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many thanks to my friend Facu for reading this before I posted, to all the people who shared their stories with me, and to the people of buenos aires who let me feel for just a moment truly argentino
December 29th, 2022
December has been an exciting month in Buenos Aires. In case you've been living under a rock the past week or so, on December 18th Argentina won the World Cup for the first time since 1986. You probably haven't been able to go on twitter or facebook without seeing the name Lionel Messi, at some point. I've been trying to find a way to describe what the energy was like leading up to the win and after, especially as someone seeing it as an outsider. I think coming from the US, until you see it first hand it's hard to understand the full scope of what the World Cup means to other countries. We have nothing like it. Some people might try to liken it to the Superbowl, but with that everyone is split between their own teams. Even while we participate in the World Cup where we can all back our country, futbol is only one of the many sports that split the public interest. We have nothing that truly unites the nation like Mundial does here. So, indulge me for just a moment and we'll try to paint a picture that captures everything I have experienced since being here while history was made.
I made the mistake that Sunday to not check the time of the match. Other matches had been at four in the afternoon BA time so I had assumed it would be the same. You know what they say about what happens when you assume... So I went to church that morning thinking I would have plenty of time to make it out to Caseros, the suburb where my friend Facu lives, who's parents had invited me to watch the match with them. Cut to me walking out of church and noticing the streets were eerily quiet, frantically checking my phone and realizing I had twenty minutes to make the hour and a half journey out to Caseros. Never in my life had I felt so wronged just by going to church. I quickly got both uber and cabify apps open and searching for drivers to take me out there (finding ubers can be a surprisingly lengthy process in Buenos Aires) with no luck. I started the hour long bus ride home and signed up a free trial for a streaming service just so I could watch the first half on my phone in the bus. When I say the streets were empty I mean the streets were EMPTY. I felt like I was in some virtual reality where they forgot to add in the background characters. Most businesses had closed completely for the match with only some bars and cafes staying open for watch parties. The few cars that were on the road blasted play by plays out their windows and were honking like crazy every time something exciting happened.
I got home and I spent the game pacing around the room in front of my computer. Anyone who was watching knows, it was some of the most stressful down to the wire futbol you can imagine. I could hear fireworks and horns blaring out my window for every goal and every save and when the final point is made all around my tiny apartment Buenos Aires was alive with sound. It was like the city itself was buzzing, an energy that is palpable filling every available space like air.
At that point I knew I needed to be out on the streets. You can't be in the capitol of the winning city on the day they win and not be at the heart of celebrating so I grabbed my phone, my bus pass, and my camera, and headed to the train station.
There is something so infectious about the celebrations. The songs are catchy and the joy is so pure and unadulterated, you can't help but want to join in. Even before the win, all leading up to the finals you would meet people on the street waving banderas (flags) and singing or yelling "VAMOS" just asking people to join in. And walking to the train station that day was something on another level. Suddenly every person you pass on the street is your best friend, and if you aren't jumping and singing with them, you are the weird one here. It's not just the act of celebrating, its the act of sharing that celebration. A huge group of people were waiting not on the platform for the train but just outside the entrance, to welcome and rile up everyone else who was arriving to take the train in.
323370019_6103122859738139_4007624113780934997_n.mp4The train itself was a whole other beast. The first two that came through were so tightly packed there was no way a single person could get on, though some tried. Finally the third train came and we squished as many people in as we could, chanting and blowing horns the whole time. People were standing on seats and banging the roof of the train, fireworks were shot out of the windows, and the doors were left completely open the entire ride with people dangling out the train car to scream and spray foam from aerosol cans. Argentinians have a few different world cup songs and once they get bored of singing one, someone just rolls right into the next and eventually everyone is yelling along. At some points on the ride every single person was jumping in time so much that the train car actually shook, and I was terrified that the train would derail over a highway or something and I would become an unfortunate statistic in a newspaper headline.
We took the train all the way to Retiro (the biggest and most central train station in the city) and at that point I was just following a current. Thousands of people were getting off trains from all over the city, and joining the sea of blue and white that was taking over the busiest streets in the city. The few cars that were on the road couldn't go anywhere because of the crowds and had resigned themselves to parking in the middle of a sea of people and joining along in celebrating. There were people climbing lamp posts and bus shelters, pulling banderas off of buildings to wave, and of course drinking insane amounts of Fernet y Coca, the drink of choice here. I followed the crowd for around 15 blocks to finally arrive at el Obolisco de Buenos Aires, the site of all famous celebrations in the city. It's estimated that over 2 million people were there that day, to witness and celebrate. Seeing media outlets and people all over the world share footage of the street from above, it feels all at once powerful, overwhelming, and incredibly humbling that I got to be there, a drop in the ocean.
321110762_5673144956126474_6669499466269852390_n.mp4The rest was just hours and hours of nonstop parties. I don't think the city of Buenos Aires slept for three straight days. Even as I was leaving that evening to meet up with friends outside of the city, people were still just arriving at the Retiro train station to join the party at the Obolisco. Businesses remained closed that Monday and Tuesday to celebrate, and billboards, momuments and buildings all over the city got covered by signs declaring the Argentino Campiones. Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona can be found spray painted on walls, and even over a week later you still can't walk outside without seeing someone repping the signature #10 jersey.
Of course with all this excitement there is bound to be some discourse as well. Sports fans have never been known to love their team quietly. The Tuesday after the finals, was declared a national holiday so people could have the day off to celebrate and welcome home their champions. The plan had been for the team to parade through the city on an open top bus, finally ending at the Obelisco. The streets were so crowded the bus could just barely crawl its way forward, and after about four hours of getting nowhere and two people jumping from a highway overpass to try and land on the bus as it passed, the parade was canceled and the team instead circled the city on helicopter. Some people were upset that the parade was never finished and they never got to see their team in person, others felt like their celebration was enough and they wouldn't let a canceled parade spoil the party. The next day at work I was talking with my friend Luciana, one of the receptionists at the school, and she was frustrated by the national holiday to begin with. I had heard the arguments about some of the celebrating getting dangerous ect. (as an american, as long as sports fans arent destroying property or setting cars on fire I'm relatively happy), but I hadn't even considered what taking the day off could mean for people. She told me "We shouldn't be getting a holiday, not for something like this. People need to make money now, don't make people take the day off. Just let people work."
It reminded me of conversation I had the day of the semifinals. I watched the game with my friend from church Facu and his family, after the match was over and we knew they were going into the finals he said something that I don't think I will ever forget.
"Think of all the things it could do for Argentina if they won. When they won in '86 all eyes were on us, it made the rest of the world see what was happening here. They won when we needed it, and we need it now."
When Argentina won the world cup in 1986, they were in the thick of political turmoil. The dictatorship had just been overthrown a few years ago and they had begun the long process of trials bringing hundreds of members of a corrupt government to justice. A process that is still ongoing to this day. Today Argentina is facing some of the worst inflation rates in the world, with an estimated 4-in-10 people living in poverty. Its no wonder there has been one of the worlds largest parties thrown.
When it feels like your country is failing you and you are handed a reason to love it again, of course you take it. You hold on to that lifeline with everything you have. You scream 'Muchachos' at the top of your lungs with thirty thousand of your friends, you put a Lionel Messi shrine where a Virgin Mary was and bow and chant his name, you hang out the doors of a train at full speed a bandera flying behind you, you climb up on the shelter of a bus stop to watch the crowds swarm below you, you laugh and you cry and you sing "yo soy Argentino".
I think everyone can relate with the need to celebrate those wins when they are so seldom handed to you. We live in a world where it truly feels sometimes like everything is on the verge of collapse and for Argentinians that is a threat that they can see coming to fruition with every price hike, and every raised rent.
Argentina needed now more than ever a reason to celebrate. Argentina needed a win.
323244504_5770397589703469_466494457613081299_n.mp4Peace, KLB
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