Аргентин улс үндэсний шигшээ багийнхаа төлөө хэрхэн нэгддэг вэ

By now, you probably know how much Argentina loves its national team.

Whether it is videos of the streets of Buenos Aires exploding in celebration or thousands of supporters jumping up and down in unison in the bowels of Atlanta Stadium, the country’s passion for La Albiceleste is clear.

But do you know how that extends to the whole of this huge South American country — by far the biggest by area left in the World Cup, at 1,044,325 square miles (2,704,789 square kilometres)? That is roughly 11 times the size of the United Kingdom.

With such size comes significant contrasts in landscape — with desert-like regions in the north and glaciers in the south. But if there is one thing that unites the population, it is Lionel Messi’s world champions.

From a church founded in Diego Maradona’s honour to a mountain 2,000 metres above sea level, these are the stories from across the country that explain what the team means to the nation.

Tilcara, Jujuy

You could not be further from the bustling capital of Buenos Aires in Jujuy, the northwestern province which borders Chile and Bolivia. Red-rock mountains make you feel as if you are on Mars, the air is thinner and llamas look out from arid plains.

But it has a special link to Argentina’s World Cup story: the 1986 team trained on a dirt pitch in the village of Tilcara in January before becoming champions that summer. That was a special request from coach Carlos Bilardo to help his players prepare for the altitude in Mexico, with Tilcara 2,461 metres above sea level.

While there, they played with and against a local team. Former goalkeeper Walter Huayar remembers saving a penalty from the late centre-back Jose Luis Brown and his arms “trembling for two days”. One of his favourite stories is of Bilardo disguising himself in a poncho to keep an eye on his players at a nightclub. The one disappointment for the then 20-year-old Huayar was Maradona only arriving on the final day of the training camp, before they travelled elsewhere.

Huayar and his team-mates “felt like champions” when Argentina lifted the trophy five months later. But the story took on a life of its own after that victory — with claims the squad had made a promise to a statue of the Virgin Mary that they would return to pay tribute if they won. When they failed to do that, some claimed the ‘Curse of Tilcara’ was responsible for their subsequent failure to lift a third world title (they finished runners-up in 1990 and 2014).

“From what I saw from when I was with the boys, they never made any type of promise,” Huayar, 60, tells The Athletic. “That bothered us as the people of Tilcara, because the Virgin doesn’t curse you. She can give you a punishment, but not a curse.”

A group of the 1986 champions returned in 2018, but Huayar says this was for “the people, to show thanks to the place”, rather than asking for forgiveness from the Virgin. Was the lifting of the curse responsible for Messi and Co. earning that third star in 2022?

“It wasn’t because of the Virgin, a punishment or a curse, but because World Cups and football are like that,” says Huayar. “Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.”

Buenos Aires

Like Maradona, Luis Escobedo is a former footballer from the outskirts of the capital — as a youngster, he once trained on the same pitch used by El Diego in the neighbourhood of Villa Fiorito.

But while Maradona was preparing for the 1982 World Cup with Argentina, the 19-year-old Escobedo was one of the young men being sent by his country’s military dictatorship to try to take Las Malvinas, as Argentinians know the Falkland Islands, from the British.

Escobedo played a game at Independiente’s Estadio Libertadores de America on Saturday April 10, 1982, found out by reading the newspaper the following day that the company he had done his military service with had been called up and was on the islands by Thursday night.

“We were kids who didn’t know what was going to happen to us or what we were facing, because we weren’t soldiers,” Escobedo, 64, tells The Athletic.

Luis Escobedo in his military uniform (Courtesy of Luis Escobedo)

Escobedo, who was part of the communications division, says food was in short supply while some of the Argentine soldiers’ weapons didn’t work. He remembers sleeping in the same quarters as 100 other men and the fear when the UK forces began bombarding them. He recalls the sense of relief when the British arrived to capture him, knowing that otherwise there would have been “many more deaths in vain”.

Overall, 649 Argentinians were killed during the conflict, which lasted from April to June. Escobedo spent six days as a British prisoner-of-war, before returning to Argentina by boat. He did not want to play football again at first, but was convinced back after going to a game with his family. He went on to play for a range of teams, including Colon de Santa Fe and Velez Sarsfield.

Maradona famously dedicated his Hand of God goal against England and his Goal of the Century in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final to the Argentinians who had fought in the war. For many veterans, it was a significant show of support after feeling the government had turned their backs on them in the aftermath of the war.

Does this semi-final against England hold extra significance for Escobedo, then?

“I had the good fortune to be a footballer and it helped me a lot in a war,” he says. “But the war helped me to take football calmly. Today, the clasicos against England don’t go beyond a game of football.”

The veterans were remembered in the ‘Muchachos’ chant at the 2022 World Cup, which made reference to “the boys from Malvinas who I’ll never forget” and was sung by Messi and his team-mates when they won.

“That team vindicated us before the world,” says Escobedo. “Everyone knows who the boys from Malvinas are (now). That’s where my admiration for Messi and all the guys who won the World Cup and took that song to the world comes from. And now we have to keep supporting them.”

Luis Escobedo at the Argentine Military Cemetery on the Falkland Islands (Courtesy of Luis Escobedo)

Iguazu Falls

A powerful natural force that refuses to be tamed and defies the passing of time — the 39-year-old Messi and Iguazu Falls have some things in common.

The waterfalls in the north-east of the country — on the border with Brazil, where you can see part of the falls — are one of the seven modern wonders of nature and the Argentine site attracts 1.5 million visitors per year. For the national team’s round-of-16 comeback against Egypt, though, the park stood still.

Screens were set up at various waiting points, where tourists and Argentinians alike were gripped. When the whistle blew on a remarkable fightback, they celebrated before being transported to the falls. “It was a unique, epic moment,” says Carol Da Rosa, the general director of Iguazu Falls Argentina.

The park has welcomed Messi’s wife Antonela Roccuzzo and their sons. Da Rosa’s big wish is for the man himself to visit, preferably after successfully defending his side’s title. “It would be a dream for us,” she says.

Rosario

Rosario is the birthplace of Messi. It is also home to the Church of Maradona, the most obvious illustration of Argentinians’ religious fervour for football.

Set up by fan and journalist Alejandro Veron with two friends in 1998 — initially as a joke — the church celebrates ‘Christmas’ on Maradona’s birthday, October 30, baptises new recruits by asking them to recreate the Hand of God goal and has a set of 10 commandments. One of them tells followers to name their first son Diego.

The passion for Maradona reached another level after his death aged 60 in 2020. When Argentina won the Copa America in their first major tournament since Maradona’s passing in 2021 and lifted the World Cup in Qatar a year later, the symbolism was lost on nobody. “He was more present than ever in all Argentinians,” says Veron.

Followers of the Church of Maradona on the first anniversary of his death (Marcelo Manera/AFP via Getty Images)

In Argentina, fans have cabalas — or superstitions — they rigidly stick to. When Argentina were 2-0 down to Egypt, Veron says he went to fetch a Newell’s Old Boys Maradona shirt and began to pray.

“I looked to the sky and I said, ‘Diego, you can’t leave him like that. Leo can’t leave like this. I ask you for one thing more: that he doesn’t get eliminated today’,” says Veron. “And in 10 minutes, we scored our three goals.”

Veron doesn’t hesitate when asked what the England semi-final means to him. “Whoever had to do what they had to do, did it in ’86,” he says. “But if we can win with two goals from handballs, we’re going to win like that.”

But he bristles when asked if Messi could equal — or even better — Maradona if he lifts a second world title.

“We try not to compare Diego with Leo, because they were two different people,” says Veron. “We’re lucky — they’re both Argentinian, they both gave us a world title, they both represented us as ambassadors. Leo won more Ballons d’Or (eight), but Diego has that sacred fire that nobody has.

“We have D10S and we have the Messiah,” he adds, using the players’ divine nicknames. “We’re not against the Messiah, but ours is God.”

Buenos Aires

It is not just the people of Argentina who have got on board La Scaloneta — the affectionate nickname for Lionel Scaloni’s team.

Nahuel Meneghini is one of Buenos Aires’ many dog-walkers who can be seen leading (or being led by) a host of dogs on leads. Every morning, he takes 14 for a walk — all dressed in ‘Messi 10’ shirts.

Meneghini has been doing the job for 10 years. Last month, one of his clients bought the shirts for two of her dogs that were being walked by Meneghini. He decided to get shirts for the other 12 as he thought it was “sweet”.

They have since become known as La Perroneta (‘perro’ is the Spanish word for dog) in honour of their heroes.

“The World Cup is a passion for me,” the 33-year-old says. “The dogs are an anchor, they provide peace. I feel calmness with them. I prefer to be with them than other humans.”

La Perroneta (Courtesy of Nahuel Meneghini)

Patagonia

At the other end of the country to Jujuy — in every sense — is Patagonia, the icy region that spans the southern part of Argentina and Chile.

In the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, fans wrapped in jackets face wind, rain and snow to watch games in temperatures of -7C (19F).

Trail runner and filmmaker Alejandro Rivera took things further before the World Cup, climbing to the top of a mountain 2,000 metres above sea level and filming himself waving an Argentina flag against an impressive backdrop.

“It was very cold and I could feel the wind against my hands above all,” says Rivera, 39, who moved to Bariloche from Buenos Aires two years ago. “But I wanted the wind so that the flag would move.

“It’s about giving a little bit of myself so that that strength, that passion for football, reaches Argentina. You can do it from your house too, but I had the idea to do it on a mountaintop and it was spectacular.”