Price of an online ticket for the BocaRiver
buenos aires — Millions of football mad fans in Argentina are eagerly counting down to the first ever “superclasico” Copa Libertadores final between the country’s two powerhouse outfits: Boca Juniors and River Plate.
Beginning with Saturday’s first leg at Boca’s iconic Bombonera stadium fans of the two most popular teams in the country will be reaching fever pitch long before the return leg two weeks later at River’s Monumental ground.
The winners of the Copa Libertadores final will earn a place in next month’s Club World Cup in the UAE.
It will be a tie that’s not for the faint hearted between two teams that allegedly command the support of 70 percent of the country’s football fans.
It’s the most explosive and combustible match in a nation in
Superclasico which fans have been banned from travelling to away matches since 2013 due to football-related violence that has seen 305 supporters killed in the last 50 years, according to the Salvemos al Futbol (Let’s save football) charity. The rivalry between the two sides, both originally from the working class La Boca district of Buenos Aires before River moved to the more upmarket Nunez neighbourhood, has been lauded as the greatest in world football by numerous newspapers and magazines. Britain’s
claimed it “makes the Old Firm game” between Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers that has toxic sectarian undertones “look like a primary school kick-about.”
Football magazine as well as British newspapers The
and have recognised it as the fiercest derby — known as a clasico in Spanish — rivalry on the planet.
The teams’ presidents have tried to calm the waters ahead of a tie being dubbed the “superclasico” of the century.
“We call upon supporters, fans and club members to experience this as a popular festival, we are rivals not enemies,” said River’s Rodolfo D’Onofrio and Daniel Angelici of Boca in a joint statement.
However, it is hard to rein in the expectations when even the country’s President Mauricio Macri, a Boca fan and the club’s former chairman, has said: “I’m not going to be able to sleep over this.”
He even went so far as to suggest away fans be let into the stadiums to fire up an already white-hot atmosphere, but D’Onofrio wouldn’t hear of it: “I don’t want to have a death on my hands.”
Expectation has been reflected in ticket prices as places with a face value of $90 are being sold on the internet for $5,000.
So far, fans seem to be approaching the tie with good humour as memes have been spreading on social media joking about the importance of the Libertadores final.
One meme involves Homer Simpson wearing a sign saying: “The end is near,” while another offers advice on avoiding a heart attack, with images of people watching the game while connected to artificial respirators or holding a defibrillator at the ready.