Argentina holds its breath and lives with its heart pounding the 2022 World Cup final, with Alviceleste facing France for the third world title.
Argentines’ passion for football comes from the cradle and grows with children. It’s a shared feeling, sometimes inexplicable. Here are five aspects to understand it.
1 – In the beginning there was football
The genesis of football in Argentina dates back to the mid-19th century, when the sport was introduced by English sailors to the port of Buenos Aires. Creoles, surprised, called those who ran after a ball “the crazy English”. English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish people founded clubs next to railway stations that they built themselves.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) was the first federation created in South America, in 1893, and the eighth in the world.
Creoles dominated football. They traded the predominance of physical strength for a brand based on skill, wit, magic, malice, cunning and dribbling. Thus was forged an identity that is still seen today in Lionel Messi, Rodrigo de Paul, Julián Álvarez and Ángel Di María.
“In Argentina, football was built as part of a possible sociability with territory (the neighborhood), through the clubs. That is its magnitude. There is a collective and personal memory that is shared and currently operates,” the researcher told AFP. and Doctor of Communication Juan Branz.
2 – Several idols and a god
Then, the people identified themselves with idols who represented this different kind of football. Thus legends were created with Vicente Zito, Natalio Perinetti, Francisco Varallo and Luis Monti, who led a list of Argentines naturalized Italians who gave Italy its first world title in 1934. Those great players dazzled the famous singer and composer of tangos Carlos Gardel , who accompanied them closely in the fields.
Other prominent figures throughout the ages were Ángel Labruna, José Manuel Moreno, Tucho Méndez, Amadeo Carrizo, Ubaldo Fillol, Daniel Passarella, Mario Kempes, René Housemann, Gabriel Batistuta and Román Riquelme. In the Olympus of legends, only the historic symbol of the Alviceleste had arrived: Diego Maradona. Now, Lionel Messi joins him.
“Messi entered the hearts of the fans with Diego. He demonstrated the qualities of a leader with his speech in the locker room before winning the Copa América in 2021. Besides being the best player in the world, he is a great person, a very dear guy. people are happy for Argentina, but also for Messi. Those who doubted him have taken him to heart,” historian Felipe Pigna told AFP.
3 – Passionate fans
The fans generated a grandstand mystique that spread to the whole world. Argentine hits became famous in the World Cups. “Muchachos”, with music by the ska and rock band La Mosca, for the 2022 World Cup, is sung by 40,000 fans in stadiums in Qatar and by millions in squares, bars and parks in Argentina.
Identification with a club usually comes from the cradle, and practically no one regrets that choice.
The writer, professor and journalist Ariel Scher defined it this way: “We can quote the writer Roberto Fontanarrosa, whom I heard say that one of the reasons why football fascinates us is because when the number 4 of your team charges a full-back, it is impossible for you to think you didn’t pay the electricity bill. Football is a game and it’s an identity, and when it happens, you don’t think about anything else”.
But there are also violent groups, a pending issue despite the measures that have been taken, which include banning away fans from stadiums since 2013. For this World Cup, authorities have drawn up a list of 6,500 Argentines who have been banned from entering Qatar. .
4 – Two Cups
Alviceleste won its first World Cup playing at home, in 1978, by beating the Netherlands in the final (3-1), at the height of Mario Kempes. The second came in Mexico, in 1986, defeating Germany (3 to 2), the glory of Maradona.
It lost the 1930 finals to host Uruguay (4-2), and to Germany in 1990 (1-0) and 2014 (1-0). In addition, there are 15 Copa América titles, the biggest champion alongside Uruguay.
5 – Obelisk, flag and party
The Obelisk, in the middle of Avenida 9 de Julio, is an emblem of Buenos Aires and, since 1978, the meeting point for football celebrations.
Measuring 140 meters wide, the avenue opened in 1937 and inspired by the Champs-Élysées in Paris is an invitation to gather people. But the writer Matías Bauxo explained that the place became a natural destination for fans during the 1978 World Cup, during the dictatorship, when the games were broadcast in color in the cinemas on the perpendicular street Corrientes.
In Rosario, the city of Messi and Di María, Argentina’s victories are celebrated around the Monument to the Flag, erected on the banks of the Paraná River, where General Manuel Belgrano hoisted it for the first time in 1812.
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