La Bombonera

As we were noticing during the winter olympics, if you are in Argentina the priorities of the sports channels are

1. Football.
2. English Football.
3. Italian and Spanish football.
4. Football anywhere else in the world.
5. Talkshows about football.
6. Reruns of football games.
7. Documentaries about football players and teams of the past
8. .
9. .
   
10. Other sports.
    

So when visiting Buenos Aires, the home of all of the top flight teams in Argentina except a handful, of course we had to pay a visit to arguably the most iconic football venues of them all, the Chocolate Box, the home of Boca Juniors.

Vaniah was quite happy to get out of the ordeal, as Felix, a friend of ours that we first met in El Calafate, then in Ushuaia and now here, was going as well.

After getting our tickets and spending the afternoon browsing the local sports outfitters in San Telmo for some Boca shirts, but found little of interest until we jumped out of our taxi by the staduim. Our hostel is only 10 - 1 minutes walk from the stadium, but we were strongly advised not to walk there, 'take the bus', the lady in the tourist information said. 'Its not a nice or safe walk through La Boca, and don't bring anything you dont need or things you dont want stolen'... So a taxi it was.

We picked up a pair of anniversary shirts, designed after the Swedish flag to mark the clubs heritage and eventually found our way in, around and up to our seats. The game itself was alright, Boca started well, then lost the plot completely and lost 1-2 thanks to some horrid defending and a good Racing midfield that kept Boca at bay. The real show was on the stands though.



Even though we were early there was already a samba party happening. And it continued throughout the match, and for a good while afterwards. The samba beats kept on coming, the fans were jumping constantly for over two hours. Our section of the staduim were literally bouncing all of the time. Or as the fans say "The Bombonera does not tremble. It beats". Truly an amazing show, and it did not feel hostile like it can do in other parts of the world (though we did not understand the words, of course).