Last night, I went to the third soccer game of my life, the World Cup qulaifier between Argentina and Colombia which Argentina won 1-0 in what most considered to be a pretty boring game. The low score came despite the fact that Colombia played with only 10 men for the entire second half. The game was in the Estadio Monumental of the River Plate club.



My mother-in-law actually lives only a 15 minute walk away and it´s easily visible from her balcony. My brother-in-law is actually a fan of Boca Juniors, which is "River´s" biggest rival - think Yankees vs. Mets - so it must annoy him terribly that he always has to see the enemy stadium and that the national team´s games are played there.

My brother-in-law and I were sitting in the upper level a little bit inside of one of the goals. Although the stadium was full, I was actually surprised at the general calm of the fans. Aside from the occassional singing, it didn´t really seem that there was much more or less passion than at a typical NFL game. My favorite chant is when everyone starts hopping up and down and screams:

YA LO VE
YA LO VE
EL QUIEN NO SALTA ES UN INGLES

(Hey look now, hey look now, whoever´s not jumping is English!)

Apparently, this is the type of chant that is easily transferable depending on who you dislike. A recent article in the New York Times, A Dutch Soccer Riddle: Jewish Regalia Without Jews, talks about a Dutch game where the crowd sang, "Everyone who's not jumping is a Jew!" , which in this case meant supporters of Ajax. Read the story.

Anyway, the peanuts cost about 30 cents for a small bag, 15 cents after the game. Since this was my first game in Argentina where there are signs everywhere saying "No to violence", I was surprised that there were people at the game with small children, people with cell phones and digital cameras. I didn´t notice anyone particularly drunk, and not even a lot of smoking which is still prevalent here in public places.

I imagine that the atmosphere is much different at a regular season game when the real barrabrava (hooligans) show up, but I still look forward to going to one someday.

In other World Cup news, Israel actually tied France and the U.S. beat Guatemala.