Joga Bonita

Hellllooo. I went to a River Plate soccer game on Saturday. River Plate is a professional team here in Argentina and they were playing Racing in what is termed a "clasico." It seems to me they call everything a "clasico" but I guess these are two of the oldest and most succesful teams in Argentinean soccer. For the record, the atmosphere of professional soccer games in Latin America shits on anything I have ever attended in the United States as far as sporting events go.

I went to the game with my friend Emanuel. On Thursday he went to the stadium at 3:30 in the morning to get in line for the tickets which went on sale at 10 (I offered to go with him but he said it was ok, good guy). The game started at 4 o'clock on Saturday, so we started to make our way over to the stadium on the bus at about 2ish. The stadium itself was sweet, it seats about 70,000. Getting in was definitely an interesting experience. You have to go through about 4 or 5 security check points and you get frisked by police at each one. Funny moment getting in was when Emanuel got pulled out of line by an officer and since I didn't know anyone else I obviously followed him. The officer had him take a breathalyser test and since I followed him out of line I also had to take it. We both tested positive on the initial breathalyser so what then happens is you have to take a second that reads the actually blood-alcohol level. I think Emanuel blew like a .02 and I got a .05, apparently you are not allowed in the stadium with above a .08. We had sausages before going in, It would have been interested to see how close to .08 I would have gotten without that sausage.

Everyone arrives in the stadium BEFORE the game starts, a very novel concept unknown in American sports. We were in the upper deck in the section with the "hinchada" which is where the die hard fans set up shop. While waiting for the game to start and throughout the game since alcohol isn't sold and impossible to bring in everyone just smokes a lot of weed. Other awesome thing: everyone wears wind pants and sweat pants to the game, so I fit right in in that respect. If there was a popped collar there is a good chance they would have been stabbed (that is the literary device of 'hyperbole' in action).

It's so awesome how it all works, the stadium is just covered with massive banners and flags and everything that people make and bring and hang everywhere, it's pretty ingenious the bottom of the banners are weighted down with water balloons that I believe they make in the bathroom before the game starts. The part of the stands where we were, I guess can be described as the heart of all the action. It's in the second deck behind one of the goals and banners are strung from the bottom to the top and across sections of the stands. The fans of this area are called "Los Borrachos del Tablon." It translates directly to "The drunks of the table." This is the Hinchada for River (every team has a hinchada some much larger than others) and it is just an unbelivable place to be.

Smack dab in the middle is a section for about 12 guys with drums that are used to beat out the rhythm and coordinate the singing of all the songs for the stadium. We were probably about 15 or 20 rows above them and we ended up holding one of the banners, the big blue and white which says "Somos Argentina" (We are Argentina) near the top. Ironic? or I still don't know how to use the term?

I spy . . . (Look at the very very top right corner of this photo. I'm holding the banner between a large man in a navy blue t-shirt with baby blue sleeves and a smaller guy (Emanuel) in a black t-shirt. I am in a white t-shirt. click on it to enlarge).

All the guys standing up on the rails are basically like the captains of fans, help lead everything. Also if you look carefully you will see that their faces (and the faces of the drummers in the picture before) are blurred out. I'm guessing these guys don't have the cleanest records and the police keep an eye out for them and their association with the hinchada.

This is what the whole game is like:

Again, when I say that there is nothing like this in the world, I really don't think there is. The whole game is one big celebration. Not once during the duration of the game does the singing stop. You can really feel the momentum of the game too with all the cheering and chanting. When there is a swing in momentum and the team is getting close to a breakthrough, the whole stadium, not just the hinchada is on their feet jumping up and down belting out the words to the songs.

Across the stadium in the upper deck behind the other goal the opposing team has their hinchada. The Racing hinchada is, "La Guardia Imperial" (The Imperial Guard). Their section is fenced in with barbed wire seperating them from the rest of the fans. They also are allowed to bring all their flags, banners, and drummers and they get equally rowdy, especially knowing that they are outnumbered in the stadium 5 to 1. I would say they had anywhere from 10 to 12 thousand there. You are probably wondering how the people under that big flag in the picture see, it only gets unfurled during certain moments.

One of the funniest parts was when the game ended and everyone just sat down. It turns out for security reasons the entire stadium has to wait for all of the opposing teams fans to leave before allowing anyone out of the stadium. Apparently they have there own entrance/exit gates that no River fans are allowed to use so as to avoid violence. So everyone just sat there for about half an hour after the game as the Racing fans made their way out. It took awhile especially because the Racing fans embrace making the River fans wait. As the police slowly funnel them out of the stands they keep on singing and playing the drums to the very last moment.