Bill Shankly wasn’t wrong!

'Football isn't a matter of life or death – its more important than that!' he famously said and if that is true on Merseyside it is even more so here! Argentinian football is all about 2 teams, the whole country is split between River Plate or Boca Juniors, the later being the poor working mans club with River being its Rich neighbours. Both teams have dominated Argentinian football for years and have a famous history. For me, seeing a football match in South America was one of the things to do and it had to be either a Boca game at the La Bombonera or any game at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. Boca have produced some of the best footballers in recent years, the likes of Carlos Tevez and Juan Sebastian Veron to Gabriel Batistuta and most famously one Diego Maradonna!! We'd arranged tickets through a local agency in Buenos Aires because apparently just showing up and getting tickets to the games is a little dangerous, although as is the case with most football hysteria it is over exaggerated! Having been escorted to our seats in the stadium (well concrete steps) high in the top tier we watched the events unravel. The game was the last of the season and River had already won the league so there wasn't much to play for unfortunately meaning that it wasn't a sell out. But as the kick off approached the stands started to fill up, huge blue and yellow banners, flags and umbrellas were everywhere. Smoke from flares and tic-a-tape drifted in the cold night air. The singing increased and each team's band played louder and louder, by kick off it was like a festival, 40,000 people crammed into the main standing areas behind the goals singing and dancing solidly for 90 minutes! I'm sure some of them would have gone home without a clue to what the score was. As is the case with most South American football a few teams dominate and the rest just make up the numbers, bit like in Scotland! This game was a mismatch with Boca beating Tigre 6-2 and for those of you who haven't stopped reading me waffle about football already – Riquelme who left Spain and now plays again for Boca was the best player on the pitch even if he is getting on a bit, closely followed by Martin Palemro the once centre forward for Villarreal in Spain (famously celebrated a goal standing on a wall in front of the supporters that collapsed and he broke his leg in 2 places…random facts!) – ok football talk over with! Erm… think Shona enjoyed herself too even if I did bore her with tactical talk all game oops!