The manager, Tata Martino, resigned in disgust.
Instead, the new AFA head was charged with fraud, and no one left had the administrative abilities to put together a team for the Olympics. Eventually, a successor was named and qualification for the World Cup began in earnest. Messi, after a painful loss in the Copa America, retired from the national team until it could get its act together. Upon his death, two pretenders to the throne arose the organisation was so corrupt, however, its 75 members managed to vote 76 times. Don Julio was the epitome of the South American political truism that if one steals, he must get things done. Ed Malyon put it best, suggesting his hidden bank balance resembled a phone number. He ruled the AFA with an iron fist within a velvet glove of bribery and kickbacks for 35 years. The first chapters consist of the football association’s president and scoundrel-in-chief, Julio Grondona. Argentina’s unsuccessful time at Russia 2018 would read very much like darkly funny picaresque novel in three parts. Discovering this, it brought into focus my inability to enjoy antiheroes and picaresque literature (and La Liga). I knew the history of the team and the sociology of viveza, but I did not know that I would still react so strongly to it based on my past puritanical schooling.
As Jorge Luis Borges pointed out, Argentinians lack moral conduct, not intellectual conduct. The willingness to defy social norms by shamelessly cheating to get ahead has its own term in the Spanish around the Rio de la Plata: viveza criolla. And, of course, there is the most iconic act of foul play in all of football, Diego Maradona’s 1986 Hand of God. The stories and conspiracy theories surrounding Argentina’s World Cup win in 1978 are too outrageous to be false. They followed up this scandalous performance by reaching new lows against AC Milan in the 1969 final, resulting in players being arrested for assault. The provocateurs also triumphed in the 1968 Intercontinental Cup (thanks to a goal from Juan Sebastian Veron’s dear old dad) over Manchester United after outrageously needling Nobby Stiles and George Best into red cards over two legs. They kicked, punched, goaded, stamped, pinched, headbutted, and spat their way to three consecutive Copa Libertadores titles. Osvaldo Zubeldia’s Estudiantes and his antifutbol in the 60’s made a mockery of the “cheaters never prosper” proverb. I knew Argentina and its history of gamesmanship. What a bunch of scoundrels, I thought (my inner monologue has the same vocabulary as the easily offended Victorian gentlemen in the previous paragraph). But then I watched Argentinian players needle and surround the referee at this World Cup – the pietism and religiose outrage came flooding back. As I got further and further from that phase of life, I thought I outgrew the easy moralism that I received as a student. I could not have told you the first thing about Homer’s Iliad or Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but I could talk at length about the allegory of the Slough of Despond in the First Part of Bunyan’s classic. It was popular with my teachers because it provided straightforward moral lessons. It is an allegorical novel that follows the protagonist Christian as he makes his way through the world to the afterlife. I attended a strict religious school as a young man where John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was studied in great detail every year of secondary school. Indeed, I am at my most comfortable in this environment of footballing umbrage. I can get behind that sort of opprobrium though. They tut-tut, shake their heads at the effrontery of those foreign fellas pressuring the referee, and adjourn to the study for conversations about the purity of sport on the playing fields of Eton with cigars and sherry.
It magically transformed progressive, globalist citizens of the world into Victorian gentlemen complete with top hat, tails, and a great deal of moral outrage. The best thing to come out of England’s run in the latter stages of this World Cup is the hue and cry the media raised over Colombia’s use of the dark arts. Argentina fans are not an easy bunch to please, and the team’s antics on the pitch can sometimes leave the public disgruntled. There was a lot to dislike about Argentina’s conduct at this World Cup, and it’s important to remember they have a long history of defying moral boundaries.
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