When the military still ruled the country, their hired propagandists made much of the “Anti-Argentine campaign” they said was raging in other parts of the world where extreme left-wingers were very influential. Almost half a century later, many feel that, once again, hordes of people are engaging in a remake by ganging up against Argentina though, fortunately, this time the reasons for the hostility they are whipping up are very different. Instead of drawing attention to the systematic abuse of basic human rights by a ruthless dictatorship that was murdering thousands of people, they have taken to criticising the conduct of members of the country’s football squad who, they say, on their way to the finals of the World Cup which, to widespread satisfaction abroad, they lost, committed countless fouls that submissive referees, allegedly in thrall to team captain Lionel Messi or bribed by FIFA, felt themselves obliged to overlook.
However, unlike the late 1970s, when those behind the “Anti-Argentine campaign” could say that while they condemned the military regime for its crimes, they had nothing against the rest of the country’s population, this time round they make no such distinction. On the contrary, many insist that ordinary Argentines are every bit as bad as the footballers they cheered on, which is why they are unable to see what the fuss is about.
Do these often venomous critics, who are still at it, have a point? This is something people who take a keen interest in the niceties of the game will have to decide though, given the strong emotions it arouses, it would be unreasonable to expect many of them to try to be fair-minded. Indeed, even making an effort to be objective when football is concerned tends to be regarded as wilfully eccentric; devotees of the game are expected to take such pride in the strength of their attachment to the club, let alone the country, they support that for them any criticism of it is a personal affront that cannot be tolerated.
Does the abuse being hurled against the country’s footballers by aggrieved foreigners whose national teams got knocked out early matter very much? It clearly does, because not just in the rest of the world but, to an even greater degree, here at home, it is taken for granted that the national team really does embody an ideal version of a country’s character. If it is assumed that by nature Argentines are an obstreperous and arrogant lot who delight in flouting the rules, it will be bound to have an adverse impact on the country’s international reputation.
While the tournament lasted, few people here paid much attention to what was being said abroad about the team’s performance on the pitch or the behaviour of its on occasion bellicose fans. In fact, most Argentine commentators seemed to take immense pride in what they perceived to be the gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship of its members, especially Messi. In any case, most understood that, for the duration, expressions of wildly chauvinistic sentiments were part of the show and that it would be foolish to take them too seriously. In the days that followed, however, many did become aware that the damage being done to the country’s international reputation could have real-world consequences. After all, many governments go to considerable lengths and invest large sums of money in efforts to make their country’s image as shiny as possible. That is what “soft power” is supposed to be all about.
Of course, being unpopular abroad is something the inhabitants of many countries have had to get used to. North Americans and Britons have long resigned themselves to being the targets of prejudices stemming not just from their own personal behaviour or even from recent events their respective countries were involved in, but also from conflicts that took place centuries ago. Most shrug off being accused of complicity in something that was once done by their compatriots or, if so inclined, they attribute the ill-will it reflects to envy. Hardly any feel that they had better mend their ways or at least apologise for whatever it is that they are being taken to task for.
In Argentina, football has long mattered far more than it does in most other countries. The sporting supplements of even the most august dailies have always devoted a great deal more space to it than to any other activity unless a compatriot happens to do well in tennis, motor racing or golf and deserve an appropriately extensive coverage. It was therefore not surprising that when the football 2026 World Cup was in full swing, newspapers sidelined minor sporting events such as the Tour de France or the breaking of the world mile record that, at least in Europe, many found newsworthy. Needless to say, large numbers of people who hardly ever switch on the TV to watch a football match concentrated entirely on the results and cared nothing about how they were reached. All they wanted was to see the national team chalk up yet another “epic” victory which, of course, it usually succeeded in doing.
In addition to being a prime target of the unpleasant, but normal, feelings of hostility that sporting rivalry generates, Argentina came under fierce attack from the virulent anti-Semites who these days are so thick on the ground in many Western countries. In the Middle East and North Africa, where hatred of Israel is as intense as it was among the Nazis, plenty of people felt attracted by the notion that it was only because of Jewish money that Argentina had managed to remove first Algeria and then Egypt from the tournament. In those countries and neighbouring ones, many reportedly came to see Messi as a Zionist agent, a pawn of Javier Milei and Benjamin Netanyahu who, along with FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino, wanted to make sure that no Muslim nation came anywhere near to winning the coveted World Cup.
