{"id":520,"date":"2026-07-16T06:37:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=520"},"modified":"2026-07-16T06:37:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T06:37:25","slug":"argentina-world-cup-villains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=520","title":{"rendered":"Argentina: World Cup villains"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Argentina\u2019s win over a faint-hearted England \u2014 in a decisive comeback of the sort now all but routine for the South American squad \u2014 should banish much of the \u201cVARgentina\u201d chatter that dogged the defending champions, after suspicious refereeing decisions in their previous knockout-round games. Seeking in vain a reprise of the siege tactics of the Three Lions\u2019 10-man win over Mexico in the cauldron of the Estadio Azteca, or to emulate the defensive dark arts of Paraguay, England made sure Argentina needed no intervention from FIFA officials to turn the tables in the dying minutes of the match in Atlanta. All they needed were Messi\u2019s gilded feet.<\/p>\n

Read more Why true crime isn\u2019t real<\/a><\/p>\n

But victory for the Albiceleste<\/em> is unlikely to alter the light in which the Argentine team has come to be seen internationally in this edition of the cup \u2014 one so different from that of four years ago in Qatar. Then, the Argentines\u2019 pluck, and their star Messi, were easy to love as they wended their way to a third world championship, a journey that ended in a thrilling final against Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s France. The country was suffering from runaway inflation and seemingly without direction under its hapless Peronist president Alberto Fern\u00e1ndez. Argentina deserved a win, it seemed, and its team earned one.<\/p>\n

Now, New York<\/em> magazine dubs Argentina the \u201csurprise villains\u201d of this Cup, while The New York Times<\/em> reports on how other nations hope they\u2019ll lose. What changed? Under Javier Milei\u2019s new management, Argentines still suffer plenty: both economically, as the effects of Milei\u2019s shock therapy sink in, and in football, where experiencing the trials and tribulations of the national squad is a kind of civic religion. \u201cOne must suffer\u201d, fans like to say. \u201cWithout suffering, it\u2019s not worth it\u201d.<\/p>\n

With the great exception of Messi, Argentina offers little inspiration in the way of tactics or technique. But the grit of its players and fans is boundless and enviable, and as debate spreads over whether Argentina\u2019s neighbor Brazil owes its recent footballing retreat to evangelical Protestantism\u2019s advances, perhaps this secularized Catholic cult \u2014 the Stations of the Cross reimagined as knockout-round progression \u2014\u00a0is helping power Argentine prowess in an age when South American football struggles to compete with the money and training of the European juggernauts.<\/p>\n

But this gospel of suffering is mostly for domestic consumption. Abroad, perceptions of Argentina follow its association, under Milei, with Trump\u2019s America and Netanyahu\u2019s Israel. Latin Americans have long chafed at some Argentines\u2019 superior touting \u2014 neither really accurate nor welcome in principle \u2014 of their society\u2019s European character. But the current political moment has drawn wider attention to certain darker elements in the national culture.<\/p>\n

Back in 2022, in the woke era\u2019s waning years, it was possible to sympathize when, after a Washington Post<\/em> op-ed asked why Argentina\u2019s national squad lacked black players, the Twitter account of Milei\u2019s party \u2014 at the time boasting only three lawmakers \u2014 dryly responded: \u201cBecause we are a country, not a Disney movie\u201d.<\/p>\n

Today, posts like this appear in a more sinister aspect, as another World Cup brings out the worst in Milei\u2019s movement, now in power. \u201cIt\u2019s such a drag to be black these days\u201d, top Milei aide Santiago Caputo posted after Brazil lost to Norway, drawing an ugly line under a longstanding racial animosity in some quarters toward Argentina\u2019s northern neighbor, with its large population of African descent.<\/p>\n

Just as Argentina\u2019s sclerotic state comes close to resembling the caricature that libertarians elsewhere falsely imagine government to represent, a deep (if far from universal) streak of anti-black racism pervades Argentine society. It creeps into everyday language: negro de mierda <\/em>(\u201cshitty black person\u201d) is a common term of abuse, directed at people of all races, while quilombo<\/em>, a colony of runaway slaves, some of which still exist today in Brazil, is a ubiquitous term for chaos and disorder.<\/p>\n

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A World Cup whose European squads count many non-white players, symbols of the migration of recent decades, has provided further grist for the mill. For an Argentine streaming channel aligned with Milei\u2019s movement, \u201cpopulation replacement\u201d explains Germany\u2019s footballing decline; a provincial official belonging to his party calls France \u201cthe African team\u201d. Milei himself recently declared that Europe\u2019s migration policies had brought it \u201cto the brink of extermination\u201d. It\u2019s an irony that a country forged, like all societies in the New World, by the collision of different peoples \u2014 indigenous, Spanish, Italian, Lebanese, Jewish, to name a few \u2014 could be held up as \u201cconservative\u201d on questions of immigration and national homogeneity against Europe, erstwhile land of the ethnostate.<\/p>\n

But if Argentina\u2019s turn to the Right has colored the way the rest of the world sees the team, it has done nothing whatsoever to puncture the love that Argentines, whatever their politics, cherish for their squad. What explains that? After all, other countries in Latin America, where the Right has lately won power, have seen political polarization tear into support for the national team. Many Left-leaning Brazilians are only now returning to old habits of wearing the jerseys and waving the flag, after Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s movement made the yellow-and-green shirt a Right-wing uniform for the better part of a decade.<\/p>\n

This year, the same phenomenon arrived in Colombia, when Abelardo de la Espriella \u2014 now the country\u2019s president-elect \u2014 used the national jersey at his rallies. Espriella\u2019s socialist rival accused him of appropriating a symbol that belonged to the nation at large, and a judge banned him from wearing the shirt, though that didn\u2019t stop him from winning Colombia\u2019s election last month.<\/p>\n

How did Argentina, so long notorious for political grievances that creep into every corner of society, keep politics out of football? Winning is a universal balm, of course, but there is more to the story. The team does its best to stay out of politics, and has kept Milei at arm\u2019s length as he tries to make the squad\u2019s success his own. It helps that not everyone in the Argentine footballing world likes the changes Milei wants to make to the way football is regulated.<\/p>\n

Evangelical Christianity, with its emphasis on morals and individual prosperity, is one force that draws players on the Brazilian and Colombian national squads toward Right-wing politicians \u2014 but the movement is relatively weak in Argentina, where Christianity has always been a feebler force than elsewhere in South America. Another key difference is that in Argentina, the political Left is dominated not by socialism, with its internationalist tendencies, but by nationalistic Peronism. The old grudge over the Falkland Islands \u2014 which resurfaced at the conclusion of last night\u2019s match, when players raised a banner declaring the \u201cLas Malvinas\u201d rightfully belonged to Argentina \u2014 is nurtured almost more lovingly on the Peronist Left than on Milei\u2019s Right, with its suspicious sympathies for Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n

Ironically enough, one historical reason for this nationalistic unity has to do with immigration. As in the United States, socialism flourished in Argentina in the 19th century, but mainly as a second language, among recently arrived immigrants in an industrializing society. It was kept out of the political mainstream by an entrenched native elite, and when popular demands finally broke through decades later, they did so in a version shorn of international commitments. In many ways, Peronism in Argentina was Latin America\u2019s answer to New Deal liberalism in the United States.<\/p>\n

Whatever the causes, the effects are clear enough. Right-wing officials and the Peronist opposition jockey to see who can cheer the boys on louder, and no one has a second thought about donning the white and light blue. Countless Argentines who don\u2019t share the views of Right-wing streamers see no reason why they should be associated with them. They want to bring home a fourth trophy, to suffer and celebrate as one. To be loved by your own is to disdain what the rest of the world thinks.<\/p>\n

Read more How passwords stole my sanity<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Argentina\u2019s win over a faint-hearted England \u2014 in a decisive comeback of the sort now all but routine for the South American squad \u2014 should banish much of the \u201cVARgentina\u201d chatter that dogged the defending champions, after suspicious refereeing decisions in their previous knockout-round games. Seeking in vain a reprise of the siege tactics of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-cup"],"yoast_head":"\nArgentina: World Cup villains - \u0421ity Flow Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityflowjournal.com\/?p=520\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Argentina: World Cup villains - \u0421ity Flow Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Argentina\u2019s win over a faint-hearted England \u2014 in a decisive comeback of the sort now all but routine for the South American squad \u2014 should banish much of the \u201cVARgentina\u201d chatter that dogged the defending champions, after suspicious refereeing decisions in their previous knockout-round games. 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