Quill's Tour - Boca Juniors vs River Plate
What a game.
When I heard I´d got tickets to the biggest, baddest derby on the planet I thought Santa had come early. Imagine the Merseyside or Manc derby and times it by 10. I kid you not.
I´d been speaking to a sound bloke (Boca fan) who worked at the Milhouse hostel we´d been staying in and had organised the bus trip to the game for all of us. He told me some recent history. Boca were top of the league. They´d won everything recently. They´re the best team in South America and are the holders of the equivalent of the european cup I believe - the copa or south american cup or whatever its called. They´ve won the Argentina championship the last three times. they´re an arrogant bunch that know they´re the best. This bloke was certain of the scoreline today. It was going to be 3-1 to Boca.
This time though the game was at the River stadium - a mad concrete urban hellhole of a thing which you have to go across a spaghetti junction to get through. Walking across the bridge to it I felt a bit of a buzz. I wouldn´t want to play here away. Forget that for a game of soldiers.
River by contrast were 2nd or 3rd in the league. Always been a good side but fallen on hard times recently, especially when it comes to playing boca. last won something two years ago (the championship - the championship here is 6 monthly by the way). They really needed a win to restore credibility and were 3/1 underdogs going into the game... and thats at home.
Becky and I both had quite big hangovers, having been to pacha till 6 and then up at around 10 to get to the game. The stadium holds around 70,000. we had to get there 2 hours early to get decent seats to avoid getting pis sed on by boca. Massive build up to the game - 2 whole football matches before it, one of them I think was boca reserves or yuth v river reserves or youth - a kid got sent off for over-celebrating. By the time the real game started the place was cooking. No alcohol allowed for any game in argentina and you can see why. This lot are mad for it, give them alcohol and you´d have a riot every game.
I´d already decided i was going to follow river because i hate mardonna cos of hand of goal. The dirty cheat used to play for boca, so boca could get screwed as far as i´m concerned. Charlie sniffing fat deigo.
To while away the time some mad dwarf next to me has bought a bin bag of newspapers and is handing them out to everyone to tear up into confetti to throw in the air when the team come out. There´s a serious 70 year old mafia looking bloke sat next to me, white hair slicked back, looking like he means business, all the locals for some reason have passed him their membership cards so he´s obviously some kind of daddy.
River fans are dressed in white and red, and believe me there´s a lot of them. The 70,000 stadium is completely full and 95% of them are River. These guys are screaming, singing chants, all in unison, seas of people.
The game kicks off, confetti everywhere and river hit the bar twice in the first minute. River score first from scrappy ian rush type goal then boca equalise with decent goal against the angles. The 2nd river goal is mustard though. Bloke picks it up from halfway line dribbling it past people maradonna style then slots in home once he´s in the box. Crowd go completley mental.. people hugging each other like long lost brothers who haven´t seen each other for 20 years.. a flag comes down on half the stadium completely covering half of the river fans who are now smoke bombing themsleves out on purpose with red and white smoke bombs to show how much they care. I´m choking with smoke and I´m on the other side.. and not under a flag! One geezer falls off a bit of the stadium in excitement.. about 40 foot...paramedics everywhere
By the time the 3rd goal comes in river are really dominating. Every time they go forward they look like they´re going to score. The third goal is through the legs of the keeper, and this one means so much because the River fans know it means they´ve won it (only about 14 minutes left of the game). The dwarf is flailing his flid arms around everywhere like a lunatic, Mafia man is making SOS signs at the boca fans and is screaming with gloat. In fact every fan is raging at the small quiet boca bit of the stadium and are coating them off.... v signs, two fingers, shake the coffee beans, SOS signs. The stadium is shaking so much that becky is getting scared - this big concrete thing suddently seems like its made out of plastic!
when final whistle goes, all you can see are seas of arms in the air. Everyone has their shirts off, waving them in the air. The whole Riverstadium ae all like one massive heaving entity.. one beast. Everyone is doing co-ordinated dances and chants. Cos i´m hungover and all the adrenalin... I´m struggling to speak properly. I´d stopped trying to capture the moment on camera after the first 2 goals and decided just to take it all in and enjoy the moment.
Boca fans are setting fires everywhere and tearing off the seats, throwing them at river and climbing across the thin walls to try and get near them (if you fall, you´re dead.. like jam.. twin towers style). security don´t fancy it, fireman are getting involved, policeman.. three helicopters in the air.. boca surrounded. the best bit was that its all par for the course.. the river fans are too busy celebrating to give a sh it.. a few of the calmer ones are even reading the programme- hello!.. no one interested in the full scale riot going on.. its just a normal occurence... loads of hard deadly chairs falling down 100 feet onto river fans... pure lunacy.
We saw the boca bus on the way back, guarded by police motorcycles and a bullet proof van... matey boy from the hostel who´d predicted 3-1 the other way knocked a bloke out getting to the window of the bus. leaning out of it and screaming "its ok, you´re still the best, we´re gonna the win the league again, don´t worry about it" etc (all in argentinian).
When I heard I´d got tickets to the biggest, baddest derby on the planet I thought Santa had come early. Imagine the Merseyside or Manc derby and times it by 10. I kid you not.
I´d been speaking to a sound bloke (Boca fan) who worked at the Milhouse hostel we´d been staying in and had organised the bus trip to the game for all of us. He told me some recent history. Boca were top of the league. They´d won everything recently. They´re the best team in South America and are the holders of the equivalent of the european cup I believe - the copa or south american cup or whatever its called. They´ve won the Argentina championship the last three times. they´re an arrogant bunch that know they´re the best. This bloke was certain of the scoreline today. It was going to be 3-1 to Boca.
This time though the game was at the River stadium - a mad concrete urban hellhole of a thing which you have to go across a spaghetti junction to get through. Walking across the bridge to it I felt a bit of a buzz. I wouldn´t want to play here away. Forget that for a game of soldiers.
River by contrast were 2nd or 3rd in the league. Always been a good side but fallen on hard times recently, especially when it comes to playing boca. last won something two years ago (the championship - the championship here is 6 monthly by the way). They really needed a win to restore credibility and were 3/1 underdogs going into the game... and thats at home.
Becky and I both had quite big hangovers, having been to pacha till 6 and then up at around 10 to get to the game. The stadium holds around 70,000. we had to get there 2 hours early to get decent seats to avoid getting pis sed on by boca. Massive build up to the game - 2 whole football matches before it, one of them I think was boca reserves or yuth v river reserves or youth - a kid got sent off for over-celebrating. By the time the real game started the place was cooking. No alcohol allowed for any game in argentina and you can see why. This lot are mad for it, give them alcohol and you´d have a riot every game.
I´d already decided i was going to follow river because i hate mardonna cos of hand of goal. The dirty cheat used to play for boca, so boca could get screwed as far as i´m concerned. Charlie sniffing fat deigo.
To while away the time some mad dwarf next to me has bought a bin bag of newspapers and is handing them out to everyone to tear up into confetti to throw in the air when the team come out. There´s a serious 70 year old mafia looking bloke sat next to me, white hair slicked back, looking like he means business, all the locals for some reason have passed him their membership cards so he´s obviously some kind of daddy.
River fans are dressed in white and red, and believe me there´s a lot of them. The 70,000 stadium is completely full and 95% of them are River. These guys are screaming, singing chants, all in unison, seas of people.
The game kicks off, confetti everywhere and river hit the bar twice in the first minute. River score first from scrappy ian rush type goal then boca equalise with decent goal against the angles. The 2nd river goal is mustard though. Bloke picks it up from halfway line dribbling it past people maradonna style then slots in home once he´s in the box. Crowd go completley mental.. people hugging each other like long lost brothers who haven´t seen each other for 20 years.. a flag comes down on half the stadium completely covering half of the river fans who are now smoke bombing themsleves out on purpose with red and white smoke bombs to show how much they care. I´m choking with smoke and I´m on the other side.. and not under a flag! One geezer falls off a bit of the stadium in excitement.. about 40 foot...paramedics everywhere
By the time the 3rd goal comes in river are really dominating. Every time they go forward they look like they´re going to score. The third goal is through the legs of the keeper, and this one means so much because the River fans know it means they´ve won it (only about 14 minutes left of the game). The dwarf is flailing his flid arms around everywhere like a lunatic, Mafia man is making SOS signs at the boca fans and is screaming with gloat. In fact every fan is raging at the small quiet boca bit of the stadium and are coating them off.... v signs, two fingers, shake the coffee beans, SOS signs. The stadium is shaking so much that becky is getting scared - this big concrete thing suddently seems like its made out of plastic!
when final whistle goes, all you can see are seas of arms in the air. Everyone has their shirts off, waving them in the air. The whole Riverstadium ae all like one massive heaving entity.. one beast. Everyone is doing co-ordinated dances and chants. Cos i´m hungover and all the adrenalin... I´m struggling to speak properly. I´d stopped trying to capture the moment on camera after the first 2 goals and decided just to take it all in and enjoy the moment.
Boca fans are setting fires everywhere and tearing off the seats, throwing them at river and climbing across the thin walls to try and get near them (if you fall, you´re dead.. like jam.. twin towers style). security don´t fancy it, fireman are getting involved, policeman.. three helicopters in the air.. boca surrounded. the best bit was that its all par for the course.. the river fans are too busy celebrating to give a sh it.. a few of the calmer ones are even reading the programme- hello!.. no one interested in the full scale riot going on.. its just a normal occurence... loads of hard deadly chairs falling down 100 feet onto river fans... pure lunacy.
We saw the boca bus on the way back, guarded by police motorcycles and a bullet proof van... matey boy from the hostel who´d predicted 3-1 the other way knocked a bloke out getting to the window of the bus. leaning out of it and screaming "its ok, you´re still the best, we´re gonna the win the league again, don´t worry about it" etc (all in argentinian).
posted by Paul @ 10:07 pm
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