The Notion
Why I Root for Argentina
Before the start of the World Cup, I broadcast my rooting interest with the obnoxious insistence of a nuclear-powered vuvuzela: Argentina all the way. I wanted Argentina to win because their style of soccer speaks to the full potential of the beautiful game. I wanted Argentina to win because few people in the US could pick Lionel Messi out of a lineup, and he might be the most electrifying athlete on earth. I wanted Argentina to win because their coach, the walking, talking telenovela, Diego Maradona, is just too entertaining to see pushed off the stage
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Dave Zirin
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As Dan Wetzel of yahoo sports described Coach Maradona, “He screams and cheers. He complains and cajoles. He smiles. He prays. He blesses himself. He hugs. Actually, he hugs a lot. He even kisses his players. Pushing 50 yet wearing earrings and a salt-and-pepper goatee, he remains the biggest presence in the building – and that includes his megastar players such as Lionel Messi and Tevez.”
In his playing days, Maradona made people reconsider the sacred idea that Pele was surely the greatest player to ever patrol the pitch. He went from soccer superstar to Argentine folk hero during the 1986 World Cup, when he “avenged” the 1982 British defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War by defeating England in the quarterfinals, with a little help from the "Hand of God."
Maradona's brilliance inspired Eduardo Galeano to write, “No one can predict the devilish tricks this inventor of surprises will dream up for the simple joy of throwing the computers off track, tricks he never repeats. He’s not quick, more like a short-legged bull, but he carries the ball sewn to his foot and he’s got eyes all over his body. His acrobatics light up the field....In the frigid soccer of the end of the century, which detests defeat and forbids all fun, that man was one of the few who proved that fantasy can be efficient.”
Efficient fantasy is the best way to describe Argentina’s current run to the quarterfinals. In a modern world of robotic soccer stratagems, they play with the wicked grace of decades past. Given that success breeds imitators, I would argue that it is in the best interests of international soccer to see Argentina take it all the way.
For those experiencing this World Cup in the throes of neutrality, there are political reasons to support Argentina as well. This has received next to no media coverage either in their native Argentina or around the world, but the team has fully embraced the courageous group of grandmothers known as Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. This organization is devoted to finding out the truth about the fate of Argentina’s desaparecidos—the people forever imprisoned or disappeared by the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla - during Argentina’s Dirty War of 1976-1983.
At a training session in South Africa, the entire Argentine team unfurled a banner that read, "We Support the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo for the Nobel Peace Prize." The group has in fact been officially nominated for the prize and Abuelas president Estela de Carlotto, is in South Africa, meeting with Nelson Mandela and other world leaders. She has also been publicly – and literally - embraced by Maradona. The critical work that Abuelas has done will only receive a greater spotlight if Argentina continues to advance. This makes all those connected with Argentina’s dirty war, who still hold tremendous power in the country, increasingly, and deliciously, apprehensive.
I can certainly understand, and have heard from numerous people, that these kinds of political concerns shouldn’t play into our rooting interests when it comes to the World Cup. It should just be about the game. But this is like wishing a double cheeseburger didn’t have cholesterol. There is simply no sporting event on earth more entangled in politics than this brilliantly bombastic tournament. Anytime you have half the earth tuned in - as colonies play their former colonizers and dictatorships challenge democracies - politics follow like rainbows after rain. As long as politics are part of the mix, we might as well support a team that in addition to epitomizing “the beautiful game” stands with a beautiful cause. Viva Argentina!
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Comments
A beautiful article, Dave. Dan Wetzel's report on Maradona worths a reading also, as he dives into his complex personality.
Maradona is for Argentina what King David is for the "J" scribe: a rotten God, a man bigger than life in his greatness and weakness together; but always with an unstoppable will for life against bureaucratic (FIFA) barriers.
As a inexperienced coach he succeed in gather a bunch of international stars who barely knew to each other previously into an example of team solidarity. He asks, talks and embraces like one of them.
In other respects: the Grandmothers journey is far beyond left-right politics. It's a Human Rights issue that rescued more than 100 kidnapped babies and restored them their true identity. And they did it through patient investigation and consistent recurse to the Law. They gave the term "Justice" a wider significance.
I guess that somehow the demented "love liberty" has convinced himself that he is a fan of the Videlo dictatorship, that murdered and tortured a large number of people in its attempt to maintain total power. The regime utterly terrorized the Argentine public for years, going so far as to throw political dissenters out of helicopters at high altitude into Rio Plata in order to insure that they were killed and no remains could be found.
(It is not clear what other politics this bent crank imagines the team is engaged in, primarily they pursuing advertising and similar income streams accruing from their celebrity status).
posted by: seymourfriendly at 06/28/2010 @ 4:08pm
What an idiotic conclusion and brain dead leap of logic. To conclude that I love any violent dictatorship(s) because I dislike far left marxist/socialist politics demonstrates a lack of and/or inability to exercise cognitive thinking. But then I'm not surprised.
@lvliberty1
1 - drop 'liberty' from your name, replace it with 'impunity'
2 - love the team, hate you
I guess that somehow the demented "love liberty" has convinced himself that he is a fan of the Videlo dictatorship, that murdered and tortured a large number of people in its attempt to maintain total power. The regime utterly terrorized the Argentine public for years, going so far as to throw political dissenters out of helicopters at high altitude into Rio Plata in order to insure that they were killed and no remains could be found.
(It is not clear what other politics this bent crank imagines the team is engaged in, primarily they pursuing advertising and similar income streams accruing from their celebrity status).
