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The match was going to be one of the most tense, important sporting events ever played, the second leg of the Copa Libertadores final between Boca Juniors and River Plate. Never before had the Buenos Aires rivals played for the South American title. I couldn't believe my good fortune to be in possession of a ticket as I rode in a bus down one of the city's wide avenues towards the stadium. Because of the violence that plagues Argentina soccer, no visiting Boca fans could attend the match at River's El Monumental. We passed only fans in red and white shirts, singing River Plate songs. The streets were lined with riot cops wearing black armor. I should've paid them more attention, given the chaos that would overtake the city in the next two days. The match was two hours away and just a few blocks away, the Boca Juniors bus was trying to navigate the madness.

In the first leg at Boca's famous La Bombonera, the two teams tied 2-2, setting up one game for a title that the winning fans would brag about for generations. River supporters still sing songs about 2015 when a Boca fan leaned over the tunnel and pepper-sprayed the River team returning to the pitch after halftime. River refused to play, which led to Boca being forced to forfeit. The song lyrics call Boca supporters "cowards" and "b----es." Four years earlier, River were relegated to the B Division for the first time in their 100-plus year history and graffiti stencils of ghosts wearing the letter "B" still cover La Boca. The spray-painted ghosts infuriate River fans, who can only stare at the taunting walls and know there is nothing they can say. Fear of losing face and standing have driven an anxiety that, as strange as this sounds, was absolutely palpable in the city -- and on our bus.

Two River fans sat next to me in the last row. They talked softly to themselves, but my translator could hear.

"This could change my day so much," one said.

His friend looked at him.

"No," he replied. "My life."

He paused.

"I went to the psychologist Friday and only talked about this," he said.

People are more afraid of losing than they are excited about winning. - Demian Bio, Buenos Aires reporter

I landed on game day just before 7 in the morning and took a taxi to La Boca, the working-class neighborhood near the docks, once home to the Italians who shaped the culture of this city and filled and re-filled with generational waves of immigrants. It's a vibrant but rough place, hit especially hard by the financial crisis that has stripped more than half the value from the peso, destroying life savings overnight. The interest rate is around 70 percent. It's been a brutal 18 months in Argentina so when its two biggest clubs both reached the cup final, the country rejoiced at this tiny yet beautiful thing.

Wanting my own tiny beautiful thing, my translator, Tomas, and I went looking for a neighborhood joint that would serve up a choripan sandwich: just one of the many little jewels that Buenos Aires can create amid so much structural uncertainty. We found a corner parrilla with plastic sidewalk tables, all of it in the blue and yellow colors of Boca. As I slathered the bread and sausage with chimichurri from a plastic container, Tomas talked about the game.

"I remember growing up hoping for a match like this," he said.

We sat down at one of those tables and the day seemed bright and hopeful.

Then an antique green Ford Falcon drove past.

I'm not sure how to explain the bad feelings that make, model and color evokes in Portenos but I'll try. In the 1970s and '80s, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship. They kidnapped enemies -- some of whom were guilty of, say, having the wrong books on their bookshelves -- and then tortured and killed them. At one concentration camp run by the Navy -- within earshot of where today's match would be played -- the guards raped people with cattle prods, took the prisoners up in airplanes and threw them alive into the river and ocean. Their broken bodies washed up on shore.

The cars used by the police to kidnap these people, often the last place they were ever seen, were green Ford Falcons. It's enough of a symbol that the emotional centerpiece of the national memorial and museum is an artist's deconstruction of a Falcon. It's the automotive embodiment of the nation's most shameful moment and a reminder that not so long ago civilization collapsed.

When the car drove past we both did an actual double take.

"Was that a green Ford Falcon?" I asked, stunned.

"More olive?" Tomas said, hoping to absolve the driver from bad taste or worse.

This is a good window into how the past hovers around daily life. I've reported in Argentina many times and what follows is an outsider's simplified, yet informed, view: There are many secret and conflicting histories in a society with little shared ground on which to build a tribe. You can read endless books about how Argentina went from a promising economy -- the 10th wealthiest in the world in 1913 -- to the economic joke it has become in the 105 years since, defaulting eight times on its debts and often suffering double digit annual inflation.

Much of this lies at the feet of the country's politics, which are toxic and largely based on cults of personality and savior mythology. Juan Peron, the father of the Peronist movement that still holds sway in modern Argentina, favored power over any code or rigid ideology. Right or left didn't matter; he made nice with Fidel Castro and gave sanctuary to fleeing Nazis after World War II. Strongmen seemed to make him feel better about himself. He came to power after World War II, following a period of political and economic instability that made people hungry for his message. His economic policy either started the fire that continues to smolder, or was the gasoline that accelerated it beyond control, depending on which scholars you read. More than anything, he nurtured and calcified a post-truth political landscape in which no governance was possible because there was no set of facts to debate.

His opponents share blame, too, for fighting on the battlefield he created. There is a phrase being used right now in Argentina: "la grieta," which means "the crack", referring to the split in the national dialogue that happened when Peron emerged. There was nothing to be for or against, since all sides insisted their opponents were liars and thieves.

Even today, the extremists set the agenda. Some left-wing citizens don't believe their country can't afford the social programs that contribute to all these defaults. Their theology blames international corporations and the dark hand of conspiracy. Meanwhile, some right-wing citizens still don't believe the dictatorship's murders happened, or that the atrocities were exaggerated or even necessary; the dead were terrorists, if there were any dead at all. The average citizen is trapped in the middle. It is a politics founded on such sweeping lies that there doesn't seem to be a way out of a tangle a century in the making. Argentina's wounds are largely self-inflicted -- by politicians, yes, but also by voters who believe their side holds a monopoly on truth and that vast plots are responsible for their misery instead of their own misplaced belief in saviors.

It's no coincidence that Argentina has the highest per capita rate of mental health doctors in the world.

THE CURRENT PRESIDENT OF Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who was elected in 2015, sold himself as the solution to all those years of dueling histories and stagnation.

His buzzword during the campaign was "normal." He wanted to create a normal country with normal politics and normal economic policy. Instead, he has had to secure yet another bailout from the IMF while trying to cut the social programs that are as beloved as they are fiscal ponies.

This has cost him. Just blocks from where Tomas and I sat at the corner restaurant, alongside graffiti of the ghost with the "B" on its chest, were the letters: MMLPQTP. It means, "Mauricio Macri the whore that birthed you." Voters chant it at sporting events and even at a recent Roger Waters concert. On the same wall is a spray-painted interlocking V and P, which means "Peron Returns."

When this Boca-River final was set, Macri tweeted that he wanted it to be a "normal" sporting event complete with visiting fans, like the ones in the United States or Europe. The same day as his tweet, government security officials told reporters with a rhetorical sigh that such a game was impossible. His dream didn't even survive a day. Not only is Macri unable to repair a country's economy and politics, but he can't even make a stadium safe enough for two groups of citizens to cheer.

We made our way towards the stadium, stopping in the wealthy Belgrano neighborhood at a coffee shop to meet with a local political reporter. Demian Bio is focused mostly on the G-20 summit, which was starting in three days.

Until recently, he was a River fan and club member.

"I'm disillusioned with Argentine football," Demian said, "especially since how intertwined with politics it is."

Macri got his start as a popular and successful president of Boca.

The current president of Boca is a powerful lobbyist.

The father and son who control Independiente also control the teamsters' union.

"Everyone, sooner or later, becomes involved in politics," Demian said. "The president of River is definitely going to take the leap. You can't separate them."

He doesn't believe the city is prepared for all these world leaders. What had seemed two years ago like a victory lap for Macri is now a metaphor for his failure. "It was supposed to mark Argentina's return to the world stage after 12 years of isolation," Demian said.

He summed up the truth at the heart of all this football tension.

"People are more afraid of losing," he said, "than they are excited about winning."