This is how you live a World Cup in Argentina

This is how you live a World Cup in Argentina

"I can't explain it to you, because you won't understand"

I'm a woman, I'm a mother of girls, I don't watch football, I don't play it and surely I still don't know some rules. But I am Argentine and every 4 years I am invaded by a passion that is difficult to explain. Being Argentine and living a World Cup is knowing that in each game there will be no person willing to do anything other than cheer on the National Team: shops and schools close, as we say here "the country stops."

In those match hours, we all forget about inflation, insecurity, corruption, the destroyed economy that distances us from the world and the possibilities of growth. We all have the same feeling: wanting to show that we can, that we come from very low but with effort and above all, with "greatness and a lot of courage" we can reach the top. 

 

In the 7 matches of this World Cup I saw everything: children insulting and crying, adults respecting the most ridiculous cabals, ambulance noises to help those who could not bear the penalties. Each triumph here was experienced as their own. It was a source of pride to see ourselves so well represented and to see that Lionel Messi could finally fulfill the last dream he needed. We feel familiar with the players. We have their figurines in the album, we leave them messages on social networks and we receive them with excessive madness in the caravan they make showing the World Cup to their people because the usual misfits are also part of Argentina, those who tarnish the joy to see the "heroes". 

 

"I can't explain it to you because you won't understand, the finals we lost, how many years I cried for them...", says part of the song that became the anthem of this championship. "Guys, now we are excited again, I want to win the third, I want to be world champion", chanted those lucky ones who were able to follow the National Team in Qatar and those of us who follow it from here, informing us every minute about what they were doing, what they were saying and how they were to face each rival.
 
“May the laurels be eternal, which we knew how to achieve. Crowned with glory, let us live or swear with glory to die", is the fragment of the National Anthem that is sung in the stadiums by decision of Lionel Scaloni, the Argentine coach, who knew how to surround Messi with great players to achieve what an entire country was wishing 36 years ago. 
I am a woman, I am a mother of girls, I do not watch football, but every 4 years this passion is renewed, which only those of us who are Argentines can understand, those of us who had Diego Maradona and now have Lionel. There is no more football-lover country and also more suffered. Because we know a lot about suffering, about crises, about governments that destroy dreams more and more, but every 4 years we have this same passion that makes us feel important and powerful.

 

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