Two epic derbies, two weeks and 7000 miles apart.
And both times I found myself perched on a sofa cursing the fact I was missing out, trapped on the wrong side of the Atlantic. In Rio de Janeiro, it was an early start - a little too early given some over-indulgence with the local Brahma brew the night before - as myself and two mates dragged ourselves up at 8am to tune into the Old Firm battle kicking off back home in Glasgow.
The sun had barely crept over the horizon off the Copacabana as Daizen Maeda put Celtic in front against Rangers. But it wasn’t long before the 3-3 thriller shook any remaining jet lag from the system. Normally, I’d have been there to witness the all-important Ibrox showdown live as part of my duties for Record Sport, blessed to have a job the comes with front-row access when the rivals go head to head.
But a lads’ dream trip to South America meant I’d given up my seat in the press gantry for a clash that will go down as one for the ages, watching instead in an AirBnB three streets back from Rio’s famed beach front on a stream every bit as temperamental as the two defences. It was a holiday years in the planning, conjured up as one last adventure before we all turned 40.
Five days in Brazil, followed by a week in Buenos Aires - with as much soccer, scran and cervezas as we could stomach. Had the famously haphazard Argentine schedulers been quicker announcing their dates, we’d have extended the getaway for a few more days in an attempt to catch last Sunday’s Superclassico between Boca Juniors and River Plate.
As it was, we were back in Blighty, slumped on the couch as the BA giants went face to face in a domestic cup quarter-final. It was another fire-cracker encounter, edged 3-2 by a Boca side who had former Man United marksman Edinson Cavani on the scoresheet.
Seeing these two massive clubs face off has long been on the bucket list but unfortunately you now need a wheelbarrow pile of cash to get hold of the gold-dust tickets. The touts flogging £1000 briefs for the weekend’s showdown had extra reason to ramp up the prices as the clubs squared off on Argentine soil with both sets of fans in attendance for the first time since 2013.
In Glasgow, petty squabbling between Rangers and Celtic bosses has resulted in away fans being locked out of derbies at Ibrox and Parkhead this season. In Argentina, a far more sinister cause is behind the long-standing decision to deny access to opposition punters, with clashes among their notorious 'barras bravas’ ultras groups resulting in a string of gruesome deaths across the country.
However, with Sunday’s game being played at a neutral venue 700 miles away from the capital in Cordoba, there was a rare visual of the teams emerging into a stadium with one half bedecked in blue and yellow, the other red and white.
The only other time the teams’ fanatical supporters have been allowed to share the same stadium in the intervening years was in 2018, when South American soccer chiefs were forced to take the extreme step of shunting the second leg of that year’s Copa Libertadores final to Madrid after the Boca bus was attacked on its way to their way to River’s El Monumental home.
Those incidents represent the darker side of football in South America. But our trip provided a glimpse into the colour, the passion, the sense-assaulting sights and sounds which make this part of the world a global leader when it comes to fan culture.
We’ve all seen those top-10 lists which rank the Old Firm as the Greatest Derby on Earth. But even without seeing Boca and River scrapping it out in person I’m starting to doubt the Glasgow fixture’s claim to top spot. We may have missed out on the Superclassico but we did manage to squeeze in five games on our travels.
Our first was in Rio, with a trip to the Maracana - site of two World Cup finals - to see Brazilian behemoths Flamengo lift the Rio state championship. After that it was on to Buenos Aires, heading straight from the airport to Boca’s iconic La Bombonera base, where any belief in Scottish supremacy on the atmosphere front was blown out of the water.
We’d booked our tickets through a tour guide but while he did a great job getting us past five lines of security checks, we were left to our own devices when it came to finding a perch on the seriously steep Boca terraces which cover all three tiers of the ground.
It was a good job we’d only stopped for a couple of pints of Quilmes on the way to the stadium as any more would have caused problems as we tried to tip-toe our way over the locals sitting on the steps. They leapt to their feet once the teams emerged for kick-off but that didn’t leave much room to manoeuvre on the tiny ledge we were balancing on
Clearly health and safety isn’t big on the list of priorities down there as one stumble would surely have resulted in a huge crush.
But this is football in its rawest sense and what followed was 90 minutes of ear-deafening din. It was the same at Racing Club’s circular Cilindro ground and Estadio Tomas Adolfo Duco of Huracan, even if these two sides - traditionally members of Argentine football’s Big Six - struggled to draw a full-house.
On to El Monumental, South America’s biggest venue, for a Libertadores clash between River Plate and Nacional of Uruguay, where an 85,000-strong crowd easily drowned out the sound of the jumbos jets landing at the near-by airport. With airfares costing around £900 from Glasgow, reaching Argentina certainly isn’t cheap - but there’s plenty of value to be had once you get there.
A beer will set you back around £3, a 20-minute taxi shouldn’t cost much more while we were regularly served some of the best steaks I’ve ever tucked into along with a nice glass of red, all for a score. It’s certainly better than a night sat on the sofa.
