So Who the Heck is This Boca Juniors the Sounders Play Wednesday?

With Argentine team Boca Juniors (of Buenos Aires) here Wednesday, we figured it was a good time to check in with our underutilized Senior Argentine Soccer Correspondent, Josh Michtom. What can you tell us about Boca, Josh?

Boca plays in a little bandbox of a stadium called La Bombonera (the candybox), located in a rough neighborhood at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, and has always been the more down-and-dirty, "people's team," in contrast to its archrival and Argentina's other perennial soccer powerhouse, the appropriately English-named River Plate (although Boca is the Juniors, so go figure).

It's not that the River and Boca fans divide neatly along class lines--far from it; like New York baseball allegiances, people's soccer loyalties in greater Buenos Aires can stem from myriad accidents of personal history (I root for River because my best friend in Argentina rooted for River, and I always detected a certain reactionary streak among the Boca fans I knew, although this was probably just coincidence.).

La Bombonera

In Buenos Aires and environs, it is pretty much assumed that people root either for Boca or River (to the chagrin of boosters of lesser area teams like Velez and Argentinos--for whom I feel great sympathy now that I live in Central Connecticut, where the baseball breakdown is 45 percent Yankees, 45 percent Red Sox, and 10 percent my beloved Mets.).

This is the source of frequent fights and interminable boasting matches and Ditka-vs-host-of-angels style what-ifs, many of which settle on the inarguable fact that Boca was the home team of the greatest Argentinian soccer player of the modern era, Diego Maradona. Maradona, by the way, really embodied the Boca aesthetic with his scrappy-yet-showy style, his flashy living and womanizing, and all of that.

I remember that when I lived in Argentina, Boca won the national championship and its fans overturned and burned cars in my neighborhood to celebrate. I don't think that really proves anything about Boca or its fans, but it was a memorable occasion for me when I lived there.

Thanks, Josh! The Sounders/Boca Juniors match is Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Qwest. Plenty of good seats left.