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By Root 757 0

The riot squad moves in on the other side of the fence to prevent a pitch invasion. Sometimes the pitch is overrun and it is not uncommon to see the manager whirled around in the air. In championship finals the players throw their clothes into the crowd and run around the pitch in their underwear. People climb all over the goal posts. The net is torn down and dissected and disappears into a thousand pockets. People are lying in prostrate star shapes on the pitch. Grown men are crying. The stadium literally bounces as the multitude jump up and down in pure jubilation. Eventually the pitch simply can’t contain all this excitement and the crowd bursts out onto the streets. The fans have taken over a bridge across a 14-lane highway. It’s covered in flags and banners and human beings. A breakaway mob has stopped the cars and a tail snakes back for miles with hundreds of blaring horns and youth hanging from car windows waving flags.

Meanwhile, the opposing fans are shuffled quickly out the back, cursing bitterly and swearing revenge the next time around. —CO’M

Boca Juniors (www.bocajuniors.com.ar); River Plate (www.cariverplate.com.ar).

When to go: Year-round.

Buenos Aires.

$$$ Tailor Made Hotel, Arce 385 ( 54/11/4774/9620;www.tailormadehotels.com). $$ Miravida Soho Hotel and Wine Bar, Darregueyra 2050 ( 54/11/4774-6433;www.miravidasoho.com).

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Dancing Tango in Argentina

Get Up & Tango

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Men and women gather in a dimly lit salon, chatting casually at round tables before the mournful chords of an accordion echo around the room. The crowd suddenly breaks into a set of couples. They embrace and, cheek to cheek, sweep across the dance floor. Chests together, their legs twirl and invade each other’s space. They pass sultry looks and caresses, accompanied by the yearnful music. The milonga is underway, a tango gathering where anybody can turn up and grab a partner. They just better know what they are doing. The intensity and excitement of this dance are historied, and participants must show their respect.

Tango was born in the late 19th century in the poor barrios that fringed Buenos Aires City. Waves of immigrants, mostly Italian but also Spaniards, Jews, Arabs, French, Irish, and Poles, began arriving on Argentine shores. Though they arrived from all over the world, they had much in common. They were young, single, and working class. They harbored an immigrant’s feelings of loneliness, displacement, and nostalgia. And they all, of course, had a love of music.

A new type of popular culture was born in the city’s bars and bordellos. Tango became its voice, echoing stories of lost loves and sad memories. The music and dance evolved. Some men took it so seriously they practiced together for want of a partner (the girls were just too expensive). Their moves became a source of pride and perhaps a chance to improve their appeal to the opposite sex.

The new dance from the barrios was disdained by the rich establishment. It was uncouth and immoral. They banned their daughters from practicing it. Yet the sons of the aristocracy were attracted by its romance and danger. They slummed it in the arrabales (city fringes) and picked up some steps. Packed off to university in Europe, they brought this new erotic dance with them. It was enough to give a puritan a heart attack. Kaiser Wilhelm banned it. Prince Louis of Bavaria denounced it as absurd. (Strangely enough Pope Pius was unimpressed and called it too languid for his tastes.) All to no avail—the chattering classes took to it enthusiastically and the tango became the music and dance of European high society in the 1920s. The tango craze began.

Europe legitimized the tango. The high-class salons of London, Paris, and Rome reverberated with the music. What was born in rags, now wore a tux. Yet Buenos Aires will always be its center. It is a mecca for thousands of tango dancers around the world who visit the seductive Argentine capital to try their steps in a multitude of venues. Dancehalls vary from elaborate belle epoque theaters with gilded box seats