Hard Love

Last night we went to a fútbol (soccer) game. We saw River Plate, one of the main Buenos Aires teams, play the La Plata Estudiantes. It was cool that the game was between the city we live in and the city we work in.

With the combination of swine flu panic, winter weather and timing of the game, the stadium was unusually empty. However, the amount of cheering from the quarter-full stadium was more of a roar that you would ever hear at a soccer game in the USA. The game was a ton of fun. The fans are nuts. They bring their own fireworks (we got a little fireworks on July 4th!) and shoot them from their seats in the packed sections of the stadium. Also, they never stop cheering and chanting. For the entire 1 hour 30 minute game, there was a constant buzz of chants, which peaked when River Plate scored:

So River Plate ended up losing 1-2. The most surprising part of the loss was how angry the fans were at their team. The fans were livid. They expressed their disappointment through swears and taunts -- they even threw bottles of sprite at the field. Some people climbed over the barriers to shake their fists at the team. Talk about hard love.

The game was a spectacle worth watching live. Another hilarious part of the game was how diva the players are. I had heard that in Latin American fútbol, players overexaggerate injuries to gain an advantage and break the other team's momentum. There were points in the game when players were rolling on the ground and I'm pretty sure they hadn't even been in contact with another player...

Another interesting sight was the number of fans with mullets...didn't know that mullets were still in style.