Must admit, had to look up La Bombonera but yeah, any game there looks like it must be pretty insane. Boca Juniors v River Plate makes the Old Firm look like a garden party...
Favourite for me - Lincoln Financial Field Philadelphia
Least - Lots...but the London Stadium is about as bland as it sounds, especially compared to Upton Park, one of the most characterful old style stadiums...
It was pretty mental... I was there a few months back in November, it was a dead game for the league and stage in the season but that didn't stop the Xeneizes. Buenos Aires had torrential rain all day and I said to my fiancee, I would be surprised that the game would be on considering the weather but we kept asking if the game was on and kept getting told yes, so we went.
It was an evening game, still pissing down with rain. As we're driving towards the stadium, there are buses of Boca fans gunning it down the roads, you can hear the bands on the bus, fans hanging out the windows singing and waving Boca flags. Soon as there is a red light, they are getting off the bus and dancing around the cars only to pile back onto the bus quickly as possible soon as the light turns green...
Consider an area from the County Ground to the bus station surrounding the entire stadium closed. All routes into the ground funnelling fans into designated checkpoints. The first checkpoint was checking that we had tickets to the game. 50 metres down the road, 2nd checkpoint COVID vaccination check. 3rd checkpoint another 50 metres down the road, full-body frisk search. Then we finally got to the turnstiles to get in, the band in the stadium is already playing and the fans are already singing in full voice and we were still an hour away from kick off...
Kick off time comes, the opposition players come out on the pitch at the same time the referee comes out with his linesman and proceeds to roll the ball about the pitch that's got a small pond in the middle of the pitch. The fans couldn't give a fuck though, which by this point are climbing the 20ft fences topless and swinging their shirts around their heads singing along. Fans are singing and dancing around in the rain, the massive pools of water behind the goal have turned into some sort of Klinsmann Diving competition and mass splashaton...
Obviously, the game was postponed. Did the fans still give a fuck? Hell no - they carried on for a good hour after the game was postponed, singing and dancing all night long.
The game was re-arranged for 2 days later and it's a full stadium, singing, dancing, bouncing continuously for the entire game from the bottom tier to the third tier, no fucks given for safety. The only time they stopped was for halftime. It was a shit game of football but the fans didn't stop supporting their team and the atmosphere was absolutely incredible.
Any Boca vs River would be an incredible game to go to, especially considering that the 2nd leg of the Copa Libertadores final in 2018 had to moved out of South America and to the Bernabéu because the violence from the 1st leg was too intense...
There's a reason why no away fans are not allowed to attend games in Argentina... There are all fucking nuts.
