Culture
Football plays an important part in the life of many Argentines. Even those supporters who usually do not attend the matches watch them on television and comment on them the next day with friends and co-workers. When the Argentina national football team plays (especially during world cup matches), streets tend to look completely deserted as everyone is watching the match. After the victories in 1978 FIFA World Cup and 1986 FIFA World Cup, streets were flooded with people celebrating the championship, making it impossible not to become part of the celebration.
It was in 1986 when the figure of Diego Maradona exploded, becoming an icon not only of Argentine football but of football itself. In Argentina, Maradona became something resemblant of a god (see Maradonian Church), admired by fans of every club (even River Plate).
Many Argentine fans travel to see their teams in away matches. Hinchas (fans) create an emotional ambiance in many stadiums, singing and cheering loudly all game long; barra bravas (Argentine organized groups -like the English hooligan firms-) also create occasional problems, usually in riots after the match. Probably one of the most exciting matches in the world is the Superderby (between Boca Juniors and River Plate), where the colourful fans seem to become more important than the match itself. However, in Argentina most of derbies have that feature, so the match between Boca Juniors and River Plate doesn't stand out much of the principal derbies.
Read more about this topic: Football In Argentina
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Nobody seriously questions the principle that it is the function of mass culture to maintain public morale, and certainly nobody in the mass audience objects to having his morale maintained.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)
“In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,—not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We belong to an age whose culture is in danger of perishing through the means to culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)