Boca Juniors: Who are Bayern's Club World Cup opponents?

It’s clash of global giants at the Club World Cup as FC Bayern take on Boca Juniors from Argentina in Miami on 20 June. It'll be only the fourth time they've clashed in 100 years. The passionate fans in Buenos Aires are hugely excited. Our club magazine ‘51’ took a look around their iconic La Bombonera stadium.

The air is filled with clouds of smoke from grilled beef. On every other street corner there's a crowd of people huddled around a television, radio or mobile phone, and the long battle cry of "Boooooca!" rings out again and again. When Boca Juniors, Argentina's most popular side, play, there’s more going on in the streets of Buenos Aires than in many a large stadium - every matchday is a day of celebration.   

In the old harbour district in the south of the city - known as La Boca - everyone is out and about. Regardless of whether the Blue and Yellows are playing away or in the legendary stadium known as “La Bombonera” (the chocolate box), which is feared even beyond the country's borders as a seething football temple.   

No club makes more headlines in Argentina and South America. Boca are always up there with the big boys - and that's why the fans couldn’t wait for the Club World Cup. They've highlighted one match in particular in red in their diaries: the clash against Bayern on 20 June. The 34-time German champions vs. the 35-time Argentinian champions; the six-time UEFA Champions League winners vs. the six-time Copa Libertadores winners; Franz Beckenbauer's club against Diego Maradona's club. It doesn't get any bigger than this. Bayern have only played Boca three times in the past, but if you delve into that history and talk to the fans in Buenos Aires, you realise that the Reds and the Blue & Yellows have a lot in common.  

"When I think of Bayern, I immediately think of Rummenigge, Matthäus and the 2001 Intercontinental Cup final," says Alejandro Morelli, a Boca superfan. "Kick-off back then was at seven in the morning in Argentina. I was already roaming the streets from two o'clock, waking up the neighbours with drums and firecrackers."   

The neighbourhood is the club

Morelli has hardly missed a Boca home game in 30 years. He always hangs a Maradona flag in the stands, not facing the pitch but the fervent crowd - as a prayer of encouragement, as motivation. Alejandro knows every corner of the La Boca neighbourhood; he's painted countless lanterns blue and yellow and stuck Maradona mosaics on the walls of houses. "There used to be a lot of restaurants and dance halls here," says the 41-year-old, adding that tango also originated here. Today, only a few metres separate tourist hotspots and socially deprived areas. 

Morelli himself is a bit of a star in the neighbourhood. He goes to the stadium in a costume with a moustache, wig and cloth cap. The Pedrín character, a fictional pizza chef from Genoa, who he portrays in the stands and in the neighbourhood, became popular in La Boca at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, the neighbourhood was dominated by Italian immigrants. To this day, Boca are also known as Los Xeneizes (the Genoese). By embodying the pizza chef, Morelli also brings to life the first heyday of the city and the club. And it was then that the first clash between Boca and Bayern took place. 

In 1925, a team spent three weeks travelling to Europe by ship - 17 players, no coach, but one fan, who also worked as a masseur - for the first ever intercontinental club games. After a string of matches in Spain, they arrived in Munich and were welcomed by the Bayern players with a tour of the city, as an Argentinian reporter travelling with them noted. On 9 May 1925, they met on the Teutonia pitch at Oberwiesenfeld and fought out a 1-1 draw. The journalist raved about the behaviour and order in the stands as well as the style of play of the team featuring goalkeeper Alfred Bernstein and striker Josef Pöttinger. That same day, he sent a telegram back home: "If the Germans had more composure when finishing, they would be one of the best teams in Europe." It was only the second time in 14 games on their European tour that Boca had failed to win. 

Señor Franz in Buenos Aires

It was decades before Boca and Bayern would meet again. In 1966, Bayern travelled abroad to the South American nation. "Argentina smells different. Spicier, sharper, more sensual," Beckenbauer later recalled. And the Argentinians immediately fell in love with the elegant young Kaiser. However, Bayern did not play against Boca on this first trip. And when it came to the Joan Gamper Cup in Barcelona a year later, Beckenbauer again missed the clash against the Blue & Yellows. The Argentinian football media were not relieved, but genuinely disappointed. The game ended in a 1-0 win for Boca. On 30 December 1970, ‘Señor Franz’, as Beckenbauer was known, finally made an appearance at the Bombonera in an almost forgotten friendly between Bayern and the Argentina national team. The local media lavished their praise on the Kaiser: "The German's popularity knows no bounds."

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Club World Cup – or the Intercontinental Cup, as it was then known – also established itself as a stage for heated international clashes. Those were matches between equals, in which the representatives of South America and Europe prevailed equally often up until 2004. Bayern did not take part in the intercontinental competition twice in the 1970s, and Boca were also not able to compete for the trophy after Liverpool declined to play them in 1978. In South America, rumour had it that the Europeans were perhaps frightened by the overly tough style of play of the Argentinians and Uruguayans.

Riquelme and Élber in Tokyo

"We believe the Champions League winners don't take the Club World Cup as seriously as we South Americans do," says Rolando Schiavi, a long-serving former Boca centre-back. ‘El Flaco’ - the slim one, as he was nicknamed - was one of the players who worked hard to earn his reputation as a roughneck. When the Boca team led by playmaker Juan Román Riquelme defeated the galacticos of Real Madrid in the Intercontinental Cup final in 2000, "the fans here celebrated in the streets like it was a World Cup victory," says Schiavi, his eyes still shining.

The following year, he was signed by the Xeneizes. He and his teammates eagerly looked forward to the clash against Ottmar Hitzfeld's Bayern for months. In November 2001, the Argentinians, under coach Carlos Bianchi, travelled to Tokyo almost a week before the match. Bayern arrived just 34 hours before kick-off and with 15 outfield players. The Boca players suspected this was due to the Europeans' much-vaunted lack of interest. Schiavi says: "For us, it was either win or win." In the tunnel at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Schiavi recounts, "we were all grinding our aluminium studs as loud as we could and getting each other fired up. It made a real racket!" He recalls the tough tussles with Carsten Jancker on the pitch. "I really let him have it.'’

From the 45th minute onwards, Bayern were a man up after a Boca player was shown a red card. Schiavi believes this was decisive for the game: "We had clear chances to score beforehand and held our own well until stoppage time." In the 109th minute, Sammy Kuffour poked the ball into the net from inside the six-yard box to clinch a 1-0 win. Bayern claimed their second Intercontinental Cup win after 1976, and Boca captain Riquelme watched the medal ceremony in tears. Two years later, Boca reached their third Intercontinental Cup final in four years, beating Carlo Ancelotti's AC Milan with Kaká and Paolo Maldini, and with Schiavi scoring in the penalty shootout. Madrid, Milan - only Munich were out of their league.

Drums and firecrackers in La Boca

Boca's team from the new millennium still shapes the club today. Legend Riquelme is president and has brought in three of his former teammates to the club management. Schiavi coached the reserves until a few years ago. The youth department is churning out top talent, such as World Cup winners Leandro Paredes and Nahuel Molina. In sporting terms, however, Boca are in crisis. They won their last trophy in 2022 and will not be competing in continental competition next season for the first time in many years. Nevertheless, La Boca are backing president Riquelme because he's strengthened the club's social commitment. In and around the Bombonera stadium, there are sewing courses and training programmes for hairdressers.

Cristina García Moris, 72, arrives covered in a sheen of perspiration from yoga in a hall under the main stand. The retired architect moved to the neighbourhood in 1992 and actually only joined the club to use its swimming pool. One day, she snuck into the stadium and immediately fell in love with the passionate fan chants. She remembers Maradona's farewell game, in which Lothar Matthäus also played, as well as wild away trips with La Doce (the 12), the hardest core of Boca fans. "They always looked out for me, and that's why I felt safe here in the neighbourhood."

There are many buildings in the club colours in the La Boca district. The club is inextricably linked to the lives of the people there. "Boca gives me a sense of belonging,’ says Cristina. She enjoys going to the club's basketball and volleyball matches, and in summer she has a favourite spot under a rubber tree in the Boca outdoor pool within sight of the Bombonera. She lives just a few blocks from the stadium in a quaint house with a wood-burning stove. Her Boca fisherman's cap hangs on the clothes rack, and a black and white photo of Diego Maradona, which she took herself, stands on the table. 

Where will she watch the Club World Cup game against Bayern? Just opposite is the clubhouse of a fan club - the games are being shown on a big screen and Cristina will watch from her balcony. Or she'll go over and get a choripan – a sausage in a bun – and a beer, as she always does. And maybe Pedrín will roam the streets of La Boca again with drums and firecrackers.

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