The queues in front of Don Julio, one of the most exclusive restaurants in Buenos Aires, are not surprising. Hailed as the second best restaurant in Latin America by the 50 Best list, this grill has a waiting list of up to three months and a constant traffic of tourists and a few privileged locals every day. The strange thing is that this line becomes a flood of people invading the street while jumping and singing songs in the square.
It happened this Monday evening. Argentina team captain Lionel Messi has arrived in the country to play two friendlies to celebrate winning the World Cup in Qatar and the city is in revolution. This Monday, hundreds of people broke the peace of Palermo’s charming neighborhood to see him for a few seconds at the trendiest restaurant in town. The fans’ toil was a consolation prize: almost two million people queued up in the virtual queue, running out of tickets, to see the world-champion team take on the Panamanian team this Thursday. Tickets for the next game on March 28 against Curacao in the city of Santiago del Estero are not yet on sale.
North Buenos Aires this week saw a heavy police operation around the River Plate Stadium, where fans who managed to buy tickets for Thursday’s game had to pick them up in person. The area around the stadium was fenced off and the cash registers were hidden behind wooden partitions, like bank boxes.
The World Cup joy last December 18 seems inexhaustible. The city prepares to welcome the team again with the memory of the nearly five million people who came out to celebrate with the players on the streets, eventually urging them to visit them by helicopter. The captain is already in town and was able to go out quietly for a moment last night. He arrived at the grill around 11 p.m., and already at dawn the police had to escort him through the flood of fans.
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