Copa America Day 6A - The Stadiums in BA

I just came back from watching Argentina-Colombia game in a cafe in Buenos Aires. Colombia was the better team and would have won if they had shot better.

I watched the game with 2 fans from San Lorenzo club. I had a good practice with my spanish as we spent most of the game debating 'who is better, Maradona or Messi?' and 'who should be the next Argentine coach?'

They were very impressed when I showed them a photo of me in front of the stadium of San Lorenzo. It was located in a bad neighborhood of BA.

That was my project of today. I hired a driver to drive me all over BA to visit 8 stadiums. It took almost 4 hours without a break.

First was the neighborhood of Avellaneda where I saw

1) Racing Club de Avellaneda - most famous recent player was Diego Milito (his nickname is el Principe).

Estadio Presidente Juan Domingo Peron

2) Club Atlético Independiente - most famous recent players were Sergio Agüero and Diego Forlan

Estadio Libertadores de America

The stadiums of Racing and Independiente are one block from each other

3) The next club in Avellaneda that I visited was found in 1957 by 2 brothers named Grondona. One of them is the President of the Argentina Football Federation as well as FIFA Vice President.

They liked a certain club in north London so much that they named their club after it.

Arsenal FC

Estadio Julio H. Grondona

The most famous player of Arsenal FC was el Burru, Jorge Burruchaga, who scored the winning goal in the 86 WC Final against West Germany.

4) Club Atlético Huracán - most recent famous player was Javier Pastore. He currently plays for Palermo and many Argentine fans want to see him play in Copa America.



Estadio Tomas Adolfo Duco

5) San Lorenzo de Almagro - most famous recent player was el Pocho (the chubby), Ezequiel Lavezzi who now plays for Napoli

Estadio Pedro Bidegain

6) Ferro Caril Oeste - most famous players were el Raton (the mouse) Roberto Ayala and el Cabezon (the big head) Hector Cuper

Estadio Arquitecto Ricardo Etcheverri

7) Club Atlético Vélez Sársfield - the current Argentine champions. Their most famous player was the goalkeeper Chilavert from Paraguay.

8) and finally I went to see the stadium of Argentinos Junoirs. This club is famous for their youth academy who has produced Juan Pablo Sorin, Esteban Cambiasso, Juan Roman Riquelme, Fernando Redondo, Sergio Batista (the current Argentine coach) and a player whose stadium is now named after him.

El Pibe de Oro started his career here and played for this club for 5 years before moving to Boca Juniors.

During the visit to these stadiums, I was wearing a replica of the shirt of Celtic Glasgow when they became the first British club to win the European Cup (today Champions League) in 1967. They went on to play the Intercontinental Cup against Racing Club de Avellaneda.

Celtic won the first game in Scotland and lost the second in Argentina. The third and deciding game was in Uruguay and it became famous for the dirty play from both sides. At one point, the Uruguay police had to enter the field to remove a Celtic player who refused to leave after getting a red card. In another moment, a Celtic player got angry and chased a Racing player across the pitch. Racing won the deciding game 1-0

see the 3 minute video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3hONr7cJuE

Before I left for this trip, I read a book written by a Celtic fan Tom Campbell just about this Intercontinental Cup. I felt some sympathy for Celtic so I bought that replica shirt to wear on this trip.



To be a balanced reporter I am now looking for a Racing shirt to wear the next time I go to Glasgow.

Good night from Buenos Aires.