The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and has been reviewed and edited by our team for accuracy and clarity.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: I enjoyed the barra, I enjoyed the risks, if you want, because it was about sharing what I was experiencing, it was about sharing the excitement of Boca, it was about being close to José, because for me the barra was José and everyone else.
[Silvia Viñas]: This is Darío Vesselizza Randi, who will become a key piece of this story. We’ll learn more about him soon, but for now it’s enough to know he was part of Boca’s barra, La 12, when José Barritta, El Abuelo, was its leader.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: The lead-up to a clásico, especially a home game, was always a day when the barra would gather at one spot; we’d go, we’d all go together, we’d all leave together, we’d all disperse together.
[Silvia Viñas]: Darío remembers that, on match days, the barra had a very set routine. They’d always meet beforehand, at a spot more than half an hour from the stadium, to head there as a group. But on April 30, ’94, the day of the superclásico, when Darío went to that usual meeting point…
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: A block away, we see that almost all the cars they usually got around in were already leaving.
[Silvia Viñas]: This really catches his attention. Why are they already leaving, without them? He goes up to one of the cars that hasn’t left yet, where there’s an important member of the barra, and asks him where they’re going.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «You have to head to the stadium, everyone go separately.» That right there was something that broke from the norm. Maybe they had been tipped about something, that something could happen, that they were after something.
[Silvia Viñas]: After most of the barra (El Abuelo included) leaves for La Bombonera, Darío and some other barra members are left with no way to get to the stadium. Until another member of La 12 shows up in a truck.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «Hey, wait, we were left behind,» «Okay, hop in.» And we all went in that truck. The barra had already taken off a while before.
[Silvia Viñas]: Darío doesn’t know why plans changed, but his main concern is how to get to the stadium. Everything seems to be on track until they reach the highway tollbooth.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Well, at that tollbooth, we were the only ones the police were waiting to stop. The barra’s cars and everyone else must have gone through, but they stopped the truck.
[Silvia Viñas]: The police make them pull over on the side of the highway. They ask them to get out and they search the truck, as well as Darío and his fellow barra members very thoroughly.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Until one of the guys with me says to one of the cops: «What are you guys looking for? We don’t have anything, we’re Boca fans, you’re wasting your time, we don’t have anything.»
[Silvia Viñas]: So, finally, the police tell them they can go. They all get back in and continue on toward La Bombonera.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find. There wasn’t a damn thing in that truck. Nobody was carrying a piece, nobody was carrying anything. There wasn’t a damn thing.
[Silvia Viñas]: Once again, another situation out of the ordinary. It could have been a routine checkpoint, or they might have stopped them just because they were fans traveling in a truck, but Darío still feels that something’s off. And there was more to come. In fact, in hindsight, Darío remembers many moments from that day as being out of the ordinary, or «suspicious.»
The tradition is that once the barra arrives at La Bombonera, they go have a few beers at a small bar near the stadium, to then go in all together. But that day, when Darío and the others get off the truck and pass by the stadium…
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: They were already going in! We went in last. One of the first times I went into the stadium separated from them.
[Silvia Viñas]: What Darío doesn’t know is that, besides him going in separated from the rest of the barra, at that very same moment something else «out of the ordinary» is happening. Because the barra’s leader, El Abuelo, doesn’t go straight to the stands when he enters the stadium. That day of the superclásico, he goes to the players’ parking area to meet up with her.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I’m Marcela Mora y Araujo. I’ve been a journalist covering soccer-related topics for more than 30 years. And on April 30, 1994, I spent the whole afternoon at La Bombonera with José Barritta, El Abuelo, before, during, and after the match played against River.
[Silvia Viñas]: In the previous episode we told you about El Abuelo’s rise to being the leader of La 12. In this one we’re going to meet two people who were very close to him: a Boca fan who managed to reach the barra’s innermost circle, and a journalist who experienced the superclásico from the stands with La 12. Both of their experiences will be key to starting to understand what happened that day.
From Central Series and Radio Ambulante Studios, I’m Silvia Viñas and this is «Superclásico 94.»
Episode 4: I’ve Been Watching You Since I Was Little.
One day in December 2025, at ten thirty in the morning, Sergio Renna, one of this series’ producers, had planned a first meeting with Darío. Forty minutes beforehand, he sent him this voice message:
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: [WhatsApp] Two little things, Sergio. First, are you coming alone? And second, forgive me for saying it this way, but if I see anything I don’t like, out of distrust, I’m going to keep walking.
[Silvia Viñas]: Mariano Pagella continues telling us.
[Mariano Pagella]: The goal was to have a first, relaxed conversation, over coffee, no recorder, to break the ice. Darío authorized us to use this and other voice notes that show he wasn’t very eager, at first, to tell his story.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: [WhatsApp] So, most likely we’ll change the spot from the one I said yesterday. Once you confirm you’re nearby, I’ll tell you where, okay?
[Mariano Pagella]: That first meeting went well, and Darío agreed to set up an interview, this time recorded. He only asked that it be in a public place, chosen by him. He didn’t want to go to a studio or anywhere private. In the end the interview took place at a restaurant on a very busy avenue. We used the upper floor, because there were fewer people, and at a table in a corner we started talking.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Since I was basically seven years old an uncle of mine took me to the stadium. And I instantly clicked. The magic, the stadium, being there, at the old Bombonera…
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío, of course, is a Boca fan and, like many others we’ve heard from in this series, became a fan from a very young age. The only thing that mattered to him was going to see his team.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: By the time I was nine, I would sneak out of my house to go watch the matches at Boca’s stadium.
[Mariano Pagella]: By the early ’80s, the stadium had become a place of belonging, a refuge from being at home, where things that weren’t good for him happened.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: From age 11, 12, I stopped having direct contact with my real father.
[Mariano Pagella]: Because his father went to live in Europe. And things got worse when his mom got together with a former police officer. Darío told us this relationship wasn’t the best for his mom. And he told us he even went through situations of violence with this person himself. There’s one he remembers very clearly, where he contradicted his mom’s boyfriend about something unimportant.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: For talking back, he puts a loaded gun to my head and says: «you idiot, don’t mess with me or I’ll kill you.»
[Mariano Pagella]: With all this, he had more than enough reasons to want to get away to La Bombonera whenever he could. And every time he went into Boca’s stadium, there was something that drew him in above everything else.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: The fans, the roar that comes from the crowd. A lot of times more than watching the match itself, it was the color of the crowd that surprised me.
[Mariano Pagella]: As the years went by, Darío’s devotion kept growing. He tried to go to every Boca match he could. Keep in mind that back then tickets were bought at the stadium, and since so many people wanted to go, you had to arrive very early to get them. It was normal for lines several blocks long to form. And every time he went, he noticed something.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: You’d see another group of people crossing the whole stadium. That movement caught my attention. It’s where a big part of the barra originally gathered. So you’d hear it, you’d see it. It made me curious, and that’s when I started watching that barra group.
[Mariano Pagella]: For years Darío had watched them in the stands, or leaving after a match. He knew they didn’t need to wait in line for tickets: he’d see them go straight into the stadium. Darío had to settle for watching this group from a distance.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Until, around age 18, I started working at a union.
[Mariano Pagella]: As we already mentioned, one of the characteristics of Argentine barras is their connection to certain unions. Around ’84, Darío started working at one as an administrative employee.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Practically every day, one of the barra’s most important historic figures, someone going back to Quique’s era, would come by the union. It was Santiago Lancry, “El Gitano” [“The Gypsy”].
[Mariano Pagella]: El Gitano came from the times of Quique «el Carnicero», La 12 ‘s leader before el Abuelo. Now, el Gitano was part of the «small table,» El Abuelo’s inner circle, which very few barra members entered. He was a guy with real weight, who had ties to politics and different sectors of power. He was in charge of security for the Buenos Aires City Council. In other words, el Gitano protected the council members Monday through Friday, and on the weekend he was one of the leaders of a barra brava. During that job at the union, Darío started talking to him.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: He recognized me from having been at the stadium, and I earned his trust. «Hey, kid, you stay here with us. Have a beer, relax. Let the people come in later, don’t cause a scene.» So that’s how I first earned his trust.
[Mariano Pagella]: So, little by little, Darío started getting closer to the barra. After a while they let him go into the stadium with them, without paying for a ticket. This allowed him to be in some of the places where the other members of La 12 moved around. But beyond his relationship with el Gitano, he still had no contact with the heavier hitters.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: It was really hard to get close to the actual core of the barra while inside the stadium. José, El Abuelo, in particular, was always of the mindset that he didn’t want the ones they call «pendejos» too close. They don’t want pendejos.
[Mariano Pagella]: In the slang, «pendejos» refers to the younger ones. In fan groups, young guys often don’t follow orders and can do things that put the barra at risk. That’s why El Abuelo preferred to keep them at a distance.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: He always used to say that a pendejo brings trouble. So I was a pendejo. I was just starting to break out of my shell, and getting closer was very, very gradual.
[Mariano Pagella]: Being 18, Dario fit into that category. But even so, he started earning trust little by little. They’d give him some small task to do, like carrying a bag. And eventually el Gitano started bringing him to the meetings before matches.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: It wasn’t so much about going straight to the area right around the stadium, but I started getting to know the place where, in the old days, the barra used to gather to head out all together, with the flags, with the gear, with the trucks, with the cars, which was Manzanita Santoro’s house.
[Mariano Pagella]: «Manzanita» was another one of El Abuelo’s trusted people. He was also part of that inner circle, to the point that his house, half an hour from La Boca, was where the flags that were unfurled in the stands were stored. It was a kind of operations base for La 12. The barra generally gathered in the backyard of the house. Darío would stay by the entrance gate, watching from a distance. He wouldn’t even approach El Abuelo. Until one day, El Abuelo approached him.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «Who’d you come with? Who brought you here? Who told you we meet here?»
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío told him that el Gitano had brought him. So El Abuelo called him over.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «Did you bring the kid?» «Yeah, good kid, I know him from over there, I know him from the union,» he says.
[Mariano Pagella]: From the union.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «Ah, it’s all good then. Okay, are you responsible for the kid if he pulls some stupid stunt?» «Yes.»
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío had his first close, face-to-face encounter with El Abuelo, with José Barritta. And the impression it made on him was strong, because…
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: I’d look at José and see my old man, I’d see my old man and see José. Because of how alike they were, the personality, the presence.
[Mariano Pagella]: His presence, the way he spoke… For Darío, it all represented something much more personal.
We’ll be right back.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: You’d see that a group of us from the barra would show up, with José almost always at the front. You’d see that the checkpoints blocking the entrance, when we got close, would open up to the sides, and no ticket-check for anyone, no inspection for anyone, no pat-down for anyone.
[Mariano Pagella]: We’re in the mid-’80s, and Darío, at 18, was still far from El Abuelo’s inner circle, even though El Abuelo had already spoken to him once. But he was starting to move around with them, he’d travel to matches outside of Buenos Aires, and he even had a few assigned tasks.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: What was important wasn’t just being around them, but carrying the stuff. «The stuff» is what we called the flags, the banners, the duffel bags.
[Mariano Pagella]: One of the first official tasks he was given was carrying the flags. Flags are a key element of the stands. Some are giant sheets unfurled over dozens of fans. Others are «trapos» [banners], flags several meters long that hang from the railings of the stands and usually bear phrases or the names of neighborhoods. All these flags were always carried by the barra, in huge duffel bags. In those years, in clashes between barras, the flags were the main «spoils of war.» So whoever carried them couldn’t afford to slip up.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: And there were a couple of situations where we had a hard time. Once, going into a Racing-Boca match, at Racing’s stadium, we walked from La Boca, around six or seven blocks of people.
[Mariano Pagella]: Racing is one of Argentina’s big teams. Its stadium is in the neighborhood across from La Boca, but to get there you have to cross the Riachuelo river over a bridge and cover almost 45 blocks. That day, La 12 sets out walking in a procession from La Bombonera, accompanied by a pickup truck carrying the flag bags.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Always, four or five blocks before, it was normal for the bags, the ones that were going to be brought in, to be unloaded.
[Mariano Pagella]: When they got to that distance from Racing’s stadium, Darío grabbed one of the bags. He started walking with the rest of the barra toward the stadium without being stopped by the police.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: We hadn’t had any checkpoint, any pat-down, nothing.
[Mariano Pagella]: Everything seemed calm, until suddenly, without warning and out of nowhere, a group of police officers appeared.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: It was the first time the police we later started calling «turtle heads» showed up. It was an infantry division specialized in sporting events, and they had the distinctive feature of being the first to wear camouflage uniforms.
[Mariano Pagella]: This was something new for La 12. It wasn’t common for a police unit to dress like SWAT-type special forces. And even less so at soccer matches.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: They went straight for the ones of us who were carrying the bags. The first nervous reaction, when someone’s trying to take something from you, if you get scared, is to let go of it and run. I can tell you for sure, if you tried anything like that with those bags, you would have to vanish after.
[Mariano Pagella]: In other words, losing the flags wasn’t an option. It could cost him his place in the barra, where they still saw him as a «pendejo.»
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Out of nerves and fear and, well, I’m not going to lie to you, I was scared stiff. Out of nerves, I hold onto a bag. And in my whole life, no one has ever hit me that much. They were hitting my hands to make me let go of the bags, and from the waist down. It must have been a minute.
[Mariano Pagella]: Until suddenly…
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: Where did the rest of the barra come from? I don’t know. They ended up flipping the truck over, the infantry guard with cops and all. And they rescued me, they rescued me and they rescued the stuff. And the memory of the club the cop hit me with stayed with me –even back at home, I still had it with me.
[Mariano Pagella]: After rescuing him, they all went into the stadium quickly. Darío was badly beaten up. El Abuelo and el Gitano saw he was hurt and wanted to take him to the hospital. But partly out of adrenaline and partly out of pride, Darío refused to move from there. Though he did make one special request:
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: I don’t want to carry bags anymore because next time they’ll kill me. Ask me to do anything else except carry a bag. «It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry, you don’t have to prove anything else. You don’t have to prove anything else anymore.»
[Mariano Pagella]: If he had run, he probably wouldn’t have been able to come back. But this way, Darío managed to prove his worth within the barra. From that moment on he started getting closer and closer to the core group and to its leader: José Barritta, El Abuelo.
[Archival audio, José Barritta]: And we can’t make trouble for the police. And let’s not stir things up anymore. You, Pedro, don’t talk anymore, brother, because you stir things up.
[Mariano Pagella]: This is El Abuelo, in a TV report. He appears directing the barra, a year before the ’94 superclásico.
[Archival audio, José Barritta]: You stir things up and not even the dog knows you. Nobody knows you, you understand me? You, Gustavo, don’t talk anymore either, please.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: And it was a voice, and it was a way of addressing you, where he didn’t need to get angry to command respect. He’d talk to you a certain way and he’d already make it clear that, «this is how it is, this is what I’m telling you.»
[Mariano Pagella]: His voice and his way of speaking are among the traits most remembered by several people we interviewed. After years of watching from a distance, Darío had managed to get close to El Abuelo, to José Barritta.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: And for me, I shared more with José and with the barra than I ever got to share with my own family.
[Mariano Pagella]: Little by little, Darío started learning more details about how the barra worked. For example, the mechanism behind the tickets.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: The only one who handed out the tickets was José. José always had them on him.
[Mariano Pagella]: Because they meant power. Consider that, within the barra, there were many groups from different neighborhoods who wanted to bring their people into the stands. And the more numerous they were, the tougher and more formidable they’d be. That’s why, so as not to leave any of your guys out, you had to be on good terms with El Abuelo. Now Darío would go into the stadium with La 12 and stay in the section of the stands where the barra’s most important group was. It was a place of privilege, from which he could see El Abuelo fairly closely, standing on the main paravalancha, that metal structure shaped like a soccer goal, but smaller. From there El Abuelo directed everything. And then…
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: One day, it was very, very special because he waves at me and says: «come here.» I must have been about 20, 30 meters away, and he says: «Come here. Hold my hand and don’t let go.»
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío gripped El Abuelo’s hand tightly and El Abuelo climbed up onto the paravalancha.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: He wanted to be held by the hand. And I was this short little guy. And all these big guys, all these heavy guys climbed up onto the paravalancha… I don’t know how long it took before I could actually watch a match. I had to peek my head out and everything.
[Mariano Pagella]: They blocked his view, but it didn’t matter, now he had a responsibility just as important as watching the team and cheering it on: from that moment on, Darío became one of the people in charge of holding up El Abuelo while he directed the stands.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: He tells me, «thanks. Stay here and don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to you.»
[Mariano Pagella]: He’d managed to become part of that «special» group of fans he’d watched at 9, 10 years old. He’d fulfilled his dream. Until April 30, 1994 arrived, the day of the superclásico.
We’ll take a break and be right back.
[Mariano Pagella]: Superclásicos are special matches for the barra, even more so when played at home. And for Darío and other members of La 12, the procedure was always: start out early at Manzanita’s house, and from there head out together to the stadium. But as we mentioned at the start of the episode, on April 30, ’94, that routine was broken. The barra’s core group left earlier, without notice, and went into the stadium several hours ahead of time. And, instead of heading to the stands, el Abuelo went to the parking area, where they were waiting for him.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: The parking area is past 18 billion barriers. It’s an open lot, let’s say, where there are some cars with special permits. But mostly, it’s the players who can get in there. You can’t get in without a special permit.
[Mariano Pagella]: Marcela Mora y Araujo is a journalist, we heard from her at the start of the episode too. And that day of the superclásico she goes in through the parking area because that’s where El Abuelo told her they’d meet to do an interview. The police are very busy with match security, as we heard in the first episode, during entry there were some clashes between police and River fans. So Marcela goes through several checkpoints until they stop her.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I got pretty close and said: «José asked me to meet him here.» «What José?» «Barritta.» And the police gave me strange looks, but they finally let me stay.
[Mariano Pagella]: When Marcela mentions Barritta, they let her stay. Marcela is a freelance journalist and works with media outlets from different countries, including the BBC, the UK’s public radio and television broadcaster. She’s lived in London for several years, but in 1994, as it happens, she came to Argentina for a few months to do some soccer-related pieces for the BBC. And during that time she spent in Buenos Aires, whenever she could, she went to La Bombonera. But not to the press box with the journalists: to the stands. And not just any part of the stands.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I always went with my cousins and their friends to La 12 because we were Boca fans and we wanted to be part of the family, let’s say. The whole idea of the barra is basically about belonging.
[Mariano Pagella]: At several of those matches, Marcela would watch the center of the barra. She’d see the flags, the drums, the people who never stopped singing. And, on the central paravalancha, José Barritta, El Abuelo. And then, a few weeks before the superclásico…
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: Right into La 12 itself, I asked my cousin to come with me, and I started making my way through the crowd, which is hard to describe what that involves, because people are standing so close to each other that it’s very hard to squeeze in between two bodies.
[Mariano Pagella]: Marcela made an effort and slipped through the small gaps in the stands. In her hand she carried a microphone attached to a recorder.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: Really, as I got closer to the center I could feel my legs shaking, and I felt fear and nerves. When I got right up close to Barritta, I remember he had his back to the field, meaning, directing the rest of the people, the fans, waving his arms around. And at one point when he swung his hand back, I grabbed his wrist. And I said, «José.» And he said to me: «what do you want?»
[Mariano Pagella]: Whoever was around El Abuelo was probably taken aback. Anyone else who had approached El Abuelo like that, the barra members would have already grabbed them to kick them out of the stadium.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And so I told him: «I’m from the BBC in London, and I want to do a piece with you.» And he said to me: «okay, okay, that’s fine, wait a minute for me.» And then he said something I’ll never forget, which is: «but put that microphone away, because they’ll snatch it from you here. I don’t control everything.» I was still shaking, my cousin too. And I thought, what a nice guy, this Mr. Barritta. That was my first encounter with him.
[Mariano Pagella]: Pieces of that conversation came out days later in a BBC report. But Marcela decided to do a longer piece.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I mentioned it to a very important Argentine newspaper. And the Sports editor told me: «it’s been a long time since we’ve done a Boca-River from the stands. Do you feel up to going back to do that?» And I said, «yes, if Barritta gives me the green light, yes.»
[Mariano Pagella]: When she’d done the first interview, El Abuelo had given her his home phone number. He was living with his mother at the time. So she called him.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And I asked him if I could come to the next superclásico, and meet him in the parking area where the players come in, three or four hours before the match. And spend that whole afternoon with him, until the match ended.
[Mariano Pagella]: And El Abuelo said yes. So, on the day of the superclásico, that April 30, ’94, Marcela is waiting for him in the parking area.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And when he arrives, with a small entourage, let’s say, a small circle of his closest people, and he sees me, he signals for me to follow him and takes me along with them.
[Mariano Pagella]: As they walk toward the stands, El Abuelo doesn’t inspire fear, isn’t intimidating, quite the opposite: ordinary fans come up to him.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: Everyone greeted him with incredible affection. He was like a… like a celebrity.
[Mariano Pagella]: People ask him for photos, almost as if he were an old club idol returning to La Bombonera after a long time away.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: He had a part of control over everything that was going on. The guy selling photos, the guy selling little flags, the guy selling choripán. «Want a Coke?» he’d say to me as he walked by, and he’d grab one. I also remember at one point there was a guy selling photos, but random photos. And there was one of El Abuelo with Maradona, arms around each other, heads together, laughing.
[Mariano Pagella]: Marcela finds it more interesting that her subject isn’t a movie villain, the way the press presents him. She feels there’s more to tell. Before the match starts she sees someone approach El Abuelo to tell him something happening outside.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: There was a van with some number of fans who’d come from who knows where, and they’d been detained.
[Mariano Pagella]: A «combi.» A van.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And El Abuelo would make two calls and sort it out. He didn’t have a phone, himself. People would hand him phones, saying, «so-and-so’s calling you, such-and-such is calling you,» and they’d put the phone up to him. He didn’t have anything of his own.
[Mariano Pagella]: Around El Abuelo there are several hands holding the first cell phones with antennas, which were already more portable than the gray bricks from a few years before.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I don’t know who he was calling. I don’t know if he was calling a lawyer or the police chief directly or what, but well, he’d go about sorting everything out.
[Mariano Pagella]: Whatever El Abuelo orders gets done. And so, while he organizes things, other barra members are in charge of watching over Marcela.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: One was a Falklands/Malvinas War veteran. I remember that well, because at one point I asked him if there was something similar in the order they were putting in place, in orchestrating so many young men, that reminded him of the army. And he looked at me and said, «you’re crazy. This has nothing to do with war.» And he told me, «nobody hates war more than a soldier does. This has nothing to do with war. This is joy.» And I, well, I bought it, I let myself get swept up by that line.
[Mariano Pagella]: And yes: a superclásico is a celebration in the stands. «Joy,» as that Falklands/Malvinas veteran told Marcela. For the barra, welcoming the team is just as important as what happens in the match. And for everything to go well in those three or four minutes when the team walks onto the field, a lot of people have to work hard beforehand. It sounds a bit naive, but those too are among the barra’s tasks.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: You have to arrange for 50,000 blue and yellow balloons to be released exactly when the players come out of the tunnel. Blue and yellow smoke. It’s a millimeter-precise orchestration.
[Mariano Pagella]: There’s a huge number of people in the stands working fast, who know where to hang flags, hand out the balloons. Everyone knows what to do and they do it.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: So someone said, «no, the police chief called –or whoever–, saying not to bring in fireworks.» And everyone laughed and said, «but the fireworks are already in here.» Giant drums were coming in. The drums are the fundamental heartbeat of Argentine fan passion.
[Mariano Pagella]: But the drums don’t just serve to set the rhythm for the match…
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: Things go inside the drum. Banners go in, which is what the big flags are called. Giant banners. Fireworks go in, which is the colored smoke. Sometimes flares.
[Mariano Pagella]: Finally the moment arrives when Boca’s players come out through the tunnel. La Bombonera explodes. Everything they’d been preparing over those hours gets thrown onto the field: streamers, ribbons, balloons, fireworks, colored smoke. All of that comes together with the roar of thousands of Boca fans shouting and the whistles from River’s fans.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I ended up smothered under the banner. It was huge. I mean, I didn’t see any of that match. I was completely engulfed and the banner was like a ceiling. There were all these guys around me jumping and shouting, boom, boom, upward. Sing, cheer. A mix of fear and fascination, not seeing any of the match, taking notes, trying to take in everything I was seeing. It’s very, very, very striking.
[Mariano Pagella]: The start of the match is pure joy and celebration, meant to intimidate the «gallinas» [«chickens»], River’s fans, who are the visitors. Marcela is just a few meters from El Abuelo. But in the second half, when River starts winning, she notices things change.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: If the start was flawless timing, Swiss-clock precision, by the middle of the match… no. There was a different feeling: a bad mood, they had to sort of calm down certain guys who were getting more out of control.
[Mariano Pagella]: With the goals against them, the celebrations from the opposing stands start becoming more audible. And in their own stands, Marcela sees how frustration and anger start to grow.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And after the match, when River wins, River’s fans celebrated a lot right there. Which caused very aggressive reactions. All of Boca’s fans respond, and the atmosphere gets heavier.
[Mariano Pagella]: Marcela hears the jeering and the insults directed at River’s fans, but she doesn’t manage to notice other movements a couple of meters away.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I suppose someone who knows who the 20 or the 10 or the 15 key people are, looks around and realizes they disappeared at the same time. But for me, no… I had no way of identifying any of them. I didn’t know them.
[Mariano Pagella]: A few meters from Marcela, a group from La 12, including Darío Vesselizza Randi—the barra member we heard from earlier—leaves the stadium a while before the match ends. El Abuelo stays inside. Marcela decides to wait for the stadium to empty out a bit more before leaving. When there’s no one left, El Abuelo and a few barra members still with him go down the stadium steps.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: And we all leave together.
[Mariano Pagella]: Marcela says goodbye to El Abuelo and walks through the blocks of the La Boca neighborhood, looking at the people left in the pizzerias and kiosks. She’s just experienced a superclásico from inside La 12, and she still can’t quite believe it. That afternoon she leaves the stadium without knowing what had happened in another part of the La Boca neighborhood.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: I was still a bit like… I don’t know what the right word would be. Surprised, smitten. I was pretty fascinated. What I’d experienced seemed incredible to me. And this had struck me as a very fresh experience, where I got to know an incredibly human side, one you could relate to. I mean, they weren’t monsters, thugs, villains, killers, not at all. They were all the same kind of guys who are in the other section of the stadium, where I’d gone since I was little, with everyone… But well, apparently some of them were, afterall.
[Mariano Pagella]: A few blocks away, the police have closed off the street and ambulances are already tending to the wounded River fans. Unlike Marcela, Darío is aware of everything. Of the fights outside the stadium, of the mosquito trucks packed with River fans… and of the gunshots. What he saw at the intersection of Huergo and Brasil is something he won’t be able to forget.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: After all this is over, I go straight to my grandmother’s house. And, no, 80 things running through my head…
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío goes home like a zombie. He can’t process everything that happened. Until he gets a mysterious visit.
[Darío Vesselizza Randi]: «José says to tell everyone to disappear. Everyone has to vanish.»
[Mariano Pagella]: Darío doesn’t know what to do, until, at one point, all his doubts are going to turn into a decision. All of this in the next episode of Superclásico 94.
[Silvia Viñas]: Superclásico 94 is a podcast from Central, Radio Ambulante Studios’ series channel, and is part of iHeartRadio’s My Cultura podcast network.
This series was produced by Mariano Pagella, Alejandro Marinelli, and Sergio Renna.
The editors were Pablo Argüelles, Daniel Alarcón, and me.
Fact-checking was by Ana Prieto.
Mariano did the sound design, with original music by Nicolás Pagella, who also composed the series’ theme song. Martín Cruz was in charge of sound mixing and mastering.
The series’ graphics and art direction are by Diego Corzo. Digital production was by Andrés Centeno with Óscar Luna.
Business and strategic partnerships were led by Camilo Jiménez Santofimio. And Julián Santos and Eric Spiegelman gave us legal support.
Carolina Guerrero is the CEO of Radio Ambulante Studios.
At iHeart, the executive producers are Arlene Santana and Leo Gomez.
Radio Ambulante Studios produces and mixes its podcasts on Hindenburg PRO.
You can follow us on social media as centralseriesRA and subscribe to our email newsletter at centralpodcast.audio.
I’m Silvia Viñas. Thanks for listening.