Gooooooooal!
Ticket buying line
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We've had some friends visiting, Seth and Vera. Seth came to see us in Buenos Aires as he was giving a talk at the 8th International Free Software Forum in Porto Alegre in Brazil. None of us had anything to do on Easter, so we decided to go out to a football game. American's watch American football on Thanksgiving... I did some research on who was playing - conveniently provided by a thread on Couch Surfing's Buenos Aires Group. Turned out that La Boca Juniors were playing the CA Vélez Sarsfield on the Vélez's hometurf. I did some more research and found out where the stadium was, and which bus would get us there from nearby. When we got there, scalpers were offering us tickets saying that the game was sold out. Not believing a word, we marched up to the strangely not packed ticket sales booth. Hrm. I got to the front and they said that they weren't selling tickets here, but to go down the road and pick them up. Uh, okay, why would you do that? You're the ticket office, right? We all briskly walk down the main road for a long time. A really long time. We're wondering if we're going in the right direction? We pass by what looks to be an office, but they point us further on down the road. I'm pretty sure we're going in the right direction because we're in a thin heard of people and there are people running back the other way with tickets to get back to the stadium. We get to where they are selling tickets and it's in a mobile office, like they have on construction sites, with four windows to serve very excited and impatient football fans under a freeway ramp in the dirt. The police blocked off the gate to the lot. As soon as there were no more buyers getting tickets, they let the next lot in. People ran for it to be first and then it was just a free for all push and shove and 'scootch' experience. I waded in and bought four tickets at 14 pesos each. I was a little worse for the ware, but they were all amazed when I came out of the pack clutching four tickets. :D
Kragen Seth and Vera
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We quickly walked back all the way - about 10 minutes - to the stadium. The game was already in play and La Boca was dominating the field with a second goal just as we were getting to our seat up in the nosebleed section. The fans at either end of the stadium were incredibly active. Drums, flags, band and insanely fanatical fans. La Boca fan were much more energetic than Vélez's, it was quite something to behold. I put up a short movie from the game on both YouTube and archive.org. Whoa - check it out, archive.org now has embeded flashplayers as well as letting you download the .mov file. Nice move Archive!! We were lucky in that we were sitting on the shady side, so while it wasn't that warm, we didn't get sunburned either. :D I put on my Firefox fleece, and Seth lent Vera his jacket to keep her warm.
The ball in play
Originally uploaded by blmurch. The game was interesting to watch and Kragen and I remembered that the last time we had been to a professional football game was back in 2001 with our friends in Cupertino when we had seen two Women's soccer teams battle it out. La Boca was clearly the better player during the first half. They ended up 2-0 after the first 45 minutes. Half time came and went - with advertising rolled out onto the field and what appeared to be a live radio or tv broadcast. There were the obligatory women in short skirts, but they weren't exactly cheerleaders. Most of them were holding umbrellas for the VIPs and Mascots. The home team played much much better the second half, spending most of the time on La Boca's side. There were many failed shots on the goal and then finally around 30 minutes into the second half. They were down just by one point. But La Boca didn't like that very much and they promptly scored another goal brining the final score to 3 to 1, La Boca vs Vélez Sarsfield on Vélez's home pitch.
Blocked Exit
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We got up to leave and made our way into the hallway underneath the stadium and the exit was being blocked. My guess is that they were preventing people from leaving in order to have a more orderly and tranquil scene on the street. People did get impatient waiting to be let out and there was much chanting and stomping of feet and clapping and yelling, but there was no stampede. In fact quite the opposite. Finally, we were let down onto the stairwell where we stayed for another five minutes as the number nine gate was being blocked by police. It was interesting seeing this seething mass of people on one side of the gate, and a practically empty meeting area on the other side. People were a bit impatient, but nothing too bad. There were cops everywhere. I did not see any violence. We took bus going back pretty close to where we are in Palermo. That was a story in and of itself.