Soccer = Football - Part I

I went to see Boca Junior play the second time in my life, and again I had to pay a bit more in order to get in since we, as in foreigners, still a bit confused with how to get tickets 'properly'. However, trying to get tickets at an apparently sold out game, which we've come to find out later on, was an experience on its own for sure.

Last year, my friend and I somehow got to buy a pair of season tickets off of this guy whose friend couldn't come. This year, it was way more interesting. After 3 friends and I were told by numerous working people that it was really sold out, we wandered among herds of football fan outside of the stadium trying to see what we could do. We then asked this man if he could tell us where we could get tickets, he said he could get us in and it'd cost us 100 pesos each for a seated spot. We really wanted to see the match and we also knew that that was a normal call-for price under such situation so we went for it hoping he'd really keep his words. After he pocketed all of our money, we got through the security gate and waited for this guy to get his friend's (let's call him Mr. F) attention, who was inside the ticketholder area. After 10 minutes of wondering if this was going to come through, he told us to go ahead and said that we were here with Mr. F.

Once we greeted Mr. F, we were told to wait there. Now imagine this Mr. F as a big tall middle-aged man, dark tanned skin, in a business attire, sunglasses on his head, carrying a shoulder bag, cellphone in hand and most of all, while we were waiting, he was either talking on the phone or greeting a lot of well-dressed middle-aged men in sight...mmm...a tag mafia-feel to me...note to self, do NOT piss him off. So we stayed put and waited patiently but our doubts were also growing bigger by the minute. Around 15 minutes later, finally he said 'follow me.' Yay!

He showed us to this old man at the turnstile and we were shuffled through the turnstile but get this: he told 2 of us to squeeze through one turn together while the man beeped once on his card. Aha!! Now we know how this whole 'operation' works. They probably made more than double the actual cost but anyway, we were happy that we were in!!