The Argentine dancer who went to the World Cup and was left in limbo in Qatar: “It is not convenient for me to return to Buenos Aires”

Melissa Contreras she left the country at the end of July, driven by a goal that indirectly also includes her family. The 33-year-old woman, a dancer by profession, traveled to Italy with the purpose of finding a birth certificate that would allow him to obtain citizenship of that country.

When he arrived in Europe, he was told that her great-grandmother’s papers remained in a historical archive, managed by an Italian lady who was on vacation and would only return in a month. “First I was in Italy looking for the game. I went to all the communes until they gave me that information. After a month I met that lady, but He told me that the game was not there”, Melisa told TN.

Also read: He arrived in Qatar without a ticket for the final and followed the game outside the stadium: “A friend told me about it”

He had lived for eight years in a studio apartment he owned in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Before embarking on her journey, she decided to sell it and invest the money in another apartment located in Pilar. Melisa traveled to Europe with savings, but without much room for great luxuries or extravagant experiences beyond what was planned.

The problem is that by not finding that game his return to Buenos Aires took longer than planned. “I went to France, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Germany and Turkey. I stayed at the houses of friends or acquaintances. I ate little, ”she recalled.

After several recommendations and search suggestions, he managed to find the document on the Internet. “By then he was on a very gas-fuelled trip. I moved between countries knowing that I would have a place to sleep and eat. Everything changed in Turkey,” she revealed.

From processing citizenship to watching the seven matches of the Argentine National Team in Qatar

In Istanbul he realized that he was close, temporally and geographically, to the World Cup in Qatar. “How could I not take the opportunity to go to Doha while there? Messi’s last World Cup… I started to imagine it and suddenly I didn’t want to miss it,” said Melisa.

“I was one of the first Argentines to arrive in Qatar. I took the Hayya on Friday, November 11, and on Monday the 14th I had it approved. That day I took a plane. I remember that the next day there was a flag being raised and we were four crazy cats instead, ”he recounted.

Although he had some remaining money, the definitive impulse was given to him by a friend, who after a call assured him that he had an empty apartment, without furniture or electrical appliances, in which could stay indefinitely.

“In France and Italy I had worked in the street, for nothing, with some boleadoras doing malambo. In Turkey they stole the suitcase in which I had all that. I was thinking of doing the same in Doha, but I ran out of those materials to dance,” he said.

The first 20 days of the World Cup she lived alone in that place. While she enjoyed every match in the group stage and Argentina’s subsequent qualifiers, her loneliness began to play a trick on her. “One noon I went out on the balcony and saw a family eating a barbecue. That day I started to cry”, he recalled.

To enter the stadiums, in addition to using his savings, he had to bet on the relationships and links that he was forging while the competition progressed: “A friend gave me the ticket for Argentina-Mexico. Later I met an American who sold me, at the official price, the one from Argentina-Poland. I was in every WhatsApp group that was formed so as not to miss anything that was happening”, he counted.

assured that came to “eat once a day” and that he agreed to work at one of the busiest parties in Qatar to ease his pocket for a few days. “With that money I also bought one of the last tickets,” she acknowledged.

A few days after the World Cup ended, Melisa received unexpected news: she had to leave the apartment and find a new home. “I literally had nowhere to sleep. I had met some boys on the pitch, Huracán fans, who thought I was Tula’s granddaughter, because I spent a whole game next to him. One day one of them found me crying and I told them that he was homeless, so They bankrolled me for a few days until I got a new place”, he continued.

“I miss a lot, but it is not convenient for me to return to Buenos Aires”

Melisa has been living in Doha for 45 days. She is one of the surviving fans of a World Cup that ended more than a week and a half ago and that there are practically no fans who have traveled there to support a National Team.

“I am living in another borrowed house, waiting for the ticket prices to drop to return to Italy and complete the citizenship process. I miss a lot, but It is not convenient for me to return to Buenos Aires because later it will not be enough for me to return to Europe”, he explained.

According to his calculations, returning from Europe to his home will require an investment of US$1,500. “I cannot pay that ticket again if I have to return to Italy. I am paying for an apartment and I have a long way to go to pay it off“said Melissa.

“My dad and my mom are teachers, I have a sister, a family of workers. I miss them so much and it hurt a lot to spend my first Christmas away from them. If it were up to me, I would return in the New Year, but once I get citizenship, it will help them too, “he completed.

It may interest you:

He saw it on TN: Messi’s mother was moved by the story of an Argentine and fulfilled her life’s dream

The story behind the flag that could only see the light if Argentina was world champion in Qatar

He arrived in Qatar without a ticket for the final and followed the game outside the stadium: “A friend told me about it”

He saw the entire World Cup but was left without a ticket for the final: “I’m going to cry until I feel sorry for the policemen”

He borrowed a card and arrived in Doha a few hours before the final: “I don’t have a ticket”