One for the lads.......Boca football

Sooooooooooo.....turns out it is pretty easy to get a Boca shirt - loads of people selling them on the street, especially when there´s a massive market on Sunday´s in Buenos Aires. Cost an extra 40 pesos but that´s not exactly breaking the bank and it looks more real than the other dodgy guy who was selling it on the street. And this person had more hair, so definately trustworthy. So I handed my 140 (20 quid) pesos over in exchange for the number 10 Boca Juniors home shirt, currently donned by Juan Roman Riquelme, once sported by the legendary Maradona at the same club. They bloody love that fat Argentine here, statues of him in the stadium museum, lifesize models of him outside shops charging 10 (1.40 quid) pesos to get a photo with, and even some fat bloke in the street who half resembled him asking for 50 (7 quid) pesos for a photo with him whilst he wears his old grubby shirt which only half resembles the Argentina shirt. Nice to see he put the same amount of effort in as his looks.

Anyway they love Riquelme just as much nowadays which is cool cos he is a pretty dam good footballer, shame I can´t say the same for the rest of the team.

Anyway, rant over.....lets start from the start..........

Donning my number 10 Boca Juniors shirt, we reluctanly handed over our 640 pesos (90 quid) to the hostel which got us our ticket, and transport there and back, and supposedly a tour guide to keep you safe in the stadium. We had heard stories of non locals (or gringos) getting beaten up just for wearing the wrong colours, even if its not even a football shirt. After a few beers at our hostel bar we boarded the bus, one guy being told he couldn´t bring beers on board so had to neck the 3 he just bought for the journey. The bus dropped us off just outside the stadium to a "bar" that the guide promised us before hand. This "bar" turned out to be just someone´s basement or garage which was highly dodgy where we could buy beer or beer by the tin for 20 pesos (about 3 quid). After purchasing my second overpriced tin we were promptly told we had to leave and we couldn´t drink on the street so we endulged in some more necking!

After leaving the bar we were told that the way we were all entering the stadium, quote...."wasn´t exactly offical".....end quote. We were all handed a members card with photo ID on. My name was now "Marcos Martin Guardia" and I had endured some plastic surgery and assumed I had become fluent in Spanish.

(not that you can really make it out but here is our mate Ash we went with, who got a similar membership card with a white Argentian chap on it. He dropped the funniest line I´d heard since I´d got here....."Jesus Christ, didn´t realise I´d got that good a tan since leaving the UK!")

Anyway, back to the story.......the ground was highly policed with guards doing pat downs and metal scanners etc. We all nervously queued up as our "tour guide" was no where to be seen and we had no idea if we were going to make it through the security checks seeing as no one looked like their pictures. With all of us silent as can be so as not to alert them to us being English (and some of the lads Aussie) we all got through fine, seems all they were bothered about were lighters which they confiscated as we were later told they were always used as missiles so banned from the ground).

So anyway, part one a success we got in to find a pretty empty stadium, with some conrete steps to sit on which they called "seats". The stadium is pretty epic, kind of a half oval all around the pitch exept for one side which kinda looks like a block of council flats.

 As the stadium started to fill up a bit, they ran through the team, I obviously had to get a photo of Riquelme as he popped up on thr big screen, the crowd going wild. 

And as any true Brit would do, I donned my home team shirt (underneath my Boca shirt) and got a photo as quick as I could, with the memory of stories of wrong colours in the back of my mind. But it had to be done, when else is a chap wearing a leicester shirt going to be in the Boca ground?! The team definately ain´t gonna make it there! About 2 seconds after this photo was taken the Aussie lads I went with hit me where you don´t wanna be hit, cheers guys! Holding my now soar testes, I threw my Boca shirt back on.

With the stadium now completely full and the players coming out of the tunnel, the place went off. I´ve been to a few football games in my time, including the mighty Leicester beating Tranmere at Wembley back in 2000, where I thought the atmosphere could never be topped......but to my dismay it was. I´ve never heard anything like it and I doubt any football fans back home will have either. To the lads who went to Munich, imagine that, times it by about 20 (literally) and then imagine that for every second of every minute of the entire match! Flares going off the second the players hit the pitch, fans taking their shirts off and swinging them around into my face with every turn, it really was incredible. By the time kick off started you were as crammed into the stadium as you might be on a London Train at rush hour. No room to sit, looked like we were standing for the entire game then!

So, with Boca supposedly being a great team, and Union Sante Fe being the supposed crap opposition who are facing relegation, we thought we were in for a home team goals fest. Within minutes Union scored but it was ruled offside. Minutes later, as home fans were shouting their songs, Union scored an awesome goal, with a Messi-esc chip over the out rushing keeper. You´d think this would silence the home fans......not even for a second, it just made them get even loader (which I didn´t think was possible) and support their team!

.......60 minutes gone and Boca were 3-0 down at home, still with the crowd going mental. With us gringos thinking Boca were now pants and me even commenting to Ash that Leicester would most likely beat them or at least give them a good game (which I have since retracted since finding out City lost 0-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday!), Boca managed to score a late goal to make it 3-1. Might have helped if players passed to each other, seemed like the defenders passed to midfielders who dribbled until they lost it. Riquelme was the only one who looked half decent. With the Aussie guys moaning that football was pants as players spent most the time on the floor (he had a point, one dude was on rolling around for literally 5 mins and of course got up after that with no medical assistance), the ref blew the whistle. We were locked up in our part of the ground for an hour after full time with the mental fans so the others could get out safely, still squished together....it really helped that the guys were walking through the crowd with drinks smashing you in the face with their box and tredding on your feet as they struggled past.

After finally getting out of the stadium, our tour guide was of course no where to be seen so we walked around in the scary neighbourhood of Boca at 11pm and managed to stumble across our bus!

In summary 

• Boca are pants
• Leicester would batter Boca
• Boca fans are mental
• The stadium is crammed full, and you will get trodden on, hit in the face with boxes and shirts
• Players spend half their time on the floor
• Players are super greedy
• Riquelme is bad ass
• Argentinians can`t dribble unless your name is Maradona, Ardiles, Battistuta Messi, Aguero, Teves or Di Maria
• Tour guides don`t keep you safe
• Ash can pass as a white man
• I just noticed there´s actually no evidence of me in my Boca shirt! I have it, honest!

Anyway, visiting the stadium later on in the light you can see the past players names and footprints like in Hollywood. I opted to check out Riquelmes footprint over Maradona´s seeing as he´s no cheat. Has bigger feet than me too.

Sorry for the essay of a blog, but there was too much to say.....innit. Check my bad self outside the Bombonera. Owwwwwwwww