When we decided to go to Buenos Aires for Springbreak, I was hoping that there would be a Boca Juniors Game while we were there. For those of you who are unaware Boca Juniors is a famous Argentinian team that has had Maradona, Palermo, and Riquelme along with many other greats. Caitlin and I did a tour of the stadium and the museum before Jesse and Jenna joined us in Buenos aires. At the stadium tour we learned about how Boca Juniors was founded and how they chose their colors. Apparently they had the same colors as another Buenos Aires team, both teams decided to have a playoff to decide who gets to keep the black and white that they had. Boca lost and since it was located near the port decided that they would change their colors to the flag of the next boat that came in. The next boat was from Sweden, thus the blue and yellow. At the end of the tour we asked about going to a game and were told we could pay to go to a game with a guide for $150. We were stunned and thought we can do this for cheaper. However as we asked more questions we learned that all the tickets went to Socios of the club. Since the stadium is so small there aren’t even enough tickets for all the socios. Socios are people who are part owners in the sense that they have paid certain fees. As we continued to ask around we learned that there were also a lot of counterfit tickets so if we were going to try to buy our own tickets we should be careful as many people are ripped off. To make things even tougher was the knowledge that Boca Juniors is known to be a rough crowd and we were a little hesitant to sit in the cheap seats. After some debating and checking into tours that cost way too much and put you into the visiting fan seats we decided to chance it. Since we weren’t sure how much tickets would be, safety and general lack of interest the girls decided to not go to the game. Leaving Jesse and I to try our luck. We headed down to the Boca neighborhood and started walking toward the stadium. There were tons of cops all around and to our amazement you couldn’t get within two blocks of the stadium without a ticket. We also couldn’t seem to find any scalpers at first until as we stood around looking and trying an old man who looked a little sketchy approached us and asked us if we needed tickets. We said yes and were then told to walk with him. We did and he quickly pulled out his socio id card and a couple of tickets. He told us they were legit and after asking he was even willing to stand with us inline until we got through the check point. We figured this sounded like a good deal even though he wanted double the face value for the tickets. Which made them 80 pesos which is about 20 dollars. A hell of a lot cheaper than the tour operators wanted. Jesse and I were a little less apprehensive since he was willing to stand with us and also figured losing 20 dollars would not be the end of the world. However after waiting with us for about 40mins. the gates finally opened and we were allowed to enter. The tickets were good, and fake tickets were common as we saw one dad and son get turned away because the tickets were fakes. We made it into the stands and were surprised by the lack of feeling of hostility or lack of safety. The game started poorly for Boca as they were down by 2 right away. However they were able to muster a comeback and tied 3-3 at the end, we even got a chance to see Riquelme score. The fans cheered and sang the whole game, many of the songs were creative as well not just generic soccer songs. When the game ended we had to wait for about 30mins. before we could leave as the stadium is emptied in sections. After the 30min wait we left and there was nobody in the streets milling around as the cops were quite effective at move people along.

Really nice seats that we did not get but got to sit in during the tour. Over my right shoulder the yellow section behind the goal is where we were able to get seats.

The real deal tickets. They were a little difficult to get but worth the hassle and the price.

The teams walking onto the field. Fans at this point are singing, throwing confetti and the game hasn’t started.

Scoreboard at the start of the game.

A special thanks to Jesse as all the pictures from the game are from Jesse who was willing to risk his camera.