Tenemos que ganar...

Soccer here is life-period.  Anywhere you go, anything you do, there’s always an influence in some way from soccer.  In fact, the mayor of Buenos Aires used to be the president of one of the largest teams in Buenos Aires…

A friend of ours invited us to a River game and this is what ensued:

The crowd was hurriedly rushing towards the stadium singing and chanting, the last of the ticket scalpers were calling out prices, the smoke from the grilled chorizo sausage was tempting everyone’s appetite and city buses roared in at about three times capacity, River fans seeping from every corner singing, chanting and dancing.  As we walked up to the stadium there was a thick cloud of red smoke all throughout the streets from smoke bombs being set off one after another (the River colors are red and white).  We make it to the first checkpoint-we are sent into different lines for men and women and receive the first pat down.  This is the step everyone chugs the last of the beer and the ambiguous liquid in water bottles –no food or drink allowed in the stadium. 

At this point we are running- we run around the stadium, under a bridge, through an area that appears to be blocked off and into a line of 200 people smushed into a space that holds about 50.  On either side of the line are metal bars that look like they are going to topple at any minute.  Police are positioned on either side of the metal bars as to keep us contained.  As you can imagine, this line is also singing, chanting and jumping-there’s also a lot of “Dale” resounding from the crowd-something loosely translated to “hurry up, come on and what the hell” all in one word.  After a good 10-15 minutes of shoving we make it to the front where we are again separated into groups for men and women for a second pat down.  Directly following this pat down is another-but now we are actually entering into the outside of the stadium. 

We go to the first line of ticket takers-it doesn’t appear as though it’s moving and the front of the line has incited a bit of a scuffle with the riot police - we move on to the next line.  Here again we are singing, chanting for River and screaming our “dale’s” to get the line to go faster.  We, once again, are separated between men and women.  Silvia’s ticket doesn’t seem to be going through the machine in front of me, so the ticket person takes mine and asks us just to go through the turn style together…sure-why not?  We get in and are looking all around for the guys-we can’t seem to find them anywhere, they must have not made it in yet. We run up the first set of stairs to see the crowd below, it appears as though the whole crowd has rushed the ticket takers and everyone is jumping the entrance and bombarding through-the police look as though they have reacted and a fight has broken out.  We don’t spot the redhead anywhere so figure John has made it in-we’ll go up to the top and wait because standing in one spot here on the stairs is sure to get us trampled. 

There’s no sign of John or the rest of the group-maybe they got in through another entrance?  None the less, the game is starting and we need to follow the crowd in.  We are pushed through what feels like a sausage casing-straight up through the crowd, can’t see anything, have no control of where your body goes or how it’s moving…you just keep moving up.  We make it to a place where we can stand and see the game-somehow we’ve lost another of the girls and it’s down to Silvia and I-oh well, the game’s starting and we have to join in on the chanting-maybe we’ll find them later.  I try to text John but signals out, too many people in one place trying to use phones. 

We are standing, screaming, cursing, smoking (everyone around us that is), jumping, dancing, and singing.  Sitting here is unimaginable as is eating or drinking.  Our next three hours are nothing but insanity-learning the songs, jumping, screaming, throwing old newspapers… 

The stadium is cut into four sections, North and South and East and West.  Each section is physically separate from the other sections-that’s to say, the entrances are different and there is actually a physical gap between the two of probably 100 feet-there’s no way of crossing into the others.  In between each N, S, etc.  There are 50 foot metal fences to keep the fans contained between the sections themselves…riot control. 

As the game ends and River loses (a monumental loss in fact) the whole stadium (less the South) sits down.  I am beyond myself as to why we are all sitting down…the game is over, we haven’t sat down for the last three hours?  Evidently the opposing team fans are escorted out by the police first.  Once they have a good half hour lead, they start letting us out.  As we leave there are undoubtedly fights, people still yelling and cursing and of course singing.  They have a song for “that’s okay, we lost but we still love you-we’ll come back next week to watch you play again…but you are an idiot and shape up.” 

Back on the street the food vendors are packed and everyone wants a hamburger or a chorizo sandwich.  The buses fill up and we keep walking back to the subway.  Of course because 60,000 people all at once are leaving a stadium there’s bound to be a subway full of River fans…and there were-the chanting, singing and jumping continued into the subway cars.  Oh, don’t mind us, we’re just River fans and soccer is life.