Thursday, June 14, 2007

Copa Libertadores Final (1st leg): Boca Juniors 3 - Gremio 0

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

CURIOSITY: Is COPA AMERICA considered an important tournament in Argentina?

Seba said...

Very good question.

Very hard answer!!!!

People is divided. But in the end, everyone watches it. Not to the extent of a World Cup, of course. For a World Cup match, people stop their work, their studies, their fights, their loves, their everything!

I'll try and explain a little bit the tricky ways that football fans and sports journalists have in Argentina.

There are those of us (I think all of the regulars posters of this blog are included in this group) that will support the team no matter who plays, no matter who manages, no matter which tournament, no matter the result.

Then there are the eternal whiners. Those who are never happy no matter what. If we lose against Germany, we should have won because we are the better team in theory. If we beat Venezuela, then there is no merit in that because it was obvious we should have won it. If we beat Brazil, then it was because Brazil played badly...and so on.

And then there are people who are against the national team depending on the manager. If they like him, they will become die-hard fans and will give all sorts of reasons why our manager is great despite losing 7 games in a row (if that was the case). If they don't like the manager, then they will try and convince everybody that we are playing rubbish and that the manager shouldn't be picking this or that player.

What's worst, is that the media is the same! But in their case, sometimes they respond to economical pressures and they lobby for or against the manager and each one of the players.

That is the case of one radio commentator I had the disgust to have to listen to during the game against Algeria. He, obviously, have some hidden reasons to try and highlight every single mistake and downplay the positive aspects. He even cheered louder whenever Algeria scored!

But, Rob, to answer to your question, Copa America is considered an important tournament. Only behind the World Cup and the World Cup Qualifiers.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. Very informative answer.

Saludos

Anonymous said...

Seba, marvelous answer, i was laughing about eternal whiners and people who's love national team according to personality of manager. Thank U!

Vadim, Tel-Aviv