“I can’t explain it to you / because you won’t understand / the finals we lost / how many years I cried for them”. The second stanza of the song popularized by La Mosca that is sung by Argentine fans around the world, sung by the Scaloneta players on the pitch, is sung forcefully from the chest, from that sadness of 2014, with Götze pressing the ribs, is sung with the despair of a country where year-on-year inflation reaches almost one hundred percent, with a somewhat cloudy vision of uncertainty about the future, with a somewhat sore back due to the precariousness of lives. Morning? We don’t know tomorrow. So let’s sing.
In Lusail, Messi embraces De Paul and sings the song where Don Diego, Maradona and La Tota cheer him from heaven. We repeat the gesture in the streets. We look at the sunset horizon and point, far away, up there, we imagine Diego excited. We woke up and while we heated the water for the mate, in Aregtina I was born land of Diego and Lionel. We go to work, to do the shopping, to run the dog around, but that ended because the final against the brazucas was at the Maracana. The neighbor, the neighbor, the boss in the office, the bus driver, the greengrocer, the baker, the kiosquera, the kids who go to school for the last time join in singing. Garbage cans become striking elements. Everything is feasible to be an instrument. Any sidewalk is a potential swollen. The players sing on the field and in the locker room, they sing in the microphone, we sing everywhere, in Bangladesh, India and Peru too. Aimar and Scaloni see the festivities from their cell phones returning to the hotel and they laugh and tear up and cannot believe it.
Why did we get excited again? What happened to those of us who weren’t hooked on men’s soccer or this team or even the World Cup? What made it so that now we can’t get away from the screen, let’s watch the training sessions of the Scaleneta at the University of Qatar, let’s put a gauchito gil next to the computer when they play, we love Julián and Enzo as if we’ve known them forever, let’s do promises every time we see Scaloni give instructions? What happened between that state of indifference and this state of alienation?
Messi missed a penalty against Poland. In the stands of Stadium 974 only cheers are heard. Not a rumor of booing. The accompaniment to the captain is univocal. Before this World Cup, the public’s response would have been different. From our homes, we clench our fists, we say nothing. We trust. Because that’s what Lionel himself said to do: trust. And Argentina ends up winning that match 2-0.
Every time they score a goal, the Argentine players don’t shout, they laugh, they look for each other, they hug each other. After each game, they stay in front of the fans who came to support them in the stadiums. They sing, they encourage as if they were there on the other side of the playing field. Every time they return to the hotel, they post their photos with messages on the networks. They answer each other. Flattery, affection, chichoneo, flowers, picanadas fly. They are or look like a group of friends having a good time.
Julián Álvarez is on his way to the goal with a bouncing ball, which he has left, which the Croatian defender tries to clear, which he has left again. He kicks again, like in the scene that generated the penalty, in front of the goalkeeper. And this time he finds the net. And Julián is on his way to the goal smiling. Julián smiles because he enjoys it, because he has his idol by his side, because it is possible that this is his idol’s last World Cup and he has him by his side and then, Julián goes towards the goal smiling and then goes to hug his idol. And we all enjoy and smile. And if we could, we would hug them both.
Why did we get excited again?
A kid celebrates by jumping between the roofs of the buses. Other kids celebrate with a grandmother and her Argentine flag. That goes viral. At the next game, more boys and girls look for older people to celebrate together. The Obelisk fills up with people. Some find the highest place to kiss. It can be the roof of a newsstand or a traffic light. It does not matter. The thing is to celebrate with kisses and shouts. Boys and girls leave school and take over the sidewalk singing “of the kids from Malvinas that I will never forget” in a loop. In each corner, a wave.
As was not the case for a long time, the streets of each city, of each town in Argentina are mobilized. The reason: the same. Shake off the sadness, the anguish, what squeezes, what anguish and celebrate.
The joy of the people, the collective joy, the one that sounds the same way in all the streets is what excites us again.
#excited