From the tears of “Payasito” Aimar to his contagious smile, a Lionel Scaloni who runs up the stairs to look for his son who bursts into tears when they merge into a hug, Dibu and his therapy, the crying of Lisandro Martínez, the “What are you looking at, silly” by Leo, the “shades of happiness” by De Paul, a Messi who runs to get off the ground and hug the star goalkeeper after the hard game against the Netherlands.
Silvina Molina, Télam’s Gender and Diversity Editor, reflected on the new masculinities in the soccer context and how the Argentine National Team is a clear example of a paradigm shift in terms of the expressiveness of men’s emotions: “Football enables emotions in general and is a place where men feel allowed to express emotions.”
“I find it interesting because I’m a soccer fan and I like to watch soccer and I’ve seen several World Cups, so those emotions before were more related to pushing each other, insulting each other, some more violent scenes as we saw, for example, in the Argentina match against the Netherlands. And Now we see more of this tear, crying, emotion,” he described.
Speaking to Public TV, Rodrigo De Paul said: “We are not football players, we are people who play football. We have a lot of problems”. In that same interview with Tití Fernández, the flyer made reference to the “nuances of happiness”, stating that happiness is a state that is not permanent, that coexists with other emotions and that has different levels of intensity.
For Silvina Molina, in the Scaloneta players one also sees “the affection with childhood that accompany them, of the players responding to boys and girls who ask them for videos or who talk about them. There is a group of men of an age that is experiencing another moment in Argentina and the world, where it is no longer bad to be a man and cry.”
The connection with childhood can be seen in the image of a girl touching Messi’s arm to greet him and that number 10 responded with a smile, the dancing and laughter between ‘Kun’ Agüero and the Triplets Ghetto Kids, among others. moments of this World Cup in Qatar.
This is beautiful messi fan #messi#Argentinapic.twitter.com/l8soNguu6P
—kin (@kindall50771088) December 3, 2022
Of course the “women’s movements and feminisms” they have a lot to do with the way men allow themselves to express their emotions. “Sometimes it is thought that when we talk about feminist requests and demands we only think of us and here we have a great demonstration of how we also open a way for them to cry and get emotional. They are the majority of an average age that They are the same men that today we can see on the street carrying their babies in strollers, something that was not seen before. Before, there were men who were ashamed of that. I think that the boys of the National Team are representing this new way of being that we have in Argentina and in the world”, explained the gender editor of this Agency.
The concept of new masculinities It is directly related to women’s movements and feminisms because new ways of conceiving masculinity and understanding that there is not just one, but that there are as many as people, were enabled. Therefore, it makes it possible to show affection without repressing it, to dress in different ways, to share emotions in front of a camera, to say that you are attending therapy, among other examples, that do not make a man less of a man, but rather speak of a sensitivity and complexity, typical of the human condition beyond gender.
scaloni In different press conferences throughout the World Cup, he made reference to the anxieties and joys of the players, emphasizing that behind footballers there are people who feel and go through various emotionstherefore, the importance of support and the hug of family and friends after each of the games, which serves as ‘nafta’ to continue go ahead.
In addition, the Argentine DT usually gets emotional when he talks about his players and says he is very proud of them.
Another moment of skin-deep sensitivity was the crying of Lisandro Martinez after going to the final, that he mentioned his grandparents who both died the same year and that he misses them and that he would like them to be able to see him play and reach the World Cup final.
The goalkeeper “Dibu” told the camera: “I left the first game – the defeat against Saudi Arabia – with the feeling that I should have done something more to avoid defeat, that there were 45 million Argentines behind me and I didn’t give enough. I talked about it a lot with my psychologist this week because it was hard for me to swallow and luckily today we took off that weight”.
A Messi who cries, smiles and also screams “what are you looking at silly” in front of the television cameras. A Messi who after Lautaro Martínez converted the penalty that classified them to the semifinals, runs towards Dibu to pick him up from the ground and hug him with a smile that paints his face.
“How good it feels that if I want to cry I cry, I get emotional and hug you and tell you I love you, and I told myself that before I had to repress it because they will see badly that this happens to me as a man. The media and advertising They are reflecting and it seems to me that from a communication and journalism point of view it is super important to accompany from that place,” concluded Silvina Molina.
