AFA decides it’s Bombonera or bust
Argentina’s struggle to qualify for the World Cup may come down to one match, the national team’s final home game against Peru. Officials hope Boca Juniors’stadium will spur the team to victory, but history shows the move may backfire.
When a crisis takes hold in football, it is easy to look for outside factors on which to pin the blame. So it was that Argentina’s struggles to qualify for the World Cups uddenly have less to do with their deficiencies as a team, or their failure to hit the net more than once in this month’s bitterly disappointing draw with Venezuela.
Now it is the lukewarm atmosphere at River Plate’s Monumental Stadium that has taken responsibility for the poor results that have left Argentina on the brink of disaster. And those in charge have a seemingly fool-proof solution: move the final home game against Peru to the bearpit of the Bombonera, a gambit which they believe will help deliver a spot in Russia 2018.
Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest movers behind the decision was Boca President and AFA Vice-President Daniel Angelici. With an uncharacteristic humility, however, the official pointed out Claudio Tapia as the man who had the final say. “[AFA] president Tapia understoodthatyoucanfeelthesupport more in our stadium and we will be working to make the playing surface as good as possible,” Angelici said after it was confirmed that FIFA had given Argentina the green light on the switch.
Canastadiumreallymakethe difference? It is true that the acoustics of the Monumental tend to let the noise from the stands escape into the ether, while the compact Bombonera provides a more intimate, overbearing atmosphere. The diffe- rence, however, is marginal, and even less important when Argentina face a game in which absolute concentration will be vital. Those present against Peru, moreover, will not be Boca’s vociferous home support in any case, but the same fans who are supposedly guilty of not making enough noise in Núñez.
The Selección is not a club team; the traditions and rivalries that make Primera División games such a spectacle do not translate over into the international arena, and any comparison is necessarily redundant. One can also imagine the AFA accountants tearing their hair out as they contemplate the loss of some 15,000 paying spectators due to the Bombonera’s much lower capacity.
Nor indeed is an ‘intimidating’ atmosphere any guarantee of success. Argentina themselves proved as much way back in 1969, when they failed to qualify for a World Cup finals for the first and, to date, only time. After going down to Bolivia and Peru in their opening qualifiers Adolfo Perdernera’s charges played both their home games in the Bombonera; the former was overcome in an unconvin- cing 1-0 win before the Inca cruised to a 2-2 draw and kicked the Albiceleste out of contention. No wonder that in Peruvian newspaper El Bocón news of the switch was greeted with delight. “History is being repeated,” Wednesday’s front page enthused, adding that “the last time we played there the Blan
quirroja qualified for Mexico 70 and left the gauchos outside. Will the ghost of 1969 reappear?”
River Plate President Rodolfo D’Onofrio was one of those present in the Bombonera that day, as he pointed out this week in declarations that came with no little dose of spite in seeing his team’s stadium passed over for Boca. But one does not have to go back as far as 1969 to see such a move backfire. In 2009 at the behest of then-coach Diego Maradona a key qualifier was played at Rosario’s Gigante del Arroyito, similarly picked for its perceived atmosphere. “You never know how things will go, but if we start badly that pressure we wanted in our favour could turn against us,” Carlos Tevez warned prior to kick-off. Thus it proved, as Maradona’s men were dismantled 3-1 and left fighting for a qualifying place that eventually arrived against Peru – in the Monumental – thankstoMartínPalermo’sagonising winner. Will October’s match prove a rerun of 2009 or 1969? It is impossible to say at this point. But one thing is certain: ultimately Argentina’s place in the World Cup will be decided by the 11 players that take the pitch for Jorge Sampaoli in the Bombonera, and not the stadium itself.
‘History is being repeated,’ El Bocón’s front page enthused, adding that ‘the last time we played there the Blanquirroja qualified for Mexico 70 and left the gauchos outside.’