Men cry on camera.
Women make their voices heard.
Two Argentines, Angela Lerena and Lola del Carril, became, respectively, the first commentator and reporter of a World Cup match (Switzerland vs. Cameroon): they also make history.
After 36 years, Argentina was world champion.
Lionel Messi becomes an eternal legend.
“Nobody was going to steal his World Cup from Leo, the team, the fans, Diego, who encourages from heaven.
No one was going to steal the World Cup from La Scaloneta!” Lerena cries from public TV.
And Sofi Martínez, sent by the same television, moved Messi with her words.
We are witnesses: the World Cup unites us, generates loving ties in networks and in the streets, like never before.
Perhaps it is the revenge of the species for those years of pandemic.
Also, it made us think.
Open readings.
Qatar, the controversial Asian venue for the 2022 World Cup, is accused of not respecting the rights of women and dissidents.
The Moral Police of neighboring Iran has killed Mahsa Amini for misplacing her veil and the Iranian footballer, Amir Nazr-Azadani, is sentenced to death in his country for defending her.
FIFA is silent.
Banned images of marches for Mahsa sneak into the networks.
Environmentalists denounce the contamination of the air conditioners installed in the covered courts of Doha.
Workers have died in the construction of stadiums in the middle of the Qatari desert.
Far from the World Cup din, in Ukraine, there is a war between parentheses that continues to claim lives;
China threatens to participate;
Other viruses threaten to become a pandemic, the result of man's mistreatment of other living beings.
Welcome to Planet Earth.
I wonder: in the United States, one of the venues for the 2026 World Cup, a country of individual liberties and proven (?) Church-State separation: will we cancel the declining Empire that clings to its past glories, its warlike interventionism? , your backlash on pro-abortion laws?
How do we think about the advance of the extreme right in the “civilized” world?
Here, from Argentina, we celebrate the advance of the colonized South over the colonizing North.
We are twinned with other Asian countries such as India and Bangladesh, which bring us back Diego Maradona's goal against England at the Azteca stadium, Mexico 86: La Mano de Dios.
That SuperD10S, a high rod for our Messiah, today mature and in its fullness.
Everything that was power is an act in Lionel Messi: he speaks and unexpected words come out of his mouth.
I was encouraged to write him a letter in which he asked me how to transcribe what he said;
The world's media try to translate it, to understand the prodigy of his generous kick, his dribbling, assists, shots, his goals, which cover the mouths of those who did not have faith in him.
“A team that doesn't let you down”.
"We give everything, we leave everything."
"We do it for 45 million Argentines," say the players.
It is not only Leo, assumed captain.
It is also the other Lionel, Scaloni, who believed and put together this team.
It is the Dibu Martínez who hugged the ball so tightly in each save.
It is the revelation of that 22-year-old boy from Córdoba, Julián Álvarez.
It is the Scaloneta, that federal team of kids who were forged on Argentine fields and pastures and who suffer forced exile from our countries.
They become millionaires, yes, since they were not born in opulence, due to the arrogance of the sport that moves the most money in the world (Argentina has just won 42 million dollars).
The rich North buys players from the poor South.
"We have the best fans in the world," said Scaloni.
A fan that shakes stands or encourages from virtual infinity.
That viralizes the song composed by a Racing fan, Fernando Romero, who sings La Mosca, “Boys.
Now we are excited again ”, and he lowers Maradona ashore because we need him close.
The lyrics say “we can see it from heaven”, as if we were above, and I think that in that lapse there is a desire: I read like the resurrected Diego.
And Leo rose to the occasion.
I suffer with Dibu every time the ball approaches the goal, I get emotional at every goal celebration, I get angry with the referee, I cry with Scaloni's tears, I am moved by the letter that Thiago Messi wrote to his father and his mom, Antonella Roccuzzo, went up to networks, with the lyrics of "Boys" resignified.
I am one more with the rest and that makes me feel good.
I have become a chauvinist, a thoroughly nationalist, I am the most Peronist of all.
I share cabals (a friend breaks all cabals and I apologize internally: she is an academic), I turn off the TV when astrologers are consulted on TV who predict an adverse result for my country;
My sister, a graphic designer, builds me a virtual altar with Diego and Leo's face on the body of our most famous popular saint: Gauchito Gil.
I join those who upload photos to networks with the light blue and white outfit in the preview of the game.
I bear the spoiler of the goals of the neighbors who shout it a nanothousandth of a second before.
This is the World of emotion.
But I also discover an incomparable potential in those suburbs of thought on the outskirts of soccer.
Happiness, I verify, are
flashes
, instants.
Like Messi's dribbling, the championship scorer, between the legs of the opposing team's players, his exact calculation and precise assist or the beauty of his goal.
“We live to suffer”, Rodrigo De Paul will say after the happy ending.
22.26 minutes of the first half: Messi converts the first penalty goal.
The Dibu kisses the arch, looks at the sky as a sign of thanks.
I wonder if every time the players make that gesture they also ask Diego.
35.28 minutes of the first half: Ángel (our little angel) Di María scores Argentina's second goal.
He celebrates with a finger-drawn heart.
He cries.
we scream.
WhatsApp burns.
80 minutes into the game: Kylian Mbappé (Messi's teammate at PSG) scores the first goal for France.
Tomb silence.
81 minutes: Mbappé scores France's second goal.
Extreme suffering.
Is it possible that we won't win?
“Final drama”, says Matías Martin, a commentator for Argentine Public Television.
"You have to start over," encourages Lerena.
We had lost to Saudi Arabia.
We sweep Poland, Mexico, Croatia, the Netherlands,
108 minutes: Messi scores Argentina's third goal.
118 minutes: Mbappé scores France's third goal via penalty.
3 to 3.
We had to suffer until the end.
We had to define by penalties.
We ask Dibu for everything.
Mbappé converts the first penalty goal.
Everything, then, is unleashed in an unstoppable sequence.
In the story:
Messi gooool!
Cover the Dibu!
Dybala did it!
Walls, Montiel!
Argentina world champion!
We all
cry (also France).
We thank you Leo.
To you, to Scaloni.
Al Dibu (best goalkeeper of the cup).
To Diego.
The children enter the court, the most tender moment.
Two legendary former players: Neri Pumpido and Checho Batista, take the cup.
The powerful of the world enter and that gives me a little chills.
Behind, two women: one holds the medals.
The setting is the infinity sign, the mark of this World Cup.
Delivery of medals, also to Mbappé.
Messi kisses the cup and it is the apotheosis.
The fortune tellers misread the stars.
Happiness was that exact moment.
Now go on with life.
Rodrigo, we also live to enjoy.
Gabriela Saidón
is an Argentine writer and journalist.
She author of
Supergod.
The construction of Maradona as a secular saint
(2021, Intellectual Capital).
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