Goalkeeper Emiliano Dibu Martínez was jumping wildly on the table. Other players banged trash cans, the edge of chairs, or clapped their hands. Lionel Messi jumped and followed the lyrics.
Argentina has a hit at the World Cup and this has already become a team tradition at the tournament.
“The hardest thing is for music to fall in love with people. When that happens, everything becomes easier. That Messi said he liked it so much means a lot to me”, says Guillermo Novellis, vocalist of the band La Mosca Tsé Tsé.
The version he made for the national team, a version of “Muchachos”, one of his own group’s best-known songs, to honor Messi and the team at the Qatar Cup, spread throughout the delegation and among fans.
Messi himself said that the squad used to sing it on the bus, on the way to games and in moments of celebration.
One of them happened after the victory over Mexico by 2 to 0 this Saturday (26). The video of the party to the sound of the song was posted on social media and drew attention. This had already happened last year, when Alviceleste defeated Brazil to win the Copa America, in Maracanã.
“It’s very special for me that it became a bleacher song, like other songs in Argentina. We tried to synthesize in the new version everything that football represents to us”, completes Novellis.
The hit drew attention in Brazil for having provoked Tite’s team. An excerpt from the lyrics says that “the finals we lost, for how many years I cried for them, but that ended because in Maracanã the final with the Brazilians we won again, daddy”, in reference to the continental decision.
“We are used to Argentina having a musical theme at the World Cup. This has happened before. Let it be our song [da banda] fills me with joy. I hope it ends well, with the title”, says Novellis when considering the mention of the 2021 Copa America something normal, with no intention of discrediting Brazil.
Because it became popular in the delegation concentrated in Doha, it spread among the fans and became the Argentinean anthem in Qatar. It is always sung, even if a small group of Argentines gathers anywhere in the Qatari capital. It appeared in the stands of the Lusail stadium after Messi opened the scoring in the victory over Mexico and on the subway lines after the match.
For the vocalist, it epitomizes Argentine football because it talks about the dream of winning the Cup again (“boys, now we’re dreaming again, I want to win the third, I want to be world champion”), the Malvinas War, Diego Maradona and Messi ( “Diego in the sky, we can see Don Diego and Tota rooting for Lionel”).
“Muchachos” is already a popular song, with other lyrics, in adaptations of those organized by Boca Juniors and River Plate, each one provoking the rival. The one that brought everyone together was the one made by the author of the original, this time for the selection.
The fever for World Cup songs in Argentina gained strength from 2014 onwards. It was when “Brasil, decime que se sente” (Brazil, tell me how you feel), composed by a group of friends who went to Rio de Janeiro to accompany the Mundial, spread and began to be sung in all games. Maradona was filmed doing the same, as well as the athletes, then concentrated in Cidade do Galo in Vespasiano, close to Belo Horizonte.
The lyrics were even more provocative to Brazil because they mentioned Claudio Caniggia’s goal that eliminated the green and yellow team from the 1990 World Cup, in Italy. And it ended with the statement that Maradona was better than Pelé.
That year, Argentina reached the final and lost to Germany. In 2022, it needs a victory (or a draw, depending on the result between Saudi Arabia and Mexico) to go to the round of 16.
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