Madness, nerves on edge, ecstasy, relief, 46 million Argentines crying with one voice: champions! Champions in suffering, it’s true. “I thought my heart wouldn’t resist! We deserved to beat France within 90 minutes, they are a great team but we were better until the two goals in one minute from Mbappé. assures Esteban Martinez, 44 years old. He came from the distant southern suburbs of Buenos Aires with his family to celebrate at the obelisk in the center of the capital.
Like tens of thousands of people who jostled on the main avenue of 9-July, the most intrepid perched on bus stops or clinging to a pole, waving a flag. All converged, on this late spring Sunday afternoon in the southern hemisphere, to celebrate the victory. Throughout the country, millions of people filled the squares and streets as soon as the final whistle blew.
Lionel Messi and company managed to restore the coat of arms of the Albiceleste by winning this coveted third star, after those of 1978 in Argentina and 1986 in Mexico. “I had to wait thirty-six years! You realize ? Thirty-six years since I saw the immense Diego Maradona lift the cup at the Aztec stadium in Mexico City. And to think that he left us not so long ago. I think about it and I have tears in my eyes.”, is moved Alberto Vargas, in his sixties. He hugs his granddaughter tightly in his arms, wearing the Argentinian jersey bearing the name of Messi and watching, eyes wide open, the crowd singing and jumping.
South American superstitions and rivalries
Argentinians are not lacking in rites and superstitions when it comes to football. And they were all on the agenda for the final. Alicia Barcenas, 32, strongly believes that she contributed to Argentina’s triumph: “I always walk around the table three times before games”, assures this supporter. The Argentinians also bring up the anecdote of Daniel Valencia, the 1978 Argentinian world champion, who refused an official invitation to go to the Lusail stadium in Qatar for the final. He had his reasons: “As a family we always see the matches sitting in the same place on the same sofa. In addition, that day, I put my underpants inside out! No question of changing. »
South American rivalry obliges, the crowd continues to sing against neighboring Brazil. With a World Cup replica in hand, 51-year-old Luis Alberto Vazquez remembers Neymar: “He had predicted that Jair Bolsonaro would beat Lula in the recent presidential election and that Brazil would be world champions. Neither. »
“Never has a sporting success turned into a political success”
No doubt the Argentinians really needed a collective joy to turn the page on a difficult year. Inflation of nearly 90% in the year? There will be plenty of time to worry about that later. Just as Messi lifted the Cup, President Alberto Fernandez declared on his Twitter account that the national team is “an example that we must not abandon. We have a great people and a great future”. Football seems to have managed to unite, for a moment, a very divided society.
Argentinian sociologist Pablo Alabarces remains skeptical, however: “This jubilation is not the reflection of the best country in the world. It is simply about a happiness shared in the streets of the Republic between people who would not even have exchanged a greeting in normal times”, he analyzes. “Never has a sporting success turned into a political success, he continues. We could even remind our leaders that our happiness seems all the more explosive since we have spent twelve consecutive, deplorable years of governments on all sides that end up with more than 40% poverty. » A harsh reality that the party allows, furtively, to forget.
