Lionel Messi and the Argentine team celebrate the World Cup triumph Martin Meissner (AP)
The World Cup returned to its first home. Just as Uruguay lifted the first trophy in 1930, which the FIFA President who invented the World Cup, Jules Rimet, had brought to Montevideo hidden in a shoe box during his boat trip, Lionel Messi landed in Buenos Aires this Tuesday with the object Wish Europe had monopolized northern hegemony for the last 20 years as opposed to a more divided history of change. The 10 F5-type Albiceleste updated the origins of the World Cups and Argentina returned to South America, a pride that threatened to remain in the rust of the last century.
The tachycardic Qatar 2022 final also implied a claim on the subcontinent that has never stopped providing the world with the best footballers, in chronological order Pelé, Diego Maradona and Messi, but over the past two decades power at the level of national teams had resigned. in the image and similarity of the dominance of European clubs. La Albiceleste clinched its third title, first in 36 years, after beating European sides the Netherlands, Croatia and France in the last three games, the same path they took in Mexico 86 when they defeated England in the left quarterfinals. Belgium and West Germany behind. Poland also surrendered to Messi and his boys in the first phase.
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When Brazil won Japan-Korea in 2002, South America topped the World Cup table by continent, having won nine trophies against eight Europeans. The contribution was split between the five Brazilian titles of 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 plus the first of the new century, the two Argentines of 1978 and 1986 and the two Uruguayans of 1930 and 1950. But then Europe, with the economic authority of the new football order and its national leagues open to large numbers of community members and foreigners – the ultimate consequence of the Bosman Act passed in late 1995 – also began to dominate the 21st century World Cups.
The last four editions before Qatar were in 2006 for Italy, 2010 for Spain, 2014 for Germany and 2018 for France. With the exception of Messi’s Argentina in 2014, three of those finals were even played between European countries, which also focused on the top four at the World Cup in Russia. Of the 16 semi-finalists between 2006 and 2018, 13 were across the Atlantic: only Uruguay infiltrated in 2010, Brazil in 2014 – but in that fateful game in which they conceded seven goals from Germany – and the mentioned adventure from Argentina eight years ago .
“It’s a South American triumph! Leave Argentina, it was crazy. It’s a South American win, not just for Argentina. It was necessary for the trophy to come here,” celebrated Argentina coach Ricardo Gareca, the coach who led Peru to a World Cup in Russia in 2018 after 36 years. “They claimed South American football, the most important characteristic of this team is to play the way a South American team plays. Everyone respects their roots, a way of playing,” added the tiger confidently.
One of the first questions they asked Albiceleste manager Lionel Scaloni on Sunday after the final was the comments made by Frenchman Kylian Mbappé in March about a perceived dominance of European football. “I don’t want any controversy, South American football is at the top level, it has players everywhere,” the coach defended his continent, even when players from other countries, such as Chilean Arturo Vidal, used Argentina’s triumph to attack directly against the French. “I learned from those of us who invented football: South America. Don’t look for them, you’ll get the cuckoo,” emphasized the Chilean with continental pride, although his country did not classify Qatar.
“Football in South America isn’t as advanced as it is in Europe. And that’s why, if you look at the last World Cups, it’s always the Europeans who win,” Mbappe said, a sentence that made the Argentines uncomfortable at the time. “Bolivia in La Paz, Ecuador with 30 degrees, Colombia, you don’t even can breathe… They always play on perfect wet pitches and they don’t know what South America is. If an Englishman goes to training with England, he’ll be at the venue in half an hour. Have them come over and see how easy it is “, replied goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. Even Messi contradicted his teammate: “We often spoke to the guys from Spain about it when we came back from a qualifier and we told them: ‘You know how difficult it would be for you to compete for to qualify for the World Cup if you had to, go play there: Colombia, the altitude, the heat, Venezuela’”.
the only joy
But the World Cup in Messi’s hands can also be interpreted as the only joy for a Latin America that left Qatar in 2022 feeling like it had taken a step backwards. Disappointments mounted, led by Mexico’s failure, which was eliminated in the early stages for the first time since 1978. But Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay also failed, in all three cases behind Europeans or Asians and Africans. The combination may include the blow Peru suffered against Australia in the playoffs before Qatar, as another sign of stagnation or regression by part of Latin America relative to other regions of the world, not just Europe. Seen from the south, the USA over Mexico wasn’t a nice World Cup photo either.
Neymar, Vinicius and Casemiro’s Brazil reached the quarter-finals alongside other individual stars, a case that showed once again that they always hit the same wall in the 21st century. Their last second-round win against a European team came 20 years ago when they beat Germany. Since then he has lost the five games he played in this event and against the same type of rivals.
The most global World Cup of all would have been the least Latin American had it not been for the title of Argentina and Messi transformed into recyclers of South American glory.
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