El Superclasico (Mar del Plata, Argentina)

Regular readers of this blog who are not football fans will have to indulge me on this occassion as this blog is somewhat football heavy (sorry!). After arriving in Argentina last week, yesterday I attended a match between Boca Juniors and River Plate, two big footballing rivals in Buenos Aires...

Football is huge in Argentina, particularly in Buenos Aires, a city said to have the highest concentration of football clubs of any city in the world. 14 of the 20 teams in the top division are based in the city, and such is the status of Boca and River that 70% of Argentinians support either of the two teams, making the fixture between the two sides, known as El Superclasico, something of a national event.

As with many footballing rivalries, the Boca-River relationship has a long and interesting history. Both teams began life in the early twentieth century in the working class docklands area of Buenos Aires (known as La Boca) before River Plate chose to move to the wealthier suburbs (a la Arsenal's move from Woolwich to North London perhaps) in the 1930s. Therefore although both clubs have supporters of all social classes, Boca are traditionally seen as a working class team, with River Plate more a team of the middle and upper classes. As a result River Plate are known as 'Los Millionarios', while they refer to their rivals from Boca as "Porqueros" (pigs), an insult supposedly derived from the smell of Boca's Bombonera stadium on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.

River fans taunted Boca with a giant inflatable pig at their last game in October

It's currently pre-season here in Argentina, so I would not be able to attend a league game at Boca's iconic La Bombonera stadium here in Buenos Aires (which I'm hoping to visit for a tour later this week). However, on arriving in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, I discovered that Boca Juniors and River Plate were playing a few hours drive down the coast in the resort of Mar del Plata, as one of a series of pre-season fixtures in which the top Argentine teams play against each other across the country.

Boca Juniors 'La Bombonera' stadium

At first I was hesistant about attending - the tickets weren't cheap, the match was a five hour drive away, and it was only a pre-season friendly after all. However, the Observer had once picked this match as the number one sporting thing to do before you die so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Not only that, but as a history undergraduate I'd written an essay about machismo and Argentine football and so the chance to see a live match several years after reading all about the role of football in Argentine society was more than tempting. Also, from what I'd read about the rivalry between the two teams, the idea of a 'friendly' match would be one that both supporters and players would struggle to understand, and so it proved!

As the match was taking place at a beach resort, the tour company I'd booked to go to the match with arranged for us to have some time at the beach during the day, so although the match wasn't kicking off until 10.10pm local time (yes really!), we were picked up at 6.45am to begin the long drive to Mar del Plata. Once there, we spent a few hours on the beach and had a dip in the Atlantic Ocean, before it was time to head to the stadium.

We got to Mar del Plata's Estadio Jose Maria Minella a good couple of hours before kick-off to enable us to soak up the atmosphere and find a good place to stand. Our tickets were in the Boca end of the stadium in the standing section behind one of the goals. As a group of around 20 tourists we stuck out like a sore thumb (despite our purchases of Boca replica shirts and scarfs) and so our guide (two Argentinians, one a Boca fan and one a River fan) worked hard to find the right spot for us, which in practice meant being close to a couple of riot police in case of any problems and well away from the centre of the stand where the hardcore fans would be congregating! The matches between these sides do have something of a reputation for violent clashes between the fans so it was good to be with some locals who could look out for us.

Estadio Jose Maria Minella

In early for a good (safe) spot

From well before kick-off, the noise grew steadily as both sets of fans began chanting and singing, largely oblivious to some youth football matches being played out on the pitch as a precursor to the main event. At matches in the UK, most of the pre-match build up tends to revolve around a few pints in the local pub, but here most of the fans were in place well before kick-off. Then with about 15 minutes to go until kick-off, the centre of the stand behind the goal was cleared, and a procession of the most hardcore fans entered the stand and proceeded down the steps, carrying huge yellow and blue flags, umbrellas and a variety of banners, all accompanied by a band of drummers and percussionists hammering out a rhythm that would lead the singing for the next two hours.

The hardcore Boca fans enter the stand

This process was repeated at the opposite end of the stadium by the River Plate fans, and the noise ratcheted up several more levels as both sets of fans jumped up and down and sang. Already this was unlike any atmosphere I'd experienced at an English ground (no jokes about White Hart Lane please), and it was impossible not to join in, so we did our best to sing along, even though all the songs were in Spanish. What amazed me compared to English football was that every man, woman and child were singing their lungs out, jumping up and down, and clapping, not just at this point, but throughout the entire match creating an intense, noisy, almost carnival atmosphere, with the game itself sometimes feeling like a secondary consideration.

The players come out to start the match as a flare is let off in the River end

The packed stand just before kick off

Finally 10.10pm rolled around and the game kicked off. Boca Juniors started brightly and nearly went ahead early on, only for their star striker Leandro Paredes to have a shot well saved by the River keeper, and a follow-up shot blocked by some last ditch defending. From then on River grew in to the game and slowly took control of the match, helped by a few questionable refereeing decisions in their favour (or maybe I just got caught up in the moment of being a Boca fan for the day!). The game was anything but friendly, with a series of crunching tackles from both sides raising the intensity of the occasion throughout the first half. The largely homegrown Argentine players were technically strong, displaying a good first touch, however, with nearly all the top Argentinian players (such as Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Angel Di Maria and Carlos Tevez) based in Europe these days, the game was rather scrappy with neither side able to deliver an end product in the first half.

With the Boca Juniors fans, complete with a Boca scarf

The second half saw more of the same, until a moment of quality arrived with an accurate cross from the left being powerfully headed home by the River striker Ramiro Funes Mori in the 68th minute. Cue a stunned silence in the Boca fans around us, albeit one that lasted only a matter of seconds before the singing started up again, if anything louder than before, as they attempted to rouse their team towards a response. Unfortunately, for Boca, the goal only strengthened River Plate's grip on the game, and after hitting the woodwork twice, River sealed victory when Mori broke clear and unleashed an unstoppable shot past the Boca keeper.

 

Funes Mori celebrates scoring for River Plate

What followed was even more impressive, as the Boca fans, with their team 2-0 down with only minutes to play, began to sing even louder. In English football, fans would be leaving in droves at this point, eager to beat the traffic or unable to bear any more of their team's poor performance. But the Boca fans redoubled their singing efforts and the noise grew even louder. It was almost as if the Boca fans, having seen their team beaten on the pitch, had to make sure they could at least claim a victory over their rival River Plate fans at the other end of the stadium by outsinging them at the last.

So a comfortable win for River in the end, but an incredible experience for me personally that will live long in the memory. I'm not sure live football in England will ever be quite the same for me again after seeing the level of passion, noise and intensity created by both sets of fans for what was essentially a fairly meaningless friendly. As well as a game of football to enjoy, this was a fascinating insight into Argentine culture and society, which was well worth the long trip to Mar del Plata.

(With thanks to the following two articles for some of the background information - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2012/10/river_plate_v_boca_juniors_-_w.html  and http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/oct/30/superclasico-boca-juniors-river-plate-argentina)