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The flickmasters of Argentina
Dave Butler reports on his continued tour of South America

 

Following my hugely enjoyable session with the Peruvian Miguel, and my equally disappointing lack of action in the subbuteo backwater of Bolivia, I was hugely excited to continue my South America tour in the bright lights of the big city of Buenos Aires.

Many come for the romance, for the tango, for the steak or red wine. The guidebooks sadly omit one of the city’s main attractions – La Asociacion Argentina, Argentinean Subbuteo, which is one of, if not the, most active in South America. Vincent Coppelle, President of the FISTSF, had given me the contact details of the club’s president, Gregorio Caro Solís, or Goyo, who organized a session on a balmy Friday night in the centre of Buenos Aires. Playing in a beautiful apartment, the pitch (amazingly manufactured in the club’s subbuteo factory!) was in the impressive setting of a spacious room and underneath a marvellous chandellier. This was, I thought to myself, a setting fit for our beautiful game. Goyo's sister, wife and lovely kids arrived later, and he and his family made us feel very welcome.

My first of four games was against Patricio, or 'Pato' as he is nicknamed - 'The Duck'. There was nothing duck-like about his play, however, as he zipped around the table - this boy was certainly no quack. Again, I was lucky enough to be using the bases that Miguel had introduced me to in Lima, that Greg and Patricio produce in their factory, under the name of flickmaster.com. How you set up and run a subbuteo factory I don't know, but he can certainly produce a base as the players glided around the pitch as gracefully as the tango dancers we had seen on the dance floors of Buenos Aires. I was extremely touched to be presented with my own team from the flickmaster factory as a souvenir of my visit.

Back on the pitch me and Pato took turns to carve out opportunities, but either post or goalkeeper intervened. With the clock ticking down Pato's goalkeeper sprinted out of his goal, giving away possession and leaving a solitary defender to protect the unguarded net. Cunningly, he positioned his man directly between the ball and the goal, leaving me to have to strike the ball into the man and hope the defender wouldn't be able to take enough pace out of the shot. As I shot the ball looped off the defender and goalward. As the clock ticked down each player knew that this was it - the final moment that would decide the outcome of the game. As the ball span upwards into the Buenos Aires night sky, time seemed to stand still as the game was left in the lap of the subbuteo gods. As the ball landed it bounced ... and then another bounce ... but fell short of its intended target and the game was left a 0-0 draw - a fair result I believe.

For my follow-up I was to play the current Argentinean Champion, Goyo. It was soon clear how he had become champion as he had the players moving around the pitch with speed and precision. However, mid-way through the first half play was interrupted by a phone call from which Greg returned seemingly distracted. I later discovered that he had received some alarming news about an accident his son had had. Thankfully, it was confirmed that everything was fine, but Greg was obvioulsy playing with his mind on his son and this was to decide the outcome of the match as I won 3-1.


I hope to play Greg again one day as the events of the night had clearly swayed the match out of his hands, and it was obvious that a game with him at 100% would be a different matter.

After the rollercoaster of the first two games I took a welcome breather. It was only then that I realised that I was dripping with sweat from my first two encounters - another reminder of the physical exertions that the outsider could well be ignorant of.


As it happened I was not the only Englishman present, as Chris, who has lived here with his Argentinean wife for ten years, was to take to the pitch to play Pato. Chris had told us that he used to play in the UK and had made it to the National Championships at the tender age of 12, then went into early retirement, coming back to the game after buying a subbuteo set for his kids (surely the responsibility of any parent).

Pato was quickest out of the blocks, shocking Chris with two goals in a first half he dominated. It was, however, to be a game of two halves, as Chris hit back with two goals in the second half and the game ended in a highly entertaining 2-2 draw - a fine advert for Argentinean subbuteo.


My next game was an all-English affair as I was up against Chris. Once again, Chris showed how he had reached the National Championships at such a young age, as he calmly played the ball around the pitch during the opening minutes. Despite his gap from the game, he clearly hadn't lost his touch. Mid-way through the first half I carved my best opportunity and using one of Chris's defenders, I looped a deflection towards goal that left the keeper helpless. Chris came back straight away however, slotting home an equaliser from just inside the shooting area and the match ended a hard-fought draw.

For my final game I was up against German, who was as fast around the table as he was on the pitch - the stadium was a blur as humans and figures whizzed around. Although possession was more or less equal, my strikers had found their feet and scored three times in the first half, effectively killing the game. This was to be the difference between the players as the second half was drawn, as we shared four goals and I took the game with a 5-2 scoreline.

And so ended a thoroughly enjoyable session of subbuteo. The Buenos Aires club has been running since 2002 and I could see that it has certainly reached an impressive level.

Though the subbuteo was over the evening wasn't as we sat down to enjoy one of Buenos Aires' fine pizzas and while away the hours chatting about subbuteo past, present and future. As with Miguel, on subbuteo past we discussed the heyday of subbuteo when our game was to be found on the high streets of every town across the UK. On subbuteo present they showed me Hasbro's latest attempt to revive our glorious game: a hideous base with strange bobbly bits on and a two-dimensional playing figure - ¡Que horrible! And looking to the future, I was told of the club's plans for expansion.

And so came to an end another thoroughly enjoyable leg on my South American subbuteo tour - as with Miguel in Peru, I had been treated to some fantastic action on the pitch and superb South American hospitality off it. Once again, International Subbuteo was the winner!