Racing Club from Avellaneda were suffering the humiliation of having to play lower league football.
Their way back was not as straight forward as one could have expected.
They failed at the first attempt, and had to stay in the Primera B for a second season.
Finally on December the 27th of 1985, they managed to win the title, when they drew with Atlanta 1-1.
At that time the first division in the country had two long tournaments the Metropolitano and the Nacional.
However, in order to arrange the calendar to coincide with European football,
The association had decided that in 1986 only one tournament would take place, and that it would commence after the World Cup in Mexico.
That meant that Racing had to wait nearly 8 months to play their first game back on the top division.
In order to get that promotion, the club had spent a lot of money in players trying to rebuild the team, so they did not go back down straight away.
They were paying top wages to show their intentions.
However, their financial situation was far from healthy, and they could not afford to keep paying the players when there were no games.
They managed to get some friendly games abroad, but the income for those was not enough to cover the costs for 8 months of inactivity.
Then the solution arrived.
Two Racing fans from a “supporters club” in the province of Mendoza, 652 miles away from Buenos Aires, proposed that one of the provincial teams called Club Atletico Argentino de Mendoza hired the entire squad of Racing for a few months to play the local league.
Ironically, this club and Racing club, share the same uniform and same nickname “la Academia”
The idea was to win the Mendoza league to qualify for a place in the tournament Racing Club had just won!
What it started as a joke between two fans, ended up in reality.
Sixteen first team players and even the Manager were “hired out” to Club Argentino for 2 months.
They paid Racing $150k and also agreed to play the players and coach’s wages.
Argentino had record income from the games played by their “new team”.
What nobody took into consideration before the operation took place, was the very strong anti Buenos Aires feeling that there was in Mendoza.
Resulting in the fact that all the spectators, home and away went to the games to boo and insult the players that came from the capital.
Such was the pressure that they were put under, that they under performed and failed to win the Mendoza league.
The players, once the 2 months expired returned to Racing Club and took part on the first division tournament that begin in August 1986.