Balls! NOW WITH PICS

We went to our first footy match in Argentina today, courtesy of ´el Presidente´ of Guarani de Franja (local footy team), Cesar, who is the boyfriend of Flo´s eldest sister Mariana, so we sat in the director´s box, right on the centre line, second row.

M says that she gets to travel a lot as his girlfriend, and gets called the ´First Lady´of the club. She´s certainly perfect WAG material, beautiful, slim, immaculately turned out, big shades and heels, loves shopping...but bright, sweet and funny as well (dammit!). As Steve had asked at the BBQ the other night, ´So she looks like Penelope Cruz and loves football...what´s wrong with her?!´

A slightly scary moment; within the first ten minutes, the fans kicked off and were throwing BRICKS and stuff onto the pitch until the riot police came on. M said this was the first time it had happened in 4 years. Must have decided to put a show on for us Brits. Turns out some away fans were goading ours from outside the ground which set off the home fans trying to kick the door down to fight them. Anyway, luckily we were in the posh bit on the other side of the pitch. The game had to stop for fifteen minutes.

I´m not saying the game was dull, but...

Says a lot that this was the most interesting part of the match.

As the game was a bit dull and we were down and getting nowhere near the goal, in the 2nd half I decided to focus on the cute players instead. There was a shaven-headed one who looked like ´Sucre´ off Prison Break who was more watchable than most. Another player who provided much entertainment was ´Mr Fall Guy´ on the opposition who took diving to another level, even when there was no-one near! Got a few pics of Sucre, but a bit blurry - he kept moving, dammit! C said that was kinda the point, but as far as I could see, the point is to score and they weren´t doing that either.

´Sucre´; quite fit

I also amused myself by understanding most of the Spanish swear words being shouted.

Also funny was that the main reason for the 6 or so riot police, seemed to be to escort the ref off the pitch at half-time and at the end of the match. I know he made some duff decisions, but was he *really* that unpopular...?

Not a popular man

In the end though, ´we´ sucked, lost 2:1 and the other team get promoted. Cesar, M said, will be crying all night.

Anyhoo, got lesson prep to do now. ´Chow´ for now...