A week may be a long time in politics, and in fact football, but eight seconds really isn’t. Unless, of course, you happen to be a long-suffering fan of Racing Club. Unfortunately, as you well know, I fall into this cursed group of masochists and gluttons for punishment, which made for a very upsetting evening on Saturday.

A couple of week’s absence for this most distinguished of blogs coincided with an upturn for my beloved misfits, as a draw and two victories began the ascent from the nether regions of the table to the shiny peak. Pure coincidence I may add and related to an undesired absence from the stadium, rather than a mere willingness to only talk about the team when they fail. Well, maybe a little of that.

The recent good form led to an upsurge of hope for the team, a fact rather cynically exploited by Racing as they slapped another 50 pesos on the ticket prices for ‘Day of the Fan’. Proving as ever that the La Academia faithful are commendable in their blind fanaticism, 40,000 supporters happily begged, borrowed or stole to cough up the extra cincuenta pé and make their way to El Cilindro. The meeting point as ever was the one and only Lo de Susi, this time with some extra guests; a television crew who had made their way to the local drinking hole to interview the legend herself and see her wise words drowned out by exuberant fans wishing death upon Independiente and San Lorenzo.

Well-lubricated and in the stadium then, we waited with baited breath for the team to appear and deliver another glorious triumph which would lift us near the top and keep the eternal dream of the championship alive. Joy, expectation, hope; all emotions in abundance for the first seven seconds of the match against Union.

The early bird gets the worm

Because after that, it all went wrong. The Santa Fe side pumped the ball up straight from kick off and there was a disastrous mix-up at the back between Sebastian Saja, Matias Martinez and Lucas Aveldaño – henceforth to be known as the Three Stooges. With a flourish of comedy sound-effects and “watch it, chowder-head” exclamations the trio contrived to bump into each other, while Diego Jara calmly ignored the floor show and put his team in the lead. Eight seconds. EIGHT SECONDS!! I usually don’t arrive in the stadium until at least five minutes have gone.

From there, it only got worse. A second goal followed, before on the stroke of half-time a penalty was given to the away team. Enrique Bologna, whose time-wasting from the second minute of play had attracted the ire of the Racing fans, stepped up to take the kick and was denied by Saja, but a penalty-area invasion – to borrow Argentine parlance – necessitated another try. The goalkeeper took a deep breath, started his run-up… and blasted the ball so far over the bar it most likely ended up in Quilmes.

The farce continued after half time when Teo Gutierrez suffered exactly the same fate as Bologna, missing twice from the spot. Sometime after that, a third goal from Union confirmed a humiliating  3-0 defeat. Not that you’d know it from listening to the home fans mind. Seemingly determined to get their money’s worth, the Racing popular exploded in a melody of chants and jumps, wonderfully oblivious to the depressing events on the field. “There is a gang that is different, it’s not the same as all the rest, The one that doesn’t give a shit if you lose, or if you wiiiiiiiiiin,” was the hit of the night, and the one which most succinctly sums up what it is to follow this most cursed of footballing institutions.

It was a torrid evening, seven seconds of excitement followed by roughly 5393 desperately painful seconds (don’t you love calculators?) but still, nothing could deter the fans who were determined to make the most of their 50 peso outlay. Turning to a friend of mine in the stadium, who declared the festivities the loudest and most impressive of any team he has witnessed, winning or losing, just confirmed what all of us know about Racing. Win or lose, and one tends to come more than the other, the support will always be Number One. But if we could still win a few, that would be ok as well.

PS: The obligatory plug is coming. If you haven’t started listening to Hand of Pod, possibly the finest (and possibly the only) Argentine football podcast in the English language, I would strongly recommend it. You can listen to me alongside Sam, Dan and Seba every week waxing lyrical about the General Belgrano Clausura, and there’s even a couple of jokes to enjoy.

The tribalism of Argentine football, as I’m certain I have alluded to more than once in these hallowed pages, is a sight to be seen. Thousands of police officers are put on duty and armed to the teeth every weekend with one specific goal: do not let the two sets of fans get near each other, or else watch as all hell breaks lose in a flurry of stones, bricks and trips to the local hospital. The faithful of my own Racing Club, although clearly superior in so many ways to the rabble who go to Boca, River or (god forbid) Independiente every week are from guiltless when it comes to demonising the other in the opposite stands – a fact poetically stated by a good friend of mine before a Clasico, when he declared that he “hated Independiente with all his soul.” Quite.

King's cycle of dreams and disappointment is painfully familiar for Racing fans

As a born romantic, however, a lover not a fighter and admirer of the legendary Martin Luther King  Jr, I too have a dream. That fans of
both teams will one day play in the streets together, that a man will be judged not by the colour of his shirt, but by the content of his character. Walking to El Cilindro on Sunday to watch Racing take on Banfield, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief as it appeared my fantastical dream was in the process of becoming reality.

Two men walked in the opposite direction; one bedecked in the unmistakeable celeste y blanca of my beloved. The other was wearing the equally distinctive green and white stripes of the day’s opponents, based in the eponymous city in the sprawling suburb of Lomas de Zamora. Was I seeing history? Was this a seminal moment in Argentine football? Would fans from this point forward be putting down the flaregun, the rocks and the anger to forever more sit in fields and braid each other’s hair before games? Well, not quite.

Upon further inspection, I deduced that the shirt was in fact that of Atletico Nacional, a South American giant based in the Colombian city of Medellin. In Gio Moreno La Academia have one of the Colombian team’s favourite sons in their ranks, and since then fans of Nacional have swarmed to El Cilindro to bring their own colour to the stadium palette. A heart-warming story, if not quite as Kingesque as the one I had first envisaged, but a further sign of how, for a significant proportion of the thousands of Colombians who move to Buenos Aires every year, the shared passion of football brings two fanatical populations together. This is Racing, after all, where on entering our favoured pre-match watering hole you are just as likely to hear a “qué más, parce?” as you would a more porteño form of address: “Qué hacés, vieja?” A lovely bunch.

Fittingly it would be a Colombian star who had the biggest impact on the match, although not completely positive. Not Moreno, but his Cafetero cousin from Barranquilla Teo Gutierrez, a striker whose ability to put the ball in the net is only matched by his talent to put his foot in his mouth, and drive us all insane. Suffice to say he managed both on the weekend.

First, happy thoughts. Our merry band of tipsy supporters had barely elbowed our way into the stands when a penalty was given, and Teo stepped up to slot it home and provoke a mass round of hugs, kisses and other public displays of affection with hairy men you would usually decline to sit next to on the bus. Those readers hanging around from the previous two weeks (cheers, by the way) will remember that Racing had failed to score in their first two outings, and had picked up one measly point. Pay attention, this will all be on the test. And anyone familiar with the mighty L’Acade will know their unrivalled capacity for self-destruction. Yes, it’s another of those stories.

The Racing Barra thanks Colombia for its support, Oscars style

A soft penalty down the other end gave Banfield parity once more, but after Bustamante was sent off Racing surely had to reassert their dominance. No. What followed were 60 frustrating minutes of poor crosses, awful passes, wayward shots and agonised grunts from the terraces. Oh, and the obligatory moment of stupidity from our man Teo: already on a yellow card, for reasons best known to himself he tried to kick the ball out of goalkeeper Lucchetti’s hands, earning himself an early bath no-one could argue with. With that, a draw would have been acceptable, but the visitors had other ideas and three minutes into injury time headed the winner to leave fans perplexed and dumbfounded.

The boos followed, as did the chants referring to a vital anatomical part of the players’ own mothers and a confrontation outside when it was time to get back on the bus. This was accompanied by the brilliant image of coach Basile squaring up to fight each of the disgruntled supporters, only to admit that maybe they had a point after another shocking performance.

Our little group, meanwhile skulked away to begin the post-match dissection of the defeat, and there was perhaps one conclusion that gained more popularity than most. Argentina, England, Colombia: fans of Racing can come from all corners of the globe, uniting cultures and nations with the beautiful game. But for the long-suffering supporters, permanent exile to one of those corners would be welcome for La Academia’s losers. Siberia, anyone?

PS. We still are less than fond of Banfield

Mendoza. We’ve all heard of Mendoza, right ladies and gentlemen? Most tourists to Buenos Aires will vaguely locate  it as the place where their wine came from during last night’s steak dinner. Longer-term travellers may have visited these lovely wineries at the source, lots of grapes, friendly locals inviting you to sample and share their harvest and so-on, so-forth. My sources tell me there is even a bike trip which is moderately popular, where groups meander round different vineyards on two wheels and then try not to break their necks on the way back. Lovely.

Enticed by these idyllic tales of mountains, grapes and being just over the road from Chile, what better destination for my long weekend (thank you, Carnaval) than this hallowed soil. And of course, the fact that my beloved, my cursed Racing happened to be playing in the same city on the same weekend was merely a happy coincidence. So I begged, borrowed and stole to gather enough pesos, and on Saturday evening found myself in Villa del Parque waiting to leave courtesy of the Pibes de Racing tour company?

One way to spend a Mendozan afternoon

Doesn’t ring any bells? Well, I’ll explain the unique selling point of this little-known – let’s call it ‘off the beaten track’ in guidebook speak – group of tour guides. The discerning client is offered a 60% discount on the usual cost of a long-distance bus, as the tickets are generously subsidised by the club. There must be a catch then, I hear you scream? Well, no, not unless you expect some resemblance of comfort and civilisation on a 1200km bus journey.

Meeting up with the usual ragtag band I accompany to games in Avellaneda – El Pelado, El Maestro (a primary school teacher in Fuerte Apache), the Maestro’s son, about three El Negros – from first glance it was clear this was not be a laidback saunter through the heart of Argentina. The first clue to this was the eight bottles of Fernet and 12 bottles of coke which had already been stowed away on the bus, which for a group of around 10 represented a decent proportion. None of them would be still alive by the time the mountain ranges of Mendoza wound into vision. The night, as well as much of the morning, was spent drinking out of the infamous botella cortada (cut bottle) (which is the only way to really to drink Fernet for your convenience, refer to this instructional video), singing, jumping and basically making a nuisance of one’s self in a haze of cigarette and marijuana smoke. A quick pit stop in a glorious campsite overlooking the mountains served to replenish empty bottles, and on the way we were to Godoy Cruz’s Estadio Malvinas Argentinas.

A quick note before we continue on the relationship between police and football supporters, as this will be important later. They don’t like us, and we don’t like them. Police especially don’t like football fans who arrive to the stadium with a thick haze of beer and Fernet hazing their judgement, speech and movement. Police from outside Buenos Aires like even less uppity Porteños that arrive in the same state to their precious land. All of which, as can be imagined, meant that entrance to the stadium was going to be complicated, even more so due to the presence of the dreaded breathalysers.

Another way to spend the Mendozan afternoon

Myself and Luciano squeezed past the ranks of Mendoza’s finest without having to blow, while El Maestro failed spectacularly but worked his way into the ground by pointing to his 15-year-old son. Three of our group fell at this hurdle, however, and were obliged to spend the duration of the game at a local police station. It must be said that they did not miss much.

It was a poor match, I hazily recall, with Racing enjoying the best of play while only threatening to hit the net sporadically. One man up, however, after a red card for the home side, and hopes were that one goal would be enough to break the deadlock. Anyone who has read this column before or who knows anything of La Academia knows where this is going…

The goal did indeed arrive, but for our hosts. A long ball was fluffed by the Racing defence, and centre-back Leonardo Sigali was on hand to heart-breakingly head the ball past goalkeeper Saja for a winner netted minutes from the end. A devastating end to a fun-filled weekend, and with that it was back on the bus and back to reality. Spirits were still high though, mainly because of the high levels of spirits in each fan’s bloodstream, and the mood was upbeat as the jailbirds rejoined us and the long trip back home began.

Thus ended our little trip to Mendoza, back in Villa del Parque two days after departing and desperately trying to find an open bathroom that did not resemble the pestilence and despair left in the coach’s facilities. Some 30 hours of travel for 90 minutes of football sounds masochistic, and to be fair it is. But the laughs, the invented, semi-coherent and fully-vulgar songs, the stories and the friends made in close proximity to 50 other Racing fanatics are just reward for the journey from hell, and if the price is missing out on the fabled bike ride, for me it’s one worth paying.

PS. A good friend of mine, Rory McClenaghan, was fortunate enough to go to a game which as well as being more entertaining hopefully took slightly less toll on his body and soul than my jaunt out west. Please read his excellent musings on Lanus’ clash with Ronaldinho and Flamengo in the Copa Libertadores, and he might just buy me a Quilmes.

Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales is presenting its 100th edition in which selected ceramic, etched and textile pieces will be exhibited. Award-winning sketchers and sculptors, Corina Luchia, Silvia Carbone and Florencia Walfisch are but a few that  are showcased. Free Until 27th February Palais de Glace, Posadas 1725 For more information visit: http://www.palaisdeglace.gob.ar/  

Historical revision of the covers of the independent magazine that managed to come out during the military dictatorship (1976-1983), Expreso Imaginario, based on freedom and exploration. 7 PM through November 12th, Monday through Friday 10.30 AM – 8 PM and Saturday 10.00 AM – 2 PM CCEBA, Florida 943

A ballet production with the Colón cast, under the direction of Karl Burnett; music provided by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra. Performances run from June 30 to July 7, including a Sunday performance at 5pm. Find tickets here. Teatro Colón, 8:30pm