France vs. Mexico

Our mission for today was to watch two futbol matches with some die-hard fans, although we only accomplished half of our goal. We thought the Argentina match was at 11am, but we were woken up at 8:30am by our rowdy neighbors – apparently that was kick-off time. Instead of heading to Plaza San Martín, we decided to enjoy the game from the comfort of our bed, which was actually still quite entertaining because we could hear EVERYONE on our block cheering for their team.


The match was incredibly exciting, and it was great to see hometown hero and newly appointed Argentina coach, Diego Maradona, lead his team to a 4-1 win over South Korea. Each time the team scored a goal, our neighbors came out on their balcony and tooted their horns and screamed with delight. We are definitely planning to make Tuesday's match in Plaza San Martín with several hundred fans – that will be a sight!

We later made our way down to a pub called Shoeless Joe's, which is very much of a beer-drinking, frat-party kind of a bar (ah...reminded me of IU!) which is known for airing all futbol matches. We went to the airing of the France/Mexico game, and the small venue was PACKED with fans. We scurried in to find a table quickly, and luckily we ended up with all of the French fans, the team we planned to support since Paris is one of our next destinations. We were the oldest people in the bar by about 10 years, but I think we disguised our age pretty well, and even befriended a young Frenchman next to us. It turns out he's in school at BA, and hopes to go to NY once he graduates.

There was an extremely vocal rivalry between the 2 sides of the bar, which involved a lot of jeering and gestures back and forth. There were also many songs that were sung, including the French national anthem. Unfortunately, things didn't pan out so well for them – Mexico scored 2 goals while France scored zero. The Mexican fans went nuts over each goal and made sure to throw their victory in the French fans face. At the end of the game, our new friend leaned over and said (in a heavy French accent,) “pardon me, but do you know of a good way to suicide myself?”

Despite all the rivalry, after the game, we noticed that both sides soon began mingling and drinking together. The French lads next to us were hitting on Mexican ladies, and their Parisian female friend started doing shots with a table of Mexican men. We even ended up meeting of of the Mexican fans who chatted with us old-timers for a while (he was 25) and gave some great advise about BA and trips to Uruguay. Later, we noticed our French friend wearing our new Mexican friend's cowboy hat, and doing shots of tequila with the Mexican guy's female friends.

In the end, we determined that “drunk and horny 20-something-year-oldness” supersedes any kind of team loyalty.