There is almost something to admire in being so spectacularly unlikeable. Argentina’s players waved goodbye to their dreams of a fourth World Cup trophy last night with a parting flurry of bad sportsmanship.
First, full-back Nahuel Molina petulantly threw a punch at the chest of the Spanish captain Rodri as he ran past celebrating at the final whistle. Then the Argentinian midfielder Leandro Paredes struck Spain’s centre-back Eric García in the neck before hitting the substitute Gavi in the face, while his fellow Argentine, Thiago Almada, threw the unfortunate chap to the ground. How outrageous, Argentina’s players evidently felt, for their opponents to celebrate winning the final.
Less fiery minds will recall that this was only four days after Argentina’s stoppage-time semi-final victory over England, which they had celebrated gratuitously in the faces of their defeated opponents. Not to mention their parading of a banner reading ‘The Falklands are Argentinian’ over which Fifa has threatened to take action. Meanwhile, back in Buenos Aires, fans burned the Cross of St George, as well as a coffin draped in the Union Jack.
It is now, clearly, an acutely embarrassing time to be a fan of Argentina
On Saturday, in the northern city of Santiago del Estero, even Argentina’s rugby team got in on the action, putting on 1986 World Cup replica football shirts (the year of Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’), before losing their fixture against the England XV. Preposterously, the Argentine rugby coach Felipe Contepomi then accused England’s rugby players of a ‘lack of respect’ for celebrating too loudly in their dressing room and stormed out of a nearby press conference.
So it is now, clearly, an acutely embarrassing time to be a fan of Argentina. Yet rather than condemn the Argentines, or crow about their defeat, I suggest they deserve our sympathy.
For if ever there were a country that needs to win, here it is. Football offers Argentina a strand of hope, a glimmer of vanished national glory. After all, at the outbreak of the first world war, Argentina was richer per capita than both Germany and France, and twice as rich as Spain. It has long been an economic basket case.
No doubt that partly explains the passion of their team’s fans. Today, the Argentinian peso only buys about a sixth as many US dollars as it did in 2022 (when huge numbers of supporters travelled all the way to the tournament in Qatar). Yet this time round they were still undeterred by the cost of attending what has been comfortably the most expensive tournament yet, even if for many it meant selling their cars and running up debts to do so.
With the burden of their failing country on their shoulders, is it any wonder that the players will do whatever they can to win and behave so gracelessly when they fall short? Even their admirable talisman Lionel Messi fell prey to such impulses last night, trying to get the Spanish full-back Marc Cucurella sent off for having partially covered his own mouth while the pair were speaking (now potentially a red-card offence).
Argentina’s king of football – who has lit up the game for 20 years and, even at 39, proved one of the great stars of this tournament – found himself deprived of oxygen by Spain during an unremarkable performance. ‘Was this the face / That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?’ as Shakespeare’s deposed Richard II asks himself.
Messi deserves great credit for getting this Argentina team as far as they went. (They have a strong claim to being the worst ever to feature in a World Cup final, only registering their first shot after two hours of play.) But his gritty teammates also warrant praise, not least for dumping England’s superstars out of the tournament.
Argentinians are due sympathy for another reason. Their 2026 World Cup run is the story of how their team (already with a long-standing reputation for cheating) and fans (a reputation for arrogance), at last turned supportive Latin Americans against them – and, ultimately, into the arms of the former colonial master, Spain.
Before the final, a global poll of 20,000 fans by Spanish football tabloid Marca found that three out of five living in South America wanted Spain to beat Argentina. In North America (including the 130 million population of Mexico), more than seven in ten were in favour of Spain.
A war of words had been waged with Mexico, one of the three host nations. The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was forced to respond to a rant from Argentinian journalist Eduardo Feinmann, who had said:
I detest Mexicans… The envy Mexicans feel towards Argentines – and not just in football – is real. They want to be like us, but they just don’t have what it takes.
Argentinians’ diminished economic status and enduring tendency to brag are well illustrated by a Mexican meme. In one photo, a young man in an Argentina kit says: ‘There’s no one like Argentina. We have three World Cups. We are undoubtedly the best.’
A second photo reveals he is standing next to a Mexican man seated at a restaurant. The Mexican replies to the Argentinian, who is evidently his waiter: ‘That’s a beautiful story, champ. Congratulations. But please, don’t forget my food.’
Meanwhile, an indefensibly racist element among Argentinians – who tend to consider themselves Europeans as compared to other Latin Americans – has raised their neighbours’ hackles. After winning the 2024 Copa América, players including Enzo Fernández sang a derogatory chant dating from the team’s World Cup final win over France two years earlier:
They play for France, but their parents are from Angola. Their mother is from Cameroon, while their father is from Nigeria.
Argentinians seemed to have embraced their status as the opposition everyone loves to hate. An advert for the herbal liqueur Fernet-Branca, hugely popular in the country, showed a trauma support group of fans from nations across the world breaking into song to complain: ‘Others win and celebrate in peace. But when they are Argentinian, they just won’t shut up.’
Perhaps after last night’s chastening, one-sided contest, there will be a welcome period of silence from Argentina’s fans. But, then again, perhaps not.
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