This is a club that will forever famous for its association with perhaps the greatest player of them all – Diego Armando Maradona.
Associación Atlética Argentinos Juniors were founded in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires on 14th August 1904. The club owes its origins to a group of young people who were eager to pay observance to May Day – the International day of the worker.
There a group of men imbued with a socialist ideological fervor named a team the Mártires de Chicago or the ‘Martyrs of Chicago’. This was in homage to the eight anarchists who were imprisoned and then hanged after the famous May 4th 1886 Haymarket Workers Riot in Chicago – an event commonly regarded as being the origin of traditional May Day observance.
In 1917 the socialist roots of the club were further symbolized when red team shirts were adopted with reference to the Russian Revolution.
These days the socialist contexts may not be so obvious and the club is more known for an association with insects given the nickname of El Bicho or ‘The Bug’. Many images of beetles, ants or ladybirds can be seen in club imagery and fan graffiti.
Given the hundreds of players who have come through the club ranks they are also known as El Semillero – or the nursery seed garden. The likes of Maradona, Redondo, Juan Roman Riquelme, Cambiasso, Batista, Carlos Mac Alister and Fillol have all come through the club’s youth divisions.
If Maradona is the club’s best ever player so 1985 witnessed the club’s attainment of its greatest ever achievement.
The Copa Libertadores was won with America de Cali of Colombia beaten in the final.
The following year saw the Argentine national team and the club’s most famous son Diego Maradona lift the World Cup in Mexico City.
Argentinos Juniors have played on the location of the current stadium since 1940.
Residential and quiet some schoolboys played outside the stadium when I visited, all curious to find out what was so interesting about Argentinos Juniors.
In 1995 moves were put in place to redevelop the old wooden stadium in the La Paternal neighborhood.
In 2003 the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium was re-opened although it had been originally known as Estadio de la Asociación Atlética Argentinos Juniors.
The club celebrated its 2004 centenary year at a newly redeveloped home.
Like many famous Argentina sides, the exterior of the stadium is adorned with colorful club imagery, past heroes, symbols and iconic wording about the club. Neat, compact with both open and roofed stands it remains one of the better inner city stadia in Buenos Aires.
The great names of the past like MacAllister, Olarticoechea, Redondo and Ubaldo Fillol no longer play here but the memories live on in across the murals where famous names gaze down on visitors and current players alike.
