Billboards along the highway advertise various products with photos of the Argentine team. Souvenir stands in Buenos Aires offer team regalia. For a small fee, one can pose beside various replica football trophies. The Argentine national team draws its players from twenty-eight Argentine First Division teams as well as from Argentines who play internationally. The “Primero,” as the division is known, was founded in 1891 and is the second oldest football league in the world, as the United Kingdom established its leagues just a few years earlier.
Buenos Aires hosts two teams that have been bitter rivals over the decades. River Plate has won 38 championships and is viewed as the team for the upper-class. Boca Juniors, with its thirty-five national championships, claims to draw its support from the working class. Of course the players are far from working class, but the home territory of the Boca Juniors is the colourful and very touristy area of Buenos Aires known as La Boca. To this day, La Boca remains one of the major port areas of the city. As one gets closer to La Bombonera, Boca Juniors’ iconic stadium, the team colours of yellow and blue begin to dominate the landscape.
To pay homage to La Boca’s role as a harbour, the team decided to use the flag colours of the next ship that entered the Buenos Aires harbour. That ship was from Sweden and hence the team adopted the colours of the Swedish flag.
The origin of the colour scheme goes back over a century. After the team lost a major tournament, it decided to change its uniform colours. To pay homage to La Boca’s role as a harbour, the team decided to use the flag colours of the next ship that entered the Buenos Aires harbour. That ship was from Sweden and hence the team adopted the colours of the Swedish flag. Argentina proudly boasts two of the greatest football players in history, Diego Maradona (two World Cups) and Lionel Messi (the most recent World Cup).
Images of both are visible when visiting the La Boca neighbourhood. Long line-ups greet those who wish to “pose beside Messi” at a local restaurant's balcony. But Diego Maradona is even more revered. He played briefly for Boca Juniors, before playing most of his career in Barcelona and Naples. In addition, FIFA has recognized Maradona’s 1986 goal against England as the “Goal of the Century.” In the same game, Maradona also scored the infamous “Hand of God” goal. Both can be seen on YouTube. On a personal note, on my first trip back to Argentina almost twenty years ago, my host took me to a match at River Plate stadium, where I was honoured to be introduced to Maradona.
Text and photos by Peeter Põldre
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