By David Rusk

My thanks to Diego Bouche Ocampo, Tod Lindberg, and Doug Barnes for their review and thoughtful suggestions.

Author’s note: From February 24rd to March 23rd I was in Buenos Aires – my 25th or 26th visit in 55 years of marriage to Delcia, a native of Argentina’s capital city. During our visit I went to the Copa Libertadores match between San Lorenzo (Buenos Aires) and Gremio (Porto Alegre in Brazil). Indeed, as we are both regular contributors to Black & Red United, because I am a newly-minted San Lorenzo fan and prsancho is a lifelong Gremio fan, one inspired B&RU contributor dubbed San Lorenzo-Gremio the "Commentariat Clásico." This article and two more to come will reflect on that experience plus my going to the inaugural professional rugby match in Argentina. If B&RU readers will bear with my political and sociological reflections, I will eventually tie everything back into the American soccer and sporting scene. (All conversations are translated from Argentine Spanish for which, by the way, Microsoft Word provides a special proofing option.)

"I’m thinking of going to the San Lorenzo-Gremio match Tuesday night at the Nuevo Gasómetro," I said to my nephew Diego during the regular Sunday family asado (barbecue). "Do you know what colectivo (microbus) might take me from Barrio Norte to Bajo Flores so I can buy an advance ticket tomorrow?"

Diego frowned and shook his head. "That’s a very rough section of the city. I strongly advise against your going there alone. Besides, you probably can’t buy a ticket at the stadium. Let me see if I can get tickets some other way."

The next day Diego texted that he had secured two tickets for us. And how he did so provides some insight into life in Argentina.

Lesson #1: In Argentina business relationships are as likely to be formed through sandlot soccer as through a round of golf.

Diego is a patent/intellectual property attorney in downtown Buenos Aires. One of his major clients, he told me, gathers friends and business associates (all forty- and fifty-somethings) every Friday to play informal seven-on-seven soccer. Another regular player is his client’s insurance advisor with whom Diego has consequently become friends. His friend is a director of the comisión directiva of San Lorenzo and Diego bought a pair of tickets through him (about $65 each, in a very good location in the reserved seat section at the stadium).

Having met Diego in the microcentro (downtown Buenos Aires) around 7 pm, we drove about six miles to Bajo Flores, the poorest neighborhood in the city. Surprisingly, rush hour traffic was light, and we arrived almost two hours in advance of kickoff (scheduled for 9:40 pm!). Through his club director friend Diego had also secured a special parking pass so we parked right in the shadow of the stadium (like Lot 4 at RFK).

Buenos Aires is an immense city. The core ciudad autónoma is home to 2.9 million residents in 78 sq. mi. or about 37,000 people per square mile, including all commercial areas and parks. (Parque Palermo is probably as big as Rock Creek Park.) Thus, the core city itself has more than three times the density of smaller Washington, DC (672,000 residents in 61 sq. mi.)

Greater Buenos Aires is one of the world’s great "conurbations," with 24 partidos (small, county-like districts) added to the capital city, creating a total metro area of 13.6 million people in 1,480 sq. mi. For comparison, our DMV (+ WV) covers 5,565 sq mi. with 6 million residents; even adding in the Baltimore area gets us only to less than 9 million people. In short, the population density of Greater Buenos Aires (about 9,200 persons per sq. mi. city and suburbs) is almost that of the District of Columbia proper (about 11,000 persons per sq. mi.)

If the general population density of Buenos Aires (both city and metro area) is much greater than the DMV, the professional soccer density is off our scale. Within the Primera División alone, the Nuevo Gasómetro is only one of six stadia inside of Buenos Aires and there are eight more in the surrounding suburbs plus another two dozen in lower professional divisions.

Lesson #2: Tradition and involvement are important

in creating a true soccer community.

At all five levels of competition every professional soccer team in Argentina is owned collectively by its own socios (club members) rather than by individual investors. (Think Green Bay Packers multiplied 32 times for our National Football League.) Indeed, the most vigorously contested election I have seen in my many visits was a battle five years ago with billboards, wall graffiti, bumper stickers, rallies, etc. for the presidency of River Plate, one of the "Big Five" soccer clubs along with Boca Juniors, Racing, Independiente, and San Lorenzo (and one of Top Two along with Boca Juniors, River’s classic uber- rival).

Just inside the fence surrounding the stadium site, we passed a booth with the banner Vuelta a Boedo (The Return to Boedo). Club Atletico San Lorenzo de Almagro (CASLA) was founded in 1908 in Boedo, a solid working class neighborhood. For 70 years Boedo was San Lorenzo’s home, where its stadium, popularly known as the El Gasómetro (the Gas Works) was inaugurated in 1916. For six decades El Gasómetro was not only San Lorenzo’s home field but hosted many national team matches.

However, in the 1970s, through mismanagement, the club fell on hard times and, during the military government (of Dirty War notoriety) San Lorenzo was forced to sell the stadium for a small amount of money in 1978 (a virtual expropriation). A few years later the supermarket chain Carrefour (a French Walmart) bought the site for a big retail development. Per Wikipedia "the price had mysteriously surged eightfold, but the club did not get any extra money."

Lesson #3: Fan loyalty is central to political success.

After 14 years of renting playing sites, in 1993 San Lorenzo inaugurated a new stadium, nicknamed El Nuevo Gasómetro, in the Bajo Flores neighborhood. However, (again per Wikipedia) "the fans never forgot the old stadium, and its former lot is claimed by San Lorenzo and their fans to this day. On 8 March 2025 there was a demonstration attended by over 100,000 people in favor of reclaiming the place for the club, and on 15 November the Buenos Aires city legislature passed a bill stating that, in the course of six months, Carrefour should negotiate a deal with San Lorenzo in order to share the land lot, and if no accommodation was reached, then the city would expropriate it with San Lorenzo's funds. First, an extension was agreed to and one and a half years later they signed an agreement, which establishes that the multinational retailer will build a smaller new store on a corner of their current property, financed by funds provided by San Lorenzo. The rest of the lot will be handed over to the club, and there are plans to build another new stadium there."

So, if D.C. United boosters think that we had a battle to secure DC Council approval and participation in our new soccer stadium at Buzzard Point, look what San Lorenzo’s socios have been going through! They are still lobbying for city appropriations to help them co-fund a new stadium as a multi-purpose facility.

And San Lorenzo is more than just a professional soccer club. Other sports practiced at the club are women’s soccer, artistic roller skating, basketball, field hockey, futsal (both men’s and women’s), martial arts, roller hockey, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. Besides several in-town facilities, the club is developing a 40-acre site near Ezeiza International Airport for its socios on weekends. I was unable to find out how many socios the club has currently but San Lorenzo’s most famous socio is Pope Francis, whose long-time membership card numbers in 88,000’s.

In short, over many generations a family’s social and recreational life can revolve around its club. It is a model that will never be replicated within the investor-owned sports ethos in this country. However, every step D.C. United takes to reach out to its season ticket members as quasi-socios strengthens United’s roots and support. (As a season ticket holder/member I recently received my invitation to "Membership Day at the National Zoo on April 24.)

Lesson #4: Crowd control costs and controlling unruly crowds costs a lot.

Arriving at gate 6 of the platea (our reserved seat section) I counted 23 federal police standing around complete with riot helmets, Kevlar vests, and holstered pistols. At least ten were engaged in patting ticketholders down at the security gates (and this was for the reserved seat section).

Since 2013, AFA (Asociación de Futbol Argentino) has banned all visiting fans, especially the hinchadas (supporters groups) from Argentine stadia at all professional levels because of recurring rioting. The policy was directed not only at diminishing violence within the stadia and surrounding neighborhoods but also at reducing the enormous cost to clubs of paying for police protection. At the Superclásico between Boca Juniors and River Plate (a rivalry probably only matched by Barcelona-Real Madrid or perhaps Rangers FC-Celtic FC) 1,500 federal police would be on-site plus specially trained riot police standing by. Can you imagine the bill for all those time-and-a-half or double pay police officers?

I’ve always noticed the large number of gameday personnel at RFK and wondered if so many people are really necessary. Are they Events DC requirements? MLS requirements? DC United requirements? Are some of these gameday personnel volunteers? Will DC United be able to set its own gameday staffing standards for the new stadium at Buzzard Point?

And the dozen, very visible, private security personnel that seal off DC United’s own supporters groups from the home crowd at away games in Chester, Harrison and The Bronx. (They were especially evident at Red Bull Arena several games ago and, by their intrusion, seemed to cause more problems than anything being done by Barra Brava/Screaming Eagles.) Could security requirements not be lessened in light of a proven history of self-restraint/self-policing by different MLS clubs’ supporters groups? Well, back to Buenos Aires.

Our tickets were scanned by an attendant wearing a UTEDYC jacket (as were all attendants) – Unión de Trabajadores de Entidades Deportivas y Civiles. About 40% of all Argentine workers in the "formal" economy are unionized compared with less than 15% in the United States.

Lesson #5: Meeting Don Garber’s goal of having MLS be one of the top ten leagues in the world by 2022 requires not only upgrading on-field product but off-field product (particularly, stadium food).

Before entering the stadium itself, Diego and I stopped at a concession stand where I ordered a choripan (60 pesos, or $4) and a 12 oz. can of Coca Cola (50 pesos, or $3.35). A choripan is an Argentine chorizo slowly grilled about a foot above a bed of wood coals, split open at the last moment, and served on a slightly toasted hard roll with a dash of Argentine chimichurri. No other ballpark food comes close to a choripan whether at RFK (not even pupusas) or at any other stadium that I’ve ever attended unless it was a sandwich de lomito (filet mignon) at the Hipódromo (race track) in Buenos Aires. (A half century ago Coca Cola cost more than a filet mignon sandwich.)

With most of its best players abroad (1,800+ including 24 in MLS, the largest foreign born contingent), the status of Argentina Primera División as the world’s 7th highest rated soccer league is probably maintained by its choripanes and sandwiches de lomito. Having our famed pupusas and Ben’s Chili Bowl at Buzzard Point will be a start, but we still have to up our game. How about recruiting El Patio, the Argentine restaurant in Rockville, which makes a pretty mean choripan?

The Stadium

El Nuevo Gasómetro is architecturally a very plain vanilla facility – four open-air rectangles with only a small roof over the platea on the north side (left side of photo). Capacity is officially 43,494, but since the tribunas, or populares behind the goals are merely concrete risers for standees, their capacity depends on whether the hinchada is standing shoulder to shoulder or, more tightly packed, sideways (as I experienced for a rugby match between the Pumas, Argentina’s national team, and a French side in 1965). The plateas have one-piece, molded plastic seats anchored to horizontal pipes, making moving down a row of seated fans a tight squeeze indeed. I saw no hint of boxes, much less luxury suites, the cash cows of modern stadia in the USA. The playing surface itself was perfect.

Diego and I arrived so early that the stadium was almost empty, but we could hear hinchas already singing at a couple near-by bars. The stadium steadily

filled up with most fans wearing azulgrana jerseys (dark blue and red, also Barcelona’s colors). By match time (9:40 p.m.) the home (eastern, top of picture) tribuna was packed (maybe 10,000 ardent hinchas, who style themselves La Butteler):

The western tribuna had been divided in half with 500-750 visiting Gremio fans on one side (810 miles from Porto Alegre to Buenos Aires; well done, prsancho!) and perhaps twice that number of San Lorenzo fans on the other. The south side platea was three-quarters full; what I could see of our side appeared to be solidly filled in. Perhaps 25,000-30,000 in all on hand for a Tuesday night at 10 p.m.

In my previous stadium experiences (La Bombonera, El Monumental, Racing, Ferro Carril Oeste), the crowds had been almost exclusively male. You rarely saw young women and never young families. This night, however, I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t close enough to judge the gender profile of La Butteler in the eastern tribuna, but our platea had a number of young women and young families. Seated next to me was a retired high school teacher of history, his thirty-something son, and his granddaughter, who was the equivalent of a freshman in a private, bi-lingual (English and French) high school taught by Basque nuns. (Being Basque, the nuns taught French much better than English, she told me.) Pre-game sound levels permitting, the grandfather and I had a fine conversation.

Lesson #6: We must get hold of San Lorenzo’s song book. Barra Brava-Screaming Eagles-La Norte-DC Ultras must broaden and vary our offerings.

Once the game started, normal conversation, of course, was impossible. As I do at RFK, I turned my cochlear implant down to minimum range and minimum volume. But the singing and chanting was constant (though not as frenzied as shown in the link of Argentine fandom posted by Brendannukah several weeks ago). Diego had told me that La Butteler was famous for being the originators of the most popular soccer songs and chants in Argentina. And sure enough, at one point, "Esta noche tenemos que ganar" came through loud and clear.

Some further thoughts about the stadium experience:

• Though the P.A. system was evident, El Nuevo Gasómetro had neither a scoreboard nor a game clock, much less a video screen. Diego said having none was common in Argentina stadia (though River Plate and Velez Sarsfield are exceptions – the latter, as we’ll see in a future posting). Perhaps their absence dampens passion a bit.

• Unlike La Bombonera, for example, where the stands come right down to within perhaps a few yards of the sideline, the field at El Nuevo Gasómetro was surrounded by perhaps 15-20 yards of grass, akin to running tracks surrounding many American football fields. This reduced the feeling of intimacy considerably. Thankfully, the renderings of Buzzard Point suggest that intimacy will prevail there.

• The railings surrounding the field were hung with 50-60 banners identifying San Lorenzo supporters groups located throughout Argentina. Pride of placement goes to earliest gameday arrivals. It’s as if Ben Bromley were to arrive a couple of hours early at RFK and hang up a "Richmond for DC United" banner.

• Like Buzzard Point, El Nuevo Gasómetro has uneven stands: a three-tiered grandstand on the north side (i.e. east side along 1st Street at Buzzard Point) and a two-tiered grandstand on the south side (i.e. west side at Buzzard Point along 2nd Street overlooking Fort McNair). With both totally roofed at Buzzard Point, intimacy (and crowd noise) will be increased.

  Lesson #7: A one-goal lead is never safe; that second goal is essential.

  This was a must win for San Lorenzo if realistically we were to get out of group play into the quarter finals of Copa Libertadores (which San Lorenzo won in 2014). A shocking loss to Liga de Quito in Peru was followed by draws with Liga MX’s Toluca (home) and Gremio (away). San Lorenzo badly needed three points.

  The game started too well for San Lorenzo. In the third minute we were awarded a penalty kick – validly called but a stupid foul as the San Lorenzo striker was moving diagonally away from the goal just inside the box. 1-0 the good guys.

  Though Gremio had some promising early attacks down the wings, gradually San Lorenzo asserted control over the game, searching for the elusive second goal. Several can’t-miss opportunities were frustrated by the Gremio keeper Marcelo Grohe who, as prsancho remarked, was doing his best Bill Hamid imitation. About the 85th minute I threw up my hands when, with a ball cut back to the top of the box, a completely unmarked San Lorenzo midfielder skied it well over the bar. (Sound familiar, NDL?)

  Then, in the 89th minute, with the hinchada tasting victory, a quick Gremio counterattack resulted in a mad scramble before the San Lorenzo net and Gremio’s Lincoln touched it in. (There are five azulgrana defenders packed in front of the net in La Nación’s photo the next morning.) Dead silence among 30,000 fans except for the wild celebration of the Gremio contingent. A 1-1 draw that was a defeat.

* * * *

The crowd exiting was very disgruntled but orderly. Getting out of the parking lot took a chaotic 25 minutes – a metaphor Diego assured me for Argentine society and politics. But that’s a topic for Letter from Buenos Aires II.