Many football fans in our country know the famous Argentinean ball magicians of the past, such as Diego Maradona, Jose Moreno, Omar Sivori, Daniel Passarela, Gabriel Batistuta, Diego Milito , Juan Sebastian Veron. The current stars - Lionel Messi, Angel Di Maria, Javier Mascherano, Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez and others admire their game. All these football players are familiar to us from appearances in leading European teams.
And what do we know about the championship of Argentina and its leading teams? Take, for example, the most famous of them - Boca Juniors. Do you know that this club (along with the Italian “Milan”) is the world record holder in the number of winning international tournaments?
Club history
The story of Boca Juniors dates back to 1905, when the club was formed by five immigrants from Italy in the La Boca working area of Buenos Aires. Since 1931 (the birth of Argentina's professional football league), the team has become the country's champion 24 times, won the Libertadoros Cup six times and the Intercontinental Cup three times. Over the years, stars such as Diego Maradona, Juan Roman Riquelme, Martin Palermo, Claudio Canija, Esekiel Lavessi, Clemente Rodriguez, Carlos Tevez have played in the yellow-blue.
Stadium
Home games, “Boca Juniors” holds at the stadium “Estadio Alberto Armando” built in 1940 and can accommodate 49,000 spectators. The current name of the building was in honor of the club president, in which the team in the 70-80s of the last century achieved the most striking successes in its history. Another name for the stadium - “Bombonera” - is associated with the shape of the stands, resembling a box of chocolates. Due to the fact that Boca is the most popular football club in Argentina, fans regularly fill the arena. Particular excitement happens when the Boca Juniors - River Plate derby is held.
Argentinean "superclassico"
The history of the confrontation between the two teams goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. It was then that in 1901, the River Plate football club was formed in the La Boca district of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. After some time, as we recall, Boca Juniors appeared in the same place. A little later, the two teams began to exist closely together and it was decided to hold a control match, after which the losing side will forever leave the La Boca area.
The River Plate lost and first moved to Italy, then returned to the country and since 1925 settled in the Nunez district in the north of the Argentine capital. Between each other teams met 352 times. Of these, 127 victories were won by the players of Boca Juniors. In 112 games, River Plate celebrated success, and a draw was recorded 113 times.
The uncompromising struggle on the football field sometimes spills over. So, in 1968, riots in the stands began at the River Plate Stadium during the match, during which 71 fans were killed and more than 150 were seriously injured. In May 2015, in a 1/8 finals match of the Libertadoros Cup, a fan of the Boca Juniors club sprayed pepper gas in the podium, which affected five River Plate players. For such actions, a fan of Estadio Alberto Armando was disqualified for four games, and the club was removed from the tournament.
Club Academy
The pride of “Boca Juniors”, of course, is the club football academy. More than 350 boys from 7 to 21 years old are members of various age teams of the school. Every day there is a viewing of gifted children on three natural and one artificial turf bases. A club scout network operates across the country that looks for boys in love with football. Boca Juniors annually concludes a contract with 7-8 graduates of the academy, who will further forge the club’s fame. Graduates of the school are such stars as Juan Roman Riquelme and Carlos Tevez, Nicholas Gaitan and Fernando Gago.