The Hand of Maradona and other things
Last night we went to the River Plate Stadium to watch Argentina play Venezuela in a world cup qualifier, their first competitive game under Maradona. The stadium seats 70,000 we were told but it is probably more. The system seems to be that you arrive, sit in the seat assigned to you on your ticket until someone comes along and claims it is their seat so you move and sit wherever you can watching whilst the new occupants of your previous seat see off (or not) challenges from further latecomers and you do the same. Whoever is sitting in the seats when the whistle blows for kick off gets to keep them! A sort of musical chairs. We were fortunate to have seats overlooking the centre circle and some protection from our guide who kept a watchful eye on us.
As you can imagine, the atmosphere was fantastic and emotional-lots of banners about Maradona ("I have come to see God, my mother bequeathed me the faith", "Maradona is an Argentinian Tango" for instance ), a band that played continuously and non-stop singing, sometimes accompanied by jumping up and down, about "the hand of Maradona". Fortunately Argentina won 4-0, admittedly against a rather dreadful Venezualan side (although you can only beat the oppostion that turns up, as I always say when City win and some smart alec points out how dreadful the other team were.) So almost everyone went home happily, since the Venezuela fans were thin on the ground. The star of the match was the Real Madrid player Lionel Messi whom it was a privilege to watch.
One reflection we had was that the stadium is incredibly run down, a bit like the city, which is full of life but, as the state of the pavements indicates, has no money. It also does not pander to the corporate lifestyle. If you want food (nuts mainly) or drink (non-alcoholic) you buy it at your seat from the guys who perform incredible acrobatics clambering up the stands. There are no bars, dining rooms nor match day programmes and all the merchandising seems to be unofficial although there are plenty of shops in the city selling the Argentinian kit and yesterday almost everyone seemed to be wearing it!
In the morning we had also gone to Museo de Bellas Artes which has a small but interesting collection of European art and, upstairs, some Argentian and Latin American art, but more of that some other time....off to wander some more.....must find some time to do our homework.....
As you can imagine, the atmosphere was fantastic and emotional-lots of banners about Maradona ("I have come to see God, my mother bequeathed me the faith", "Maradona is an Argentinian Tango" for instance ), a band that played continuously and non-stop singing, sometimes accompanied by jumping up and down, about "the hand of Maradona". Fortunately Argentina won 4-0, admittedly against a rather dreadful Venezualan side (although you can only beat the oppostion that turns up, as I always say when City win and some smart alec points out how dreadful the other team were.) So almost everyone went home happily, since the Venezuela fans were thin on the ground. The star of the match was the Real Madrid player Lionel Messi whom it was a privilege to watch.
One reflection we had was that the stadium is incredibly run down, a bit like the city, which is full of life but, as the state of the pavements indicates, has no money. It also does not pander to the corporate lifestyle. If you want food (nuts mainly) or drink (non-alcoholic) you buy it at your seat from the guys who perform incredible acrobatics clambering up the stands. There are no bars, dining rooms nor match day programmes and all the merchandising seems to be unofficial although there are plenty of shops in the city selling the Argentinian kit and yesterday almost everyone seemed to be wearing it!
In the morning we had also gone to Museo de Bellas Artes which has a small but interesting collection of European art and, upstairs, some Argentian and Latin American art, but more of that some other time....off to wander some more.....must find some time to do our homework.....
posted by Team Tierney | 4:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home