River vs Belgrano

We went to the football. Rather than buy tickets and work out how to get there and all that tricky stuff, we went to a company, Tangol who organised a bus to/from the game; tickets for the game and a local who could speak English to explain the game, the teams, the ground and anything else you cared about. A bit more expensive, but worth it.

We were picked up in good time and taken to the stadium. I had done a little research to find out who was playing who; where they were in the league; where the teams were from and who was expected to win. I played top swot in the bus - T tried to hide. The guide filled us in on other stuff like the fact that River were doing rubbish; River had just been eliminated from the S.American cup (Copa Liberatadores) that week and that their manager was under pressure. Oh, and the hated rivals - Boca - were above them in the league.

We were in the ground early and saw the juniors of the respective clubs grind through a 0-0 draw.

What was quite amazing was the noise that the away fans (Cordoba, for that is where Belgrano hailed is a good 10 hour drive - yet the away support was not insignificant).

Away fans

The presence of drums made their noise quite impressive and gave them something to rally the singing around.

The home fans didn't bother turning up until just before kick-off, but there were an impressive number of them too.

Home Fans

There was also a pitch for the players to use

The Pitch

The game was quite good fun. River gave away a silly penalty with a handball from a corner (I still don't know why the defender stuck his hand up) about half way through the first half. River were the stronger side but did let the away team have a few too many breaks for comfort.

After half time nothing much changed (except Yellow boots for the away side, who had been booked in the first half, was substituted). After about 20 mins, both managers started a flurry of substitutions; a Belgrano player was sent off for a second yellow and River started pressing more and more.

Eventually the home team scored and the crowd went wild. River spent the last ten minutes (and an impressive amount of injury time) with ten men in the Belgrano half (and nearly paid the price - twice) - but a 1-1 draw was the final result. The rather well behaved American six-year old beside us, bemoaned the fact that he didn;t like draws - our guide manfully responded that he preferred to see two goals than just the one :-)

I know we didn't see a grudge match (Think Liverpool vs Portsmouth), but I was quite suprised that it wasn't as loud as it could have been. The crowd only really got going twice. Once just after kick-off and once after River scored. In their defence - the stadium is open-air and alot of the sound will not be being captured and reflected by the roof.

Next week River are playing Boca at Boca - That would be something to see, however we will be in Patagonia and the tickets were sold out months ago.