Our marketing interns David and Johan from Holland have been busy making the most of their three months in Buenos Aires. One of the first things on their list was experiencing a Boca Juniors football match. here´s their account of the adventure.

Johan and David ready for the match

Visiting a football match in Argentina is unlike anywhere else in the world, but visiting an away match of Boca Juniors is even more special. Since we are a big football fans, we had to see a Boca Juniors match during our time in Buenos Aires.

In order to achieve this goal we asked a good friend (Rodrigo), who is also a big Boca fan, to arrange a ticket. We knew this was going to be a hard job, since tickets are very rare. However, Rodrigo knows his way around and at the end of the day we received the good news: We were going to a Boca match!

The evidence: ticket Rafaela vs. Boca Juniors

The match we were going to visit was against Rafaela, a club located 500 km away from Buenos Aires. It was going to be a 6 hour bus ride. For reasons we didn’t understand (the match was scheduled for 19:15), we had to leave Buenos Aires at 2 in the morning.

A 6 hour ‘Boca’ bus drive doesn’t mean sitting or sleeping, it means singing, cheering, jumping and drinking lots and lots of Fernet (a strong local drink mixed with a little bit of Cola). To be honest, this was one of the greatest bus drives ever.

''Boca bus'' to Rafaela

After a few hours in this bus, we arrived at a campsite near Rafaela. Here we ate breakfast, played football and socialized with Boca fans from other regions. Since we were the only foreigners, many fans started a chat with us. In a mix of English and Spanish they told us about their Boca adventures and what it means to them. For most of the fans, Boca Juniors is more than a club, it’s a lifestyle.

Relaxing at the campsite

After the 7 hours of eating, chatting and playing football it was time to go to the match. When we arrived in Rafaela, locals were waving at us like we were the players. The same welcome wasn’t given by the police. They were running around with their sticks and shields ready for a beat down. However nothing happened, we arrived at the stadium in one piece.

The fans from Haedo are ready for the match!!!!!

Inside, the atmosphere was amazing. The Boca fans were singing even louder than before and this drowned out the sound of the Rafaela crowd. Because stadiums are filled to the brim (and beyond), actually seeing the match was quite a challenge.

CABJ atmosphere in the stadium

The match was a big ‘fiesta’ and the late Boca equalizer (90+6!!!!) made this even better. Now it was time to head back home to Buenos Aires and get some well needed sleep.

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Beth Alexander

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