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More than two million people tried to buy tickets for Argentina’s first game after winning its third football championship in December. The number can be multiplied, on average, by four if it is considered that each person could buy up to six tickets. More than 131,000 journalists requested accreditation to cover the match against Panama on the 23rd.
Márcio Resende, correspondent of RFI in Buenos Aires
The crowd of five million people who, on December 20, took to the streets of Buenos Aires in a frustrated attempt to see the three-time world champion players mobilized again, this time virtually, this Thursday (16). As soon as tickets went on sale for the friendly against Panama, thousands of fans tried to buy tickets, which sold out in just two hours.
The sale operation mobilized exactly 2,095,350 fans which, if they were divided by the capacity of the Monumental de Nuñez (from the River Plate club) with 83 thousand seats, would be equivalent to 25 full stadiums. As each person could buy up to six tickets, the demand would be enough to fill 100 stadiums.
Regarding the interest of the press in covering the first presentation of the victorious selection in Qatar, requests for accreditation reached an unprecedented number of 131,537, equivalent to the capacity of two stadiums.
“It’s the greatest journalistic demand in history. We’d love to be able to meet everyone, but we’d need two River stadiums just for journalists. The madness for Argentina is total”, published Claudio Tapia, president of the Argentine Football Association, on social networks. (AFA).
Panama, the opponent of the friendly on the 23rd, is far from the level of the Argentine national team. For that very reason, many believe that it will be a display of the talent of the players who defeated France on December 18, in one of the most electrifying finals in the history of the soccer World Cups.
As if this achievement were not enough, Argentina will also have on the field the newly elected best player in the world by FIFA, Lionel Messi, and best goalkeeper, Emiliano Martínez.
Tickets sell out in two hours
Of the stadium’s 83,214,000 seats, only about half of the tickets were offered for sale. The other half goes to sponsoring companies, special guests and 100 seats for each of the 26 players.
The first in the virtual purchase queue entered many hours before 2 pm, when the sale officially began. Just two hours later, the system indicated “sold out” to the disappointment of more than two million fans willing to pay between US$ 19 and US$ 129 for a ticket. In Argentine pesos, values are 300% more expensive than a year ago, when the Argentine national team faced Venezuela.
The friendly will be an extension of the reception party for the winning team last December, when the massive presence of fans in the streets of Buenos Aires prevented the progress of the open-air parade of players, who had to be rescued by helicopter.
The delirium of the Argentines was proportional to the fast of the national team, which had not won a world title for 36 years. Taking advantage of the strong demand, exchangers are already trying to resell tickets up to 20 times more expensive.