Racing Club de Avellaneda are the first club to win an Oscar. Well, their fans are. So says, ahem, Racing Club de AvellanedaâÂÂs website after El Secreto de sus Ojos won the best foreign-language film Oscar on Sunday night.
Sure enough, the filmâÂÂs director thinks Racing have the best fans in Argentina, which is why he chose them to feature in his film. And sure, one of the main actors is a fully-fledged Academy fan.
But itâÂÂs not all smiles when it comes to Racing and the Oscar. The club is introduced into the plot because the police are searching for the chief suspect in a brutal murder and rape case, and think theyâÂÂll find him at a football game. The same suspect later forms part of a vicious right-wing death squad.
He's a die-hard Racing fan. It doesnâÂÂt seem to be the ideal image for the world to see.
Success breeds success, apparently, so perhaps Racing believe that by associating themselves with the film then some silverware will appear. For the same reason, Huracán are also claiming the Oscar â the scene in question with RacingâÂÂs fans was in fact filmed at the GloboâÂÂs home.
Disputes over Oscar ownership aside, it was a pretty special weekend for Racing. On Friday night, the latest Acadé supporter â Felipe Garcia â entered the world. Then on Saturday the team beat Boca. At Boca.
In the first of the weekendâÂÂs clásicos, Miguel Angel RussoâÂÂs men went in at half-time 2-1 up thanks to Gabriel Hauche. RacingâÂÂs backline had made plenty of space for Nico Gaitán to give Boca the lead, so BocaâÂÂs rear'guard' courteously returned the favour and allowed the forward to add to Braian LluyâÂÂs equaliser.
(No, thatâÂÂs not a typo on the first name. He's quite popular on Facebook, among girls and boyz alike. Facebook group âÂÂWe think Braian Lluy is beautifulâ has 56 members and counting...)
Lluy friends... (click to peruse)
Racing won their clásico, as did neighbours Independiente, who defeated River 2-0, leading to the predictable front-page headline The Secret of your Rojos. Bu-bum.
The Reds are indeed top of the table now, but thereâÂÂs no secret behind it. Tolo Gallego takes no nonsense in the dugout, he doesnâÂÂt play his men out of position, and has two front men in form. There may, however, be trouble at the mill â DarÃÂo GandÃÂn, who scored the first against River, is jealous of Andrés Silvera, who scored the second, because the fans give the latter an ovation when he leaves the pitch, and not the former.
Away from the Oscars and the puns, events up in Rosario convinced Argentine hacks to wade into the video-technology replay debate. It should have been installed back in 1966 when the English âÂÂinventedâ a goal to win the World Cup, say Olé.
The same column, for some reason, skirted around the issue that perhaps Argentina might not have made it past the quarter-finals in 1986 had there been video evidence...
The shocking decisions were aplenty this weekend. The main culprit was in the NewellâÂÂsâÂÂGodoy Cruz game where Achucarro had a perfectly hit thunderbolt cannon off the bar and drop well behind the line before bouncing out. No goal was given.
Gol, right? Wrong! Click to watch
Justice was done as the home side inflicted the first defeat on the then-league leaders from Mendoza, with two from Liverpool and Aston Villa target Joaquin Boghossian. After Monday night in Wigan, perhaps the Uruguayan will be praying that any call from England has the Birmingham dialling code.
But there was more. Tigre, whose coach Ricardo Caruso Lombardi was in tears after another defeat midweek, finally had some âÂÂluckâ â an own goal to get things rolling against Huracán, and then no offside flagged on the second.
To have missed just how far offside Carlos Luna was, the refereeâÂÂs assistant must have been looking up to stands to where they filmed the scene in El Secreto de sus Ojos. Or perhaps he was just mulling over which fans deserve the Oscar.
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