In Argentina, the Pumas’ journey to the World Cup semi-finals has flirted only briefly with becoming headline news, knocking football to one side after last Sunday’s victory over Ireland at the Millennium Stadium. on Sunday, there will be a distraction of a different kind: their semi-final against Australia clashes with the presidential election.
While the team are receiving messages of support from home, being told that the country is “going crazy” since they reached the last four for the second time in their history, politics, as much a national passion as sport, will take precedence.
And as Les Cusworth, the former Argentina director of rugby, who lives in Hurlingham just outside Buenos Aires, points out, rugby may be booming but it is not always obvious. “For the last pool match it was the final of the Buenos Aires club tournament, there were 8,000 packed into a club ground watching that on the same weekend as Argentina v Namibia,” he says. “They love their rugby. But there are no big screens put up, bars are not full, traffic does not stop, it’s all very peaceful and people watch the World Cup in their homes. That only really happens in soccer, life goes on as normal.”
In London, it will be a different story. The Moo Cantina restaurant in Pimlico has become a home from home for travelling fans and expats. The team themselves turned up after the opening match against New Zealand, the Pumas only defeat so far. José Luis de Alzaa, from Córdoba, who runs the restaurant, says: “There’s always a lot of singing, a lot of noise. Argentinian fans are very loud! They all came back from Cardiff after the match and they were crazy, making noise and jumping all over the place. The city was ours. Even if we lose on Sunday it will be a big party.
“The fact that the game is the same day as the election means the coverage of the game will not be as much [in Argentina]. Politics and sport are two very big, very different things in Argentina. The country is split in two. People in favour of Cristina [Kirchner] and people against. I don’t think the rugby back home is enough to distract people but for those over in London, yes it can. It’s difficult for people back home.”
Argentina’s travelling fans have provided some of the highlights of the World Cup. They were vastly outnumbered at the Millennium Stadium last weekend against Ireland but still made their voice heard. The sky blue and white shirts were grouped together in pockets outside the ground in Cardiff and, when things began to go their way on the pitch, the various groups produced a collective crescendo inside.
Pumas fans are synonymous with passion. A lazy stereotype perhaps but one that plenty live up to. Not least one supporter, a middle-aged portly man, utterly overwhelmed during Argentina’s only defeat, by the All Blacks in their opening game. Sitting still was not an option for the man with “God” on the back of his shirt. Just sitting was going to get short shrift too. Indeed every time Argentina scored a point, the tears came.
When Nicolás Sánchez kicked Argentina into a 16-12 lead just after half-time the man was overcome, weeping uncontrollably, and constantly lunging to embrace his son, who was sat one seat along. In between was an All Blacks fan, at first endeared, by this stage enraged – it is another stereotype but New Zealand fans tend to lose their sense of humour when their side is losing. The Kiwi eventually went home with a smile on his face but it’s a safe bet that on Sunday God will be watching over the Pumas again – heaven help any Wallabies supporters next to him.
Back home, those who can tear themselves away from politics will have hope. “The feeling [on how far Argentinians felt their side would go] was that they had lost a lot of world-class players in the last three or four years,” Cusworth adds, “but these kids have a hunger and when the Argentines are in battle mode, be careful.”
