It's always tough to put these things into perspective, especially if you have not been to the other place. But fuck it, that's basically the premise for this whole blog, so here we go again.
River Plate is the most successful professional Argentine football club out there. They've won the national tournament 33 times, 10 more championships than any other team in the country. That was until Sunday when they fell to the B Division of Argentine football.
River just didn't recently shit the bed a.k.a. like got a stomach bug for a little and had a few bad games or a bad season. No, River has been in free fall, Montezuma's revenge cronic shitting the bed of sorts for a considerable period of time.
Little bit of background:
In Argentine soccer teams can move up and down between divisions according to performance, which I find to be pretty awesome. Two seasons are played each year and at the end of the second season they add up your total number of points over the last 3 years and 2 teams are sent down and 2 teams are on the chopping block playing for their division 1 life. What this means is that River, one of the most storied teams in South America, has had a stretch of 6 pretty bad seasons which eventually lead to a 2 game home and home playoff this past week with the top team of the B Division.
A semi-decent comparison of the magnitude of what transpired would be to use everybody's favorite (*cough cough*) football team, Notre Dame, as an example. Imagine that as a result of this dismal stretch of football Notre Dame is experiencing that it was moved from 1-A to 1-AA (and still have their games televised nationally). Think about the outcry, the heads that would roll, the drop in value of our picture with Rudy if that were to happen. Now picture that in Argentina where there is no other sport but soccer, with the most successful team, that has the biggest stadium, and a fan base with like maybe two things they love more in life which is probably meat and 1980's British rock music. Shit just got serious.
So you are probably wondering how the 2 game playoff went, well, not exactly to plan for River.
When you are a fan after driving 12 hours to see yout team losing 2-0 to a division 2 team, you may get a little pissed and no fence will hold you:
Getting your ass kicked? Time to rush the field and let them know they have no marbles. Perhaps time to sacrific a live chicken?
Boom. Time to incorporate awesome fact about the team River played, Belgrano de Cordoba. Belgrano is known as Los Piratas because the first time they made it to Division 1 in the early 1900's their stadium did not meet the requirements of a Division 1 field and the players and fans before each game fans borrowed posts, fencing, and wire from nearby homes and businesses to have the field be eligible for play. It looks like they could have used a few extra fences for that game.
Part two brings us to the home half of the playoff for River. Given what happened in Cordoba, this had the makings to be one ugly day in and around El Estadio Monumental for River . . . And it turned out just about as bad as it could have. 2,200 police officers were dispatched to the stadium in addition to the normal security, after league and team officials trounced the idea of playing the game without fans due to what had already happened in Cordoba. I'm guessing the decision to play with fans present probably had something to do with the 19 million dollars of debt River has.
There is one game that I previously wrote about that is considered THE game in Argentine soccer and this game trounced it in interest and viewers. The 2,200 police apparently did little to prevent as many as 14,000 extra ticketless fans from forcing their way in led by the Borrachos del Tablon, the "barra brava" or main backers of River.
River needed a 2-0 win to stay alive, but ended up tying 1-1.
for the English version, with the quintessential British soccer annoucer, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtBbLpl7tPk. (He missed a classic "this could be trouble!" when the fire hose came out.)
After the game outside:
- It's not going to be easy to get back to La Primera A for River. The team is in shambles financially and keeps selling its good young players to Europe to try to offset it's financial woes. It's been a revolving door of coaches for River in search of an answer that probably isn't there because it is more a problem of how the club is being run. In the last three years the club has had 6 coaches, each averaging only 19 games at the helm and 64 different players have donned the jersey. They also may have to play the entire season away from their home stadium as a sanction for the violence after the game and for something absolutely ridiculous. Probably the craziest thing to come out of the game and gives you a sense of how corrupt and out of control Argentine soccer is.
At the half River was winning 1-0 but still needed at least one more goal (Belgrano won 2-0 at home, so River had to win this game 2-0 and they get the tie breaker as the division 1 team). Members of la barra, the main backers of River, were let into the inside of the stadium as security and police turned a blind eye to them. The group even received a call from a club official telling them to "do it quickly." The group went from the stands to the dressing room of the referees as the guards walked away and threatened to kill the referee if he did not call a penalty shot for River. In Argentina, soccer is extremely corrupt and the barras of each time basically work as a mafia and have a considerable amount of influence on the teams and actually meet with club officials, even the club president.
Pictures from security cameras of the group going to the referees' dressing room. The news station even has a kinda hilarious dramatic computer generated re-enactment of what happened.
P.S. You know they take their club seriously when they molotov coctail the house of one the club's directors (who does not seem phased).
