup chances were not helped by the fact that they lost the game 3-1.
When I arrived for my first round in Buenos Aires in early October, I found out that Argentina was playing Peru – in Buenos Aires – the very next night. It was the second-to-last round of World Cup Qualifying for the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (Confederation of South American Football). After the defeat to Brazil, Argentina had lost again to Paraguay, putting them in a precarious position. The game against Peru was a must-win for Argentina. And I quickly decided that it was a must-see for me.
Three hours after I arrived at my hostel, I had a booking for a ticket and a guided transfer to and from the Stadium.
The game turned out to the be the most insane sporting event I have ever attended in person.
Getting Ready for the Game
I was picked up at the hostel at 3:00pm. All of us gringos going to the match met up at a large park near the stadium, to have a beer or two and socialise before the game. That get-together was our last chance to get any alcohol until after the game. Argentine football stadiums do not sell any beer during the games. Given the amount of, er, passion that Argentinians have for football – calling football a religion in Argentina would be drastically understating things – this policy seems to be a very smart idea.
Just a Little Bit of Stadium Security
Kickoff was at 7:00pm. I was in my seat at River Plate Stadium – the national stadium of Argentina – by 6:30pm. I was sitting in a section behind the goal that the Argentinians defended for the first half, and about a hundred metres from a cordoned-off section for the three-hundred-odd Peruvians that were brave enough to attend the game. The locals sitting around me spent approximately fifty percent of their time concentrating not on the game, but on hurling myriads of insults the Peruvians' way. If I didn't know what hijo de puta or cabeza de mierda or concha tu madre meant before the game, I was certainly educated when that twelve-year-old, sitting two rows down from me, let fly with those little gems five minutes before kickoff.
Some Brave, Brave Peruvians
After seventeen minutes of national anthems, the game started.
Getting Ready to Kick Off
The atmosphere was incredible. Songs would start up with one or two people singing two or three words; a split-second later, the entire stadium would be singing along. The fans were ridiculously vocal. The insults towards the Peruvians hadn't let up, and the fans were just as willing to scream commentary on their own team – lavishing praise on those players who showed creativity with the ball, and heaping insults on others who weren't living up to expectations. The Argentine team seemed tense, controlling much of the play for the first half, but failing to bury any of their multiple chances on goal. Gabriel Heinze (#6) seemed to fall down a lot in the backfield, leading to a few good Peruvian chances, and much derision from the hometown fans.
Once the second half started, Argentina came out flying and scored three minutes in. The place went nuts.
Post Goal Celebration (Note: Some Swearing, in Spanish, Directed at the Peruvian Supporters)
Five minutes after that goal was scored, the game really started to go crazy. Not because the quality of football improved, but because the rains came. The rain steadily increased until the stadium was enveloped in a torrential downpour. Monsoon-like buckets of water and gusts of wind. I was standing in three inches of water. This is why I don't have any more pictures or video from the game.
No Images Available
For the final twenty minutes of the game, everybody – except, maybe the Peruvians – just wanted the game to end. People were drenched. My waterproof Gore-Tex wasn't quite so waterproof anymore. The rain was really testing the limits on the All-Weather cover on my camera bag. Yet most everybody stayed right where they were, determined to see the game through to its conclusion.
The rain just kept getting harder, and the playing conditions were terrible. From my end of the pitch, I could barely see what was going on past the halfway line. Peru seemed to be carrying the play, and I missed most of the action on the far side of the field. With lightning going off in the distance, I wondered whether they would call the game due to the weather. But the game went on.
It took me a minute to work out what happened when Peru scored the equaliser during the eighty-ninth minute of play. The entire stadium went silent, except for three-hundred cheering Peruvian fans. There was less than a minute left in regulation time. A draw was not going to cut it – unless Argentina won outright, elimination from the World Cup was all but guaranteed.
"Shit." I thought. "We could be very, very screwed."
A quick glance at the faces of my fellow gringo attendees showed that they shared my concern. I suppose we all figured that there were certainly much safer places for us to be than in a stadium full of wet, very pissed-off Argentine football fans. Like Darfur, maybe. Or the Darién Gap. Or Mogadishu.
Then the miracle happened.
Somehow – somehow – Argentina turned the play around and scored two minutes into injury time.
The place went nuts. Everybody started jumping around and hugging and high-fiving each other. The Argentinians were ecstatic, exuding a collective sense of, "We're still alive! We're still alive!" with respect to their World Cup chances. Us gringos were also jumping up and down like maniacs, also thinking, "We're still alive! We're still alive!". However, our relief was much less figurative; it was more an acknowledgment that we weren't all going to die in a stampede, while Argentinians attempted to get at the Peruvian fans behind us.
After the game, a group of us sat around at the hostel, loudly reminiscing over large amounts of pizza and beer. We were all in different sections of the stadium, and thus sharing different experiences.
"Did you have any idea what was going on when that Peruvian goal was scored?"
"How much water did you have to wring out of your pants?"
"Did you see the Maradona belly flop celebration?"
"How long do you think it will take for our shoes to dry?"
"Were you as relieved as I was over getting out of the stadium alive?"
The night didn't end until well past 3:00am.
(Since I didn't get many photos or videos of the game, I looked up a Youtube video of the game highlights. It's in German, but you'll get the gist from the images.)
0 comments
Post a Comment