Brazilians get one over Argentina

Brazilians do love their football. And it seems they do love to hate Argentina, or at least Argentine football teams.

The Brazilian Olympic team did not play in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday; the young Selecaos were playing at the Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia.

Yet the 60,000-capacity Joao Havelange Olympic Stadium at Engenhao in Rio was half-full for a game which pitted Argentina, Brazil's perennial arch-rivals, against Portugal -- a team that Brazilians consider their second choice.

And while the Neymar-led Brazil team stuttered to a tame draw against South Africa, much to the disappointment of the hosts, those in attendance at the Rio fixture had a ball as Argentina suffered a heavy defeat to Portugal. Five-time world champions Brazil have yet to win an Olympic gold medal in football while Argentina have captured it twice in 2004 and 2008. Yet at the end of the day, the mood at the stadium was that of a victory for Brazil even though it was only Portugal who had won.

The Olympic Stadium, which is home to the Botafogo Football Club, was abuzz with Brazil fans long before the game began. They came in numbers; they came using all sorts of transports. Many of them wore the yellow of Brazil; some of them wore the maroon of Botafogo, while some others wore the Red of Portugal.

There were Argentina fans too. Being very close to Brazil, a sizeable number of Argentines come to visit Brazil every year, and this being the Olympics, that number has increased manifold. And they had a sizeable representation at the game too, yet they were far outnumbered by the Brazil fans rooting for Portugal.

Every time an Argentine player touched the ball or ventured into the opposition area, a small cheer was drowned out by jeers while the Portuguese forays were met with boisterous appreciation.

The young guns of the current European Champions dominated the first half, but failed to break the deadlock. Gonzalo Paciencia then opened the scoring on 66 minutes with a low drive, sending the partisan crowd into a frenzy. And when Argentina goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli let Pite's tame effort slip into the net, the party just got louder.

There was this group of four people who were chanting in Portuguese. The rhymes sounded nice, but it seemed that someone was being derided. A little help from another man revealed the gist of the chant, the censored version of which is: Maradona is no match for Pele, and Messi is a woman.

However, at the end of the day it was only friendly banter from the Brazilians, and spurred on by their passion for football, at their Argentine guests. From the looks of things, no offence was taken by those on the receiving end and at the end of the game, both parties left with smiles on their faces and a raging passion for football.