On Sunday we fancied football - Boca Juniors vs Rosario Central at La Bombonera. Boca are the Man Utd of Argentina, but having a season more like Liverpool.
The Bombonera is painted bright blue and yellow, and it has 3 3-tier concrete sides giving it a 49,000 capacity - not bad for a stadium whose fourth side looks more like a narrow block of flats. It's not beautiful, but the 35-40,000 odd fans give it some welly. The perpetual drumbeat powers a wave of singing that continues throughout the 90 minutes.
I feel as if we've cheated a bit by signing up for a guided visit, and also as if I've been ripped off a bit (although we paid safely less than a match at the Emirates), but given the very short notice, the fact that it was promoted at our hostel and the bad reputation of the ground it seemed the sensible thing to do. So we went along with GreenGoal - which I like to think is a pun on 'gringo' - who promised us transport, a ticket, and a tour of something or other. The tour turns out to be walking through a few streets in the La Boca area to the back of a restaurant where we could drink overpriced beer bottles out of a barrel and we're told it's 'better' not to go back into the tourist-filled streets (I'll report on them when we've been back anyway), and means that the whole matchday experience takes nearly 8 hours. So what we get out of the tour is a 600% premium on the tickets, a disinterested guide who tells us nothing, entry into a shirt raffle at the restaurant and transport - but to be fair, getting out of La Boca at night is probably worth paying for, as it's not the most salubrious neighbourhood. But the stadium itself felt perfectly safe - we stood in the middle tier at one end, and the far end was 'la dolce' with the most devoted fans, which really buzzed and jumped at times. The long side in between was all seated, which would be even safer.
Decent match and a great atmosphere - it's a bonus to see a classic Argentinean No.10, Juan Roman Riquelme, back from Spain. Every moment of real class comes from him, apart from a couple of decent touches by 36-year-old striker Martin Palermo (best know for missing 3 penalties in a single match). Goals are exchanged towards the end of the first half, and Boca completely dominate the second before, inevitably, losing 2-1 to a sloppy goal from a late free kick, and Riquelme is sent off for complaining (reports suggest that he had a case). The away fans above us finally make themselves heard but the Boca drumbeat goes on. The away team celebrate as if they've just won the league. (According to our leaflet, here the away fans leave first and have half an hour to get clear before the home fans are allowed to leave. In reality it's a bit quicker than that, and they only hold the home fans in the stands - the seats empty out straight away.)
We also had a brief 'conversation' about football with a taxi driver who spoke as much English as we do Spanish. We did manage to agree that Maradona is a 'disaster', and the two England players he felt moved to comment on were Rooney, who is 'loco', and - believe it or not - Peter Crouch, who 'scores a lot of goals for the national team'. I nearly ventured that he had 'Un touch bueno por un hombre grande' but thought better of it.
As we'd missed out on seeing Barcelona play at Arsenal, this felt an appropriate place to see Messi put 4 past Lilly's team in the return leg. I get the sense that the locals think this is all well and good, but it would be nice if he showed the same form for Argentina...
On Monday we had a good lunch in a lovely wood-panelled cafe that could be in Paris or Madrid, wandered around the 'microcentro', bought nothing from the many, many sports shops, and popped into Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in BA (I would believe you if you told me that some people went for the opening and are still waiting to be given their menus, but it has a rather grand feel to it).
In the evening, following a suggestion from our hostel desk, we headed out into the wilds to see La Bomba Del Tiempo, a collection of drummers playing a whole bunch of different types of drums. I almost felt like a proper traveller, not just someone who gets dragged to shopping malls all around the world. I think every backpacker in BA must have been there. Good fun, although it wears out its welcome eventually, as you realise why most bands also have other instruments too, and maybe some vocals. We finished the evening playing Trivial Pursuit in a fun bar called Krakow. Incidentally, if you've been there and stolen all the organs from its Operation game, please bring them back.
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