El Superclasíco

On Sunday, a hot and sunny spring afternoon, I went with friends Merel and Juliette to the superclásico! Home team River Plate´s Monumental stadium in the Nuñez neighborhood of Buenos Aires was packed that day - hundreds of spectators literally sat in the aisles.

Visiting crosstown rivals Boca Juniors are the most popular team in Argentina and have won the last two championships. More than rivals, the teams and their fans hate each other. Violence is not unknown and police are careful to keep fans seperated. But the strongest beverage on sale is coca-cola and visiting fans exit first and get bused away while home fans wait in their seats. There was no trouble.

This year Boca, in blue and gold, was again in first place going into Sunday's match. The superclásico is the biggest game of the year between the country´s two top teams. Boca has the historical lead in the superclásico with 65 wins. River has won 60 times and there have been 55 draws. First to walk out onto the field was the referee Horacio Elizondo whose recent moment of fame came after holding a red card over Zinedine Zidane's bald head and pointing to the sideline. No one needs to be reminded that ZZ had just used his hard skull to bulldoze Marco Materazzi in defense of his sister's honor.

We arrived an hour and half before Elizondo and retreated quickly to shady upper row seats out of the scorching sun. Boca Juniors' fans, called bosteros, or "shit pickers", were relegated to three small sections behind a goal. Throughout the day they made a good effort to support their team but 65,000 River Plate enthusisasts were dominant.

The home fans, waving red and white flags and singing in unison, put on a show that never stopped. They threw confetti and smoke bombs, spun umbrellas and balloons, and unfurled a huge banner that covered one entire end of the stadium. You can get an idea of what it looked like here, but to feel the energy of futbol argentino, you know what you have to do. You can picture thousands of fans, young and old, jumping and cheering happily in that huge vibrating stadium. But you have to show up to hear River fans (los millonarios) serenading the bosteros and their irreputable female relatives, their poor housing arrangements, and their distant countries of origin.



The new coach for Boca Juniors is Argentine Ricardo La Volpe, recently the coach of the Mexican national team. His team features stars such as Rodrigo Palacios, a member of the Argentine national team that played so well in Germany. Boca was unbeaten in a long series of games going back to last season.

River Plate is coached by el Kaiser, Daniel Passarella, a hero of earlier World Cups. His team features new stars soon on their way to Europe and others that are past their prime and already back. On the one hand, Gonzalo Higuaín and Fernando Belluschi, and on the other el burrito Ariel Ortega and el muñeco Marcelo Gallardo.

River Plate opened the scoring with a neat back foot by Higuaín that beat Boca goalie Aldo Bombadilla, the Paraguayan national team goalie. But Boca Juniors soon tied with a Palacio goal and score stood at 1 - 1 after a very good half of play.

In the second half, River Plate, playing with visible enthusiasm and energy, scored twice on golazos by Higuain and el Tecla, Ernesto Farías. Belluschi set up all three River goals and looked especially brilliant on long passes that dropped in on the toes of Higuaín and Farías. Both beat defenders and juked Bombadilla to finish with stunning goals that Boca fans, sitting nearby in the upper deck, felt as painfully as if they had been kicked themselves while bending over in a cow pasture.

Boca had no answer and River Plate won 3 to 1 in a blowout. The celebration in the streets went on late into the night.