River Plate - Instituto 3-1

Some people come to Buenos Aires for the tango, the night life or to get run over by a city bus, but not Señor Hans. Señor Hans cannot dance, sleeps at night and is too quick for even the most ruthless of bus drivers ... no ... the main attraction of Buenos Aires is of course: El Futbol !

The two main rivals in Argentinian football are both from Buenos Aires; the foul-smelling and all-around despicable Boca Juniors (ptew!) and the sympathetic, unsurpassed and heroic River Plate. And it is - suprisingly - for the latter that I have warped my travel schedule in the most Einsteinian ways to get to see a home match.

River´s stadium, El Monumental, is huge. It can have 80000 people. Some of the older readers might recognise it as the stadium where the oh-so unlucky Holland lost the 1978 World Cup final against hosts Argentina. One actor of that fateful day was present again yesterday: the captain of that Argentinian team, Daniel Passarella (El Gran Capitán) is River`s current team manager.

On to the action. Knowing the reputation of Argentinian fans, the crowd seemed surprisingly quiet. But when the match started, they roared into action. They sung ... and they sung as I have never heard any football crowd sing, with the possible exception of my beloved Feyenoord. They only stopped when River scored and started off afterwards right away.

The match itself was not remarkable. Against the run of play, River got ahead after 15 minutes, but the visitors from Córdoba equalised before half-time. The game was pretty fast, but there were not many chances. In the second half, although not the better team, River´s individual quality payed off and they scored two more times, one from a penalty. The best man on the pitch was Germán Lux, River´s goal keeper, which says it all.

But Señor Hans enjoyed every minute of it, bare-chested in the hot afternoon sun, from the top of the stadium, in ´Platea San Martín Alta´ stand. And still ... the fans were crazy, but they hardly reacted to the match, they had to keep on singing. The building up of the roars as the team played itself towards the opponents´ goal, the screams of dismay at another bad referee call; they were hardly there. But the earth-shaking singing went on. Too bad Señor Hans cannot sing either ...