The stereotypes about the South American country — and especially its soccer fans — have been handed down through the generations in this part of the world, including in Becerra’s family: The Argentines are arrogant, the 35-year-old Uber driver said. They think they’re superior to the rest of their continent. In soccer, he said, they’re insufferable.
But this World Cup, he doesn’t care about any of that. He’s all in for Argentina.Well — for Messi, at least.“It’s time for him to win one,” Becerra said. “Not only is he a great player. He seems like a great guy. …“He doesn’t seem Argentine.”Now, as Argentina faces off against France in Sunday’s final, its biggest star is rallying Latin Americans to cheer for a country they love to hate.One reason: They’re out of options. Colombia, Chile and Peru didn’t make this year’s tournament. Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Uruguay couldn’t survive the group stage. Brazil was eliminated in the quarterfinals.It hasn’t been easy. Argentina’s national soccer team — two-time World Cup champions — has long divided the continent, eliciting a combination of admiration, annoyance and jealousy. But in what is expected to be 35-year-old Lionel Messi’s last World Cup, the Argentine captain is somehow breaking through the region’s long-held misgivings about the country.
“People don’t seem to know what to do,” said Antonio Casale, a Colombian radio broadcaster. “They don’t want Argentina to win, but they want Messi to win.”
Messi’s likely last World Cup inspires hope in a beleaguered Argentina
It’s a complicated mix of feelings that extends beyond the sport, said University of Buenos Aires historian Martín Bergel, “an ambivalence somewhere between fascination and repulsion.”
Many Argentines resent the stereotypical depiction, based on a cartoonish simplification of the wealthy, supposedly arrogant porteño, or Buenos Aires resident — a trope lampooned in Argentina itself.
The origins of the image are hard to pin down. But Bergel suspects they can be traced back to the 19th century, to prominent Argentines such as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. The president and prominent writer, credited with modernizing the country’s education system, “was arrogant,” Bergel said, “and had an almost prophetic idea of what Argentina could be
By the early 20th century, Argentina was an economic powerhouse, larger and wealthier than Canada, and Buenos Aires was a cultural and intellectual hub comparing itself to London and Paris, and developing icons from the tanguero Carlos Gardel to the architect César Pelli to the writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Argentina has long been viewed by Latin Americans as one of the Whiter countries in the region. In contrast to Brazil, which has at least rhetorically embraced its multiracial heritage, Argentina is seen as made up of and largely dominated by people of White, European descent (an image that fails to include the country’s Indigenous and mestizo populations).