Riquelme and the spirit of the neighborhood: how the former soccer player tries to resurface Boca with his circle of trust | Club World Cup 2025

Among the towns of Don Torcuato and San Isidro, both in the province of Buenos Aires, there are 11 kilometers away. In the first, Juan Román Riquelme, son of marginality, current president of Boca, was born and grew up. In the second, cradle of the Argentine social and economic elite, he built his life network Mauricio Macri, former president of the nation, also of the Xeneize institution.

When I was in the youth divisions, Argentines forced Riquelme to make the four meals at the club. But the player refused to eat. “I can’t eat knowing that my brothers don’t do it,” he replied. Macri, on the other hand, when he served as a canterano in the companies of his late Father Franco-a decoño of the Macri-Social Group, essentially dedicated to public works and large concessions of services-the mustache was left to try to earn the respect of the company’s employees. Between Riquelme and Macri there are much more than 11 kilometers away: there is an ocean that represents the two Argentines. In the middle of both, however, Boca, much more than a football club.

In December 2023, Riquelme faced Macri in Boca’s elections. The former president of the Nation tried to play a secondary role, leaving Andrés Ibarra as a formula head. Even Javier Milei, then at the top of his popularity after having arrived at the Casa Rosada a week earlier, wanted to intervene in the most popular club elections in Argentina. “In life you have to be loyal. If Macri had a selfless gesture to help me, how am I going to go to help him?” Milei said, the commitment of the establishment, the same circle he supported and to which Macri belongs.

The victory positioned Riquelme not only as a rival of Macri – it had already been in his stage as a player – but also as an opponent of Argentina that imagined Milei: in the football industry, the SAD had to be imposed on non -profit societies. And although in Europe the examples of Bayern (Beckenbauer and Rummenigge) and Benfica (Rui Costa) represented the success of the player turned into president, in Argentina that formula did not seem to give results. “I am directed to River with the 6 on the back and captain’s film,” Daniel Passarella had confessed to his surroundings, before staying with the presidency of River Plate. But Passarella achieved the unthinkable: River descended.

“I did not come to be a politician, I came to help the club,” Riquelme said. It was never easy to jump from the field to the box. There are players, even until they have a hard time jumping to the bench. “He still thinks as a footballer,” they made fun of the Barça de Xavi directive. Distrustful, always self -sufficient, Riquelme chose to surround himself with one more circle of his trust than professional to lead Boca. And Boca forgot to win. The fan, however, does not point it, but surrounds it. “The commission goes to the p … that gave birth to him!” The Bombonera was divided after the latest results.

“This man (Riquelme), destroyed us. Now we have to endure that everyone goes to the River court and says: ‘They took 20 years,” Macri complains. And incidentally, Milei put his focus again in the mouth: “It is a disaster.” While learning to do politics – he was in May in a FIFA congress in which Macri spoke – Riquelme is committed to his third coach since he is president, seventh since he is as a manager of Boca: Miguel Ángel Russo, just the coach with whom he won his last Libertadores as a player in 2007.

Riquelme clings to the spirit of the neighborhood, while Boca falls in love with Boca: 40,000 fans turned the hard rock stadium into a bombonera in the premiere against Benfica (2-2) in the World Cup. “The people of Boca are like that and you have to enjoy it, nothing more,” concludes Russo. Macri knows, of course also Riquelme: “The biggest club in the world.” Between the two, much more than 11 kilometers.