MIAMI, United States. – We have all seen the images. They deserved to win. It was a game “not suitable for the faint of heart.” Two to zero until almost the end. Suddenly the French tie. The Argentines scored another goal again in the last moments. The Argentines believe they have won. It is not “possible” that France draw again. It is total delirium in the stands of Argentine fans. A great goal from Kylian Mbappé and France tied again. The match will be decided by penalties. It is the moment of the goalkeepers. Emiliano (“Dibu”) Martínez catches two balls. Argentina wins and is very happy. Argentines kiss and hug in the streets of their country. For a long time they forget the divisions and hardships. They are, once again, soccer world champions.
Not to mention, it even has the tribute of the marginal information centers, the so-called “social networks”, which will soon be the usual mode of communication (my granddaughters do not use TV or radio): 27 million times it has appeared on screen the image of Leo Messi with the trophy. That happened on December 18 and 19, 2022, when they won the competition. His supporters have also pressed the “like” sign as if it were another championship and they have won it. It had been 36 years since the phenomenon had occurred.
From Mexico in 1986. The “social networks” began, timidly, in those years. But they fully developed from 2000. When that happened, the best player in the world was also with them, Diego Armando Maradona. Now that rank and that distinction fell to Leo Messi. Without the “Hand of God” touching the ball to help Argentina against the English. This time it was without any supernatural complicity.
Let’s leave the usual controversy. Pelé, the Brazilian, Maradona and Messi are three greats. Pelé is dying, Maradona already died in 2010, prematurely, and Messi could retire soon. Let’s get into another discussion: what does soccer mean for Argentina. I would have liked to know the opinion of my friend, the sociologist Juan José Sebrelli. I think it is the religion of many Argentines. Almost all of them believe in soccer as something central to their lives, and they are willing to forgive everything to whoever acts as a provisional “god”.
It’s the other way around. In Christianity, God forgives Christians everything, but that is not free. In return you must show genuine public or private repentance. In Argentina everyone, or almost everyone, except Sebrelli, is willing to forgive the biggest offense (scoring a goal with his hand), as long as the one who commits it is “god” and without the need for repentance. Let’s say: that with “recochineo”, that very strong Spanish word.
But it means even more. The Argentines find in soccer the atonement for the sin of having been inhibited from the battle for development. It is not possible to escape the information that Argentina, until 1930, was one of the most successful nations on earth. From that year the loss began. Until that point, England essentially provided the resources for essential investment and innovation.
For example, the trains that could take grain from any province, and the meat that needed refrigerated ships for any journey of more than three days. Europe, with its fields destroyed by the First World War (1914-1918), required food, and Argentina provided it. After the First World War came the Second (1939-1945), but Juan Domingo Perón, a charismatic soldier, was already installed in Buenos Aires, first as Secretary of Labor and then, from 1946, as President.
From those years is the “speech” on the economy of Perón. An aide advises him that there are no dollars or sterling in the public treasury. Perón goes out onto the balcony and asks a rhetorical question: “Have the Argentine working class seen a dollar?” “No”, he answers with a unanimous and defiant roar, “the Argentine working class” (at that time the “shirtless” of Peronism). If no one has seen it, it is expendable. Perón is a demagogue or ignorant. In the middle of the 20th century they give it a coup. He stumbles around Latin America trying to regain power and ends up in the General’s Spain Francisco Francothen the dean of Spanish-speaking dictators (later it would be Fidel Castroenthroned in 1959).
Franco believes in “bread and circuses”. He endows the Spanish with their fair share of circus. The great fans for soccer came with the Franco regime. The Argentine Alfredo Di Stéfano, called “the golden arrow”, is chosen by Franco to play for Real Madrid. Barça disputed it, with reasons. Franco believed that it was up to Madrid to have a wonderful soccer team. The Catalans were too rebellious. Real Madrid, with Di Stéfano, won the European Championships five consecutive times (1956-1960). What happened to Spain happened to Argentina. It had had a lavish past as the world’s leading power. It was the time when Argentina was different from its environment. From there it was only different in football. Fortunately, soccer mixed with democracy. That is why they embrace that feature of coexistence. The Argentines want to be judged by the line with which they distinguish themselves on the planet. I believe that your land is still a great nation.
OPINION ARTICLE
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