Experiencing the Boca Juniors at La Bombonera

While scrolling through Airbnb experiences, I came across one titled “Experience an Argentine Soccer Game.” It has always been on my bucket list to experience a soccer game abroad, to see what the culture is really like. Even more luckily, the game being played on Wednesday night happened to be a home game in La Bombonera, a 54,000 seat stadium, for the Boca Juniors. The most popular soccer team in Argentina. This was a qualifying game against Nacional Potosí, a team from Bolivia. It was win or go home for Boca.

The night started by taking a Cabify (Similar to Uber, but in Spain & Latin America) over to a bar near the stadium. We met our English speaking guide, which was refreshing, in a city that speaks very little English, and the rest of our group. Drew and I, another American, 2 from London, and another from France. We all had burgers, chatted for a bit, got asked if I like Trump (which everyone, especially the Argentines seemed to be curious about), and then began to head to the stadium.

You could feel the energy of the team and sport as early as stepping outside of the bar. Busses full of fans chanting and waving flags, and a mob of people decked in blue and yellow.

Every single ticket into La Bombonera is allocated to a member (season ticket holder) and there is over a 10 year waiting list, which our guide has been on for numerous years. He works for one of the members hosting groups to games. There is no way to buy tickets, the only way to get into a game is with a member. Our guide also told us that because of this, there is some fans of the club that are very against seeing tourists go to the games.

About three-fourths of the way on our walk to the stadium, our guide huddled us all up and gave us the game plan. He handed each of us all our tickets and explained what was ahead - 5 security checkpoints. A pat down, ticket scan, ID check, another security point, another ticket scan. While explaining all of this, our guide seemed a little nervous and uneasy. He ended it by saying we needed to split up and can’t go inside together, because we could be denied entry for being apart of a tour group. “Whatever you do, no matter what they say, just keep walking.” This was a the parting advice from him. I didn’t understand exactly why he was so nervous, but it turned out to be mayhem.

We turned the corner to see the first checkpoint, and it was a sea of blue and yellow being blocked off by numerous police officers holding shields. We got in right behind them and waited for them to let us in. I still didn’t think anything of it, until the police turn their shields to the side and let people move past them for 5-10 seconds. As soon as this happened, I have never felt a crowd surge/momentum like that in my life. I now understand how people die in these mobs. People falling and pushing up against each other. The reason for this rush and pushing, is that for the majority of seats in the stadium, none of them are assigned, so fans try to get into as quick as they can, to get a good spot. I would say seat, but there is no sitting in La Bombonera. After the first rush I got up right to the front. I would have loved to taken out my phone and gotten a picture of what this chaos looked like, but that phone would never have been seen again if I had pulled it out. We waited for a bit amidst fans chanting in Spanish, until finally, the officers turned their shields to the side again. As soon as they did this, the momentum pushed me right into one of the officers, in which he responded with an elbow straight into my stomach, not ideal. I can respect having five different security checkpoints into the stadium, but there has to be a better way of doing things than every man for himself.

We went through the next checkpoints with no issues, thankfully. Checking our IDs, scanning our tickets multiple times, and getting patted down. Our guide had told us to meet at the top of the stairs at gate 13. I was the last person to head into the first shield checkpoint, and figured everyone had been in before me. I got to the top of gate 13 with Drew, to find nobody there. So we went inside of the stadium and got our first look at La Bombonera.

Thank goodness for having our guide’s WhatsApp number, because there was no chance we were finding him in this place. We would have been lost in a stadium deep in Buenos Aires. Our guide ended up calling me and we met up with the rest of the group, he was a bit upset at us for not waiting at the top of the stairs. Oops, that’s on me.

We found a spot and started interacting with a few local fans who had their fair share of Fernet and Coke’s. They were some funny guys. The chants reminded me a bit of the Texas A&M fans at Kyle Field, only this time, I didn’t have a clue as to what was being said since it was all Spanish. One of the fans tried telling me what to say, and I just started making noise. I’m sure it sounded good enough to him after all those Fernet con cocas. They started waving huge flags and finished up their chants, and it was game on.

Boca had an early score, in which the place went bonkers. One of the local guys tackled me and we all started hugging. This was ridiculous and exactly what I had expected them to be like. It was awesome to see the passion everyone had. The chants and goals went on, as Boca glided their way to a 4-0 win and qualified to move on. I was hoping to witness at least one goal from Boca, but got to experience four. That was a win in my book.

The second half was pretty slow, as Boca was up big, but not a single fan was leaving that stadium until the ref blew the whistle ending the game.

Following the final whistle, we hung out at the stadium for a bit longer and waited for it to clear out. We then followed our guide and made our way out of the stadium. The walk back was full of locals grilling up burgers and other meats. The food looked and smelled amazing. I unfortunately did not have any cash on me to get some. We made our way to a different bar, in which our guide told us to get our rides from. We hopped into one with the guy from France in our group, and headed back to

Palermo (the neighborhood we stayed in)

This experience was undoubtedly the highlight of Buenos Aires for me. I find the best experiences to be when you are surrounded/guided by locals on things that they are passionate about, and what better way to share that passion through sports. American fan bases are no where near this nuts, and I can only imagine what it’s like when the Argentina national team is playing. Hopefully one day I can check that box too.

¡Vamos Boca! 💙 💛