Backpacking South America

That’s what we heard at the Boca Jrs game – perhaps the most famous futbol club in Argentina and the former team of Argentine’s most loved and second most hated personality (behind Kristina Kirschner) in Argentina – Diego Maradona*.

We were fortunate enough to make it to a Boca Jrs home game recently to experience the energy and passion firsthand.  We went with a group instead of finding our own way into the game, dealing with scalpers and navigating the slightly dangerous streets of La Boca.  So, we piled into the bus and made our way towards the stadium.  There must have been more than 60 other people (we just kept picking up more and more people…the seats were full and there was no more room in the aisles with all the people standing.

Prior to the game, we made a stop at a bar in La Boca where they fed us as much pizza and beer as they could, probably to encourage us to sing louder and have a good time.  They desperately tried to get us to sing the team songs, but that is a bit tricky when there are 12 songs/chants.  After consuming more beer than pizza, everybody was corralled back onto the bus and shuttled a few blocks to the game.

The security at the games was pretty tight, once you got in. First, we had to pass through the police checkpoints to reach the stadium, then through 3 ticket scanners before reaching our seats in the upper deck.

The idea of the tour company was to keep us away from the rabid fans, which can be pretty dangerous (so we’re told), but the result is that we were isolated from the real passionate fans and seated in a relaxed section.  We still had a decent view, even though we were near the top of the upper deck.

We were the fortunate ones to sit at the top of the banner with the team emblem that they roll out over the fans in the upper deck, which meant that we had to run the banner out and make sure the fans didn’t pull it too far over…we’re not talking a little banner, it was about as wide as the field and we had to keep rolling it out – it was quite a team effort.  It was something like this.

The game itself was great to watch and was very close.  Unfortunately, it was extremely cold and being in the upper levels, we were assaulted by winds.  We were bundled in our fleeces and rain jackets to ward of the wind and cold.

In the end though, Boca Jrs just couldn’t pull it out and Independiente (the other team) scored a goal in the 85^th minute and ended winning 2 – 1.

*Diego Maradona singlehandedly (literally, he scored a goal using his hand, and the goal is known as the ‘Hand of God’ goal) beat England in the World Cup final.  He later scored one of the more impressive goals ever by going end-to-end and scoring.  He became a legend in that game.  However, since that time he has been a deplorable role model (drugs, crime, affairs, etc.).    But, every time he is given another chance by his fans and ultimately, Argentina.

Maradona is now the coach of the national team and has been under great scrutiny due to the teams mediocre performance despite having some of the best players in the world.  Any other coach would have been fired or burned at the stake if they churned out his results, however, due to Maradona’s god-like status, he somehow survives.