Fútbol Argentino - San Lorenzo Celebrates 102nd Anniversary

This past Wednesday, I attended the 102nd birthday celebration for Club Atletico de San Lorenzo de Almagro. My buddy, Francisco is a huge San Lorenzo fan. Several years ago he bought me a jersey, which I proudly wear when we attend San Lorenzo soccer games. San Lorenzo is the only Argentine soccer team whose fans organize each and every year to celebrate the anniversary of their club's founding. Lemme tell you, they put on quite a party. On the Club's 100th anniversary, more than 17,000 people filled the streets of the small Argentine neighborhood. This year where were more than 3,000.

I have included a short video that I recorded on Wednesday night. We started off in front of the church where the Club was born. I'll tell you more about that later in this article. Several bands and singers took turns performing for the group of gathering San Lorenzo fans. A priest even stepped up to the stage to lead the group in a prayer - he followed the prayer by putting on a San Lorenzo hat, which contrasted with his full clerical robe. That was when they unloaded the flag. I say "unloaded", because the flag is 100 meters long. You can see part of the flag at the very beginning of the video I have included. We all helped to carry the flag about 17 blocks through the streets of the neighborhood to Avenida La Plata, where the original San Lorenzo stadium was located until the late 1970s. I'll tell that story in just a moment.

Understanding Argentine Soccer
Unlike professional sports teams in the U.S. or even soccer teams in the U.K., Argentine soccer clubs are not structured as corporations - they are "associations". There are no equity partners or shareholders - the clubs are made up of "socios". These are fans who pay annual dues for membership in a club, and they elect the President and officers who run the clubs, allocate funds, hire the coaches, and negotiate contracts with the players. San Lorenzo currently has more than 25,000 "socios", but in its heyday it had more than 40,000. Each and every "socio" has a recognized stake in the Club.

To fully appreciate the passion of the Argentine soccer fan, you have to understand that unlike professional sports teams in the U.S., these clubs represent much more than the actual teams. The clubs are more like community institutions. For example, the current San Lorenzo stadium is located on a guarded compound complete with numerous youth league soccer fields, a basketball gym, tennis courts, swimming pools, a bowling alley, restaurants, numerous barbeque pits, and areas where the Club's "socios" host birthday parties and other celebrations. That is why San Lorenzo is called Club Atletico and not just a soccer club - the Club is supposed to be where the kids from the neighborhood grow up playing. As a matter of fact, many of the San Lorenzo players are from the neighborhood and grew up playing in the Club's youth leagues. The Club is ideally a place where families go during the weekends... a constant presence in the lives of the fans. The Club is one of the fundamental pillars of the community.

That being said, a San Lorenzo supporter is much more than what we in the U.S. would consider a fan - these are "hinchas"... they are "fanaticos". They are known as "los Cuervos" (literally "the Crows"), and being a Cuervo is a way of life. When I go to a San Lorenzo event, many of the men and boys even have tattoos of the San Lorenzo shield, pictured here:



For thousands of Argentines, the team a person follows and supports helps to define that person's identity. When I go to Francisco's house to meet up before heading to a game, I never put on my San Lorenzo jersey until we arrive to the stadium. A few years ago, Francisco moved to a different neighborhood associated with a rival team (called Huracan), and wearing a San Lorenzo jersey in that neighborhood could put a guy in some danger of getting jumped (or worse). Don't get me wrong - this isn't a Bloods/Crips sort of thing. But people can be a little nuts, and getting beat up for the jersey you are wearing is a remote possibility that is worth avoiding.

Every club also has a group known as a "barra brava". The concept is sort of similar to the "hooligans" in the U.K. These guys grew up in the neighborhood and have a whole lot of "pull" within the clubs. There are stories about some of the more notorious "barras bravas" from other clubs in Argentina that have used various, often violent tactics to apply pressure to voting members to influence elections for the clubs' officer positions. These are generally pretty rough guys - many of them would be labeled "severe alcoholics" in the U.S., and it is probably safe to assume that there is a fair amount of drug abuse going on as well. In any case, everyone in a neighborhood knows them. The "barra brava" members even have reserved seating in their respective club's stadium, and music is played to accompany their entry into the stadiums. I have met a couple of these guys - they'll come up to you at a party and ask you for a sip of your beer or one of the hamburgers your group is cooking. You'll most likely smill and give them what they are requesting. People always seem a little leery of these dudes, but everyone is nice to them. They are kind of like one of those tough guys in high school. You know, the ones who were always getting suspended from school, but their families never really gave a damn what they did... and they always seemed to be getting in fights and beating someone up... They'd approach you at a party and it kind of made you uneasy, but you wanted to remain on their good side - "Sure you can have one of my beers - as a matter of fact, why don't you just take all of them as soon as you get done making out with my girlfriend!?!" It is a really interesting phenomenon.

The point is that the Yankees/Sox rivalry... or being a Redskins or a 49ers fan in the states... is much different than Argentine futbol culture. Being a fanatico of an Argentine soccer club is really much more than just claiming a team - it is a way of life. Well, if anything it sort of compares to being a Saints fan :-)

The original Estadio Gasometro

at Avenida La Plata

San Lorenzo
The team started out in the early 1900s with a bunch of local kids who used to play soccer in the streets of the neighborhood called "Boedo". As Buenos Aires developed and street soccer became less practical (and more dangerous), a Catholic priest named Lorenzo Massa started allowing the guys to play in the backyard of his church. The church is still there, and this is where the anniversary celebration began on Wednesday night.

San Lorenzo grew and eventually developed into one of the top clubs in Buenos Aires. Over the next several decades, the team won numerous league titles and championships - both national and international. In 1929, San Lorenzo's original stadium ("Gasometro") was expanded to seat up to 80,000 spectators. The stadium was located on Avenida La Plata in the Boedo neighborhood of BsAs. Gasometro became a really well-known and important venue, hosting international soccer games right there in Boedo. The Club even boasted a small university, a movie theater, and a really large library for that period.

In the late 1970s during Argentina's Dirty War, the Club found itself in economic crisis. There are a lot of stories about how the military dictatorship in Argentina affected some of the clubs in and around BsAs. It is really too much for the scope of this article, but basically San Lorenzo fell victim to a combination of bad internal management, unfavorable policy from the dictatorship, and the corruption and greed of a few powerful individuals. Sort of a "perfect storm" scenario. In 1979, with the Club in debt up to its eyeballs, the Gasometro stadium in Boedo was sold and torn down. A French-owned supermarket chain paid a price for the property that was 7-times larger than the amount that the Club actually received from the sale. That means the majority of the money went into a few people's pockets. In the early 1990s, the current stadium was opened in the Bajo Flores neighborhood of BsAs.

In 2005, a group of San Lorenzo supporters organized a group called "La Sub-Comision del Hincha de San Lorenzo de Almagro. This group is leading a major effort to re-establish the Club's presence at the stadium's original location in Boedo. The current location of the stadium in Bajo Flores just does not allow the Club to function well in its social role for the community. Socio membership has deteriorated, and the distance from Boedo is prohibitive for many kids in the neighborhood who would otherwise grow up in the Club. For the Cuervos, it just does not work - the stadium needs to be back at Boedo. This has become a major unifying goal for San Lorenzo's "Cuervos".

My friend, Francisco, is heavily involved in the Sub-Comision, and they have already had some major successes. A couple years ago, the Sub-Comision recuperated 4,100 square meters of the Club's original property located behind the supermarket chain. They have even developed a computer-internet lab and a school tutoring program that is available for free to the kids in the neighborhood. The Sub-Comision donates sneakers, clothes, food, and other necessities to children of poorer families in the neighborhood and from other communities throughout BsAs and Argentina. The organization also hosts San Lorenzo's birthday celebration, an annual Carnaval event, a marathon, and other social acitivities to raise funds to support its continued mission. Last year, the Sub-Comision purchased another property where they will soon offer tango classes. Ultimately, they hope to purchase the property where the supermarket chain is located, so that the Club can return to Boedo. This will cost between $40 and $50 million dollars, but the Cuervos estimate that redeveloping the Club in Boedo will nearly triple the Club's current membership.