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Published: February 21st 2007
The Hostel we are staying at managed to get tickets for a Boca game, in La Boca for 10 of the residents. This was an experience we will never forget as long as we live. It cost us 100 peso each and that was quite a bit more than the usual ticket price but included was the bus and guides to help us. 180 visitors to Buenos Aires joined the melee. As we got closer to the grounds, men were selling Bocca flags and things at the traffic lights. All the traffic was going in that direction with people in blue shirts and really obviously excited: as we were.
Off the bus and trying to all stay together and not get separated from the guides. I kept hold of Paul and he was advised to not let me go. We got to a police stop and chicas had to go to the other side - first time in my life I have been frisked, had the bag checked and everything. The men had the sticks off their flags confiscated, no bottles or anything allowed through. Onward, through another checkpoint and through the ticket turnstile and up and up. When we
got to the stand we innocently thought when you bought a ticket for a seat you got a seat, we were wrong. The stand consisted of very steep steps with big metal bars to stand against every now and then, no steps to get to your step to sit on, no you just squeezed and pushed through everyone already sitting on the seat. We had to push through most of the stand to get to an empty area. There was alot of singing and horn tooting. We had the opposition up above us.
Over at the other end were the hard core Boca fans, to our left were stands with 'seats' and on our right were boxes. There was media, TV and Photographers in a semicircle looking up into the boxes. They weren't filming the players coming out, no they were waiting for Mr Futball - Maradona. Only when he came out did they turn the cameras on the play. He hasn't missed a home game since 2001.
Then the game began. Every time the ref or Boca team did anything the opposition didn't like, we copped it. We got hoiked on, squirted with water and peed on.
It was soo gross. Getting hoik out of each others hair, hopping your mouth was closed when the rain came down because you were't sure what was what. Men came around selling cups of watered down Coke, and they collected the unsquashed cups - I believe they were reusing them.
The other team actually played quite well, the final score 1 all. Who knows what it would have been like to be there when they lost?
When the game finished the away team stand went first, police stopped all the other stands from emptying. Then they let go the side line stands, one by one and cleared each one before the next one was able to empty. The end stands were last to go, and we were let go about an hour after the game finished. Then we had to go though the exit that the away team had gone through first, it was really gross the smell they had left us. We all were glad to survive and just wanted to get back to the hostel for showers. An experience everyone should try once in their lives. We were very glad no alcohol was served at the
game and that all the concrete was very strong so the upstairs people couldn't throw it down on us.
If someone makes a T-shirt with 'I Survived a Boca Game;on it, they would make a mint.
The next soccer game I go to will be New Zealand in the finals of the World Cup.
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Tomoko
non-member comment
Wow.....
Yea, you did it! You survived a Bocca game! I heard of wild soccer games in South America.... and hear about it from you guys truly proved it. But still, if and when I go to somewhere in South America, going to one of the soccer games will be a must for me, even though I will have to have a shower with some sort of disinfectant afterwards. It was truly a wow journal to read.