World Cup Qatar 2022: The blessed madness of Argentina

The events happened on December 19, 1971. Well, it’s not true. It’s a fiction. December 19, 1971 is Roberto Fontanarossa’s most famous story, the black, writer and humorist who died in 2007. El Negro felt an almost irrational love for his city, Rosario, and his club, El Central. There must be something special about Rosario when Che Guevara, Negro Fontanarossa, Marcelo Bielsa and Lionel Messi were born there. The story is inspired by a real match. On December 19, 1971, Rosario Central won thanks to a header from Pedro Aldo Poy, a mustachioed striker who looked more like a folk singer than a player. The goal was so important that every December 19 they take Poy to a football stadium and it is his turn to reproduce the goal, dubbed the dove for the jump he made. At over 70 years old, Poy is still doing the somersault. It costs more and more. Once he did it in Barcelona with the Central people who live in Catalonia. It was fascinating to see how young people who weren’t born in 1971 celebrated the goal and hugged it.

Poy flew on December 19 and Messi lifted the Cup on December 18. If in Viejo Casale they forced him to go to the countryside, the writer Leila Guerriero explained a The country how his brothers have forced his father to walk alone in the street on match days, as they believe that if he looks at them it brings bad luck. And the father has accepted it, half laughing half resigned. And I think of this man, condemned to walk to bring good luck, like a modern Viejo Casale. Two more symbols of an incomparable football tradition, Argentina. The football culture of the conversations in the cafes of San Telmo and Boedo, that of the lineups repeated by heart, the original chants, the nicknames and the unique words. The plank, the stamina, the pasture, the dribble. And literature. The Argentines have created their own culture around unsurpassed football, with stories like The longest penalty in the world, by Osvaldo Soriano, writer son of a Catalan. Argentina has left us journalistic pens like Dante Panzeri and his famous Football, dynamics of the unthinkable or radio stories like those of Victor Hugo Morales.

Football, a magical game in the hands of corrupt managers and criminal states, is part of the Argentine identity. Even the most critical Argentinians with the World Cup in Qatar were moved by the victory, because they know that the World Cup is a summary of our planet. Every time there is something beautiful and popular – like a game, a musical style, a good actor, a food… – powerful people come to hijack it, make it their own and fill their pockets. Sometimes it seems that Qatar has only invested in one World Cup, ignoring that it also organizes concerts, exhibitions, museums and festivals, both in Europe and at home. That buys us debts, banks, companies and ports at home. That has sponsored Barça and other sports.

Argentina doesn’t have Qatar’s money. It is a country torn apart by the crisis, but with an imagination and a humor proof of inept politicians. These days thousands of people have taken to the streets to celebrate each triumph with humor and passion, climbing buildings, walking animals, kissing on top of lampposts and singing at the doors of nursing homes to share joy with the elderly. In life, which is often too cruel, you must seize any opportunity to sing and dance. And in those kisses of young Argentines on top of a lamppost I see a gesture of freedom, to get away for a few hours from so much misery. I’ve always liked the way the ancient Greeks saw the world, with imperfect gods, like us. The Argentine players have made mistakes in their celebrations, but they have also caused beautiful images, as it has become fashionable to celebrate the triumph with the grandparents. There are young people who have decided to go to the doors of the residences to give joy to grandparents they don’t even know. In a video, a young man gives a homeless person an official Messi shirt. Will it change his life? No. But the gesture moves the man, who begins to cry.

And the population, frustrated, needs to feel that they can do something about it, and turns Argentina into the land of the cabals, as they call it. In a magnificent television advertisement, art in which the Argentinians once again shine, different citizens looked for connections between the present and 1986, the last year they were champions. The music for the ad is a hit from that year by the great Charly García and Pedro Aznar, covered by two current artists, speaking to your heart. People who need to tie a double knot every game day, sit the same way on the couch, lock themselves in a room by themselves, put on the same socks. Rational, educated people who admit that what they do makes no sense. But in doing so they speak from the heart. They play, as if they were children. And how necessary it is to believe. How necessary it is to dream and let go, from time to time. How boring it is to always be rational and monitor what others are doing.

In a world of extremes, I have never been so disgusted by everything surrounding a World Cup. At the same time, I have never been so happy with the result of the final, as I have seen happy people I appreciate. I wanted to see Messi waking up with the Cup in his bed, but I’ve celebrated it more for the Argentinians I know. For those people who have had to leave home to find a life. For those who fight against inflation with imagination and who for one day were able to shout very loudly. I celebrated the title for Viejo Casale. It is to reward the culture that surrounds Argentine football, which is part of the day-to-day life of a country that, despite everything, fascinates me. We all have our contradictions, don’t we?