Porque Boca le dale, Boca le dale, OH!

Barracades, police officers everwhere, crowds of people, strategically placed swat teams with bullet proof, botons and tear gas, and checkpoints. What am I describing? An accident? A hostage stand off? No. None of the above. I am describing a large section of the neighborhood of La Boca on the night of the first game of Boca Juniors.

Boca Juniors. Absolutely no words can describe the following that this soccer team has in all of Argentina. The stadium, La Bombonera, is located in La Boca, and is entirely painted blue and yellow. The team is currently such a powerful commercial enterprise that it forced Coca Cola to change its colors if it wanted to advertise inside the stadium. Red, White, and Black are not allowed. Those are the rival colors of River plate.

Most soccer teams here are also athletic clubs. As such, members of these athletic clubs get first priority (and some cases free entry) to some of the team's games. In Boca's case? el Club Atletico de Boca Juniors has 80,000 members. La bombonera has 50,000 seats. Boca Juniors currently only sells tickets to members. There are two sections in almost every stadium. La Platea, and la Popular. Platea is what most americans think of as stadium seating- seats. The section where, here, families come, older folks, and most women who come to see the game. Popular is where the chaos is. No actual seats, people stand the whole time.But tickets are also about a third as expensive, and the only ones that remain on game day. Boca's policy is to open ticket sales on game day (except for the HUGE games: read- Boca vs. River) and usually the only tickets that remain that dont cost 700-800 pesos a piece are the popular.

A couple sections of the popular in the Bombonera are exclusively for members of La Barra Brava, the sections that waved the flags and the signs Jugador No 12 (read- 12th player). Don't know much about what it takes to become a member, although I do know most are in their teens and 20s, but members of the Barra get free tickets to the Popular section for most games. How does this happen? Well, CABJ denies any official affiliation with the Barra, but someone inside has to be paying for the tickets! La Barra Brava does all the chanting that Argentine soccer is so very famous for (title of this entry is one of the chants). When I went last night, I kid you not, the Barras chanted the ENTIRE 95 minutes of the game. It's incredible to see entire sections of the stadium jumping up and down at the same time. When it's full, they say la Bombonera shakes. And after what I saw last night? It doesn't surprise me.

Last night Boca Juniors played Velez Sarsfield and tied 1-1. In the first two minutes, Boca scored. In the first fifteen, someone from the small Velez section threw a fire cracker that almost hit a police officer. There were police surrounding the field and the stadium all during the game (the field was glassed in with spikes at the top, talk about protection for these guys!), and at the end of the game, police in full riot gear with plastic shields and everything came onto the field. A detterent, I guess?

People were very nice, and the row of what were probably life time Boca members (all 80+ years old) behind us was interested in how 3 American girls came to get tickets for Boca Juniors. We sat in the Platea, where tickets for foreigners are nearly impossible to get, so we definitely got a good feel for "La Pasion Boquarense" (read- Boca Mania...literally translated- Bocan Passion).

It was intense, amazing, and so exciting! I'm definitely going back.