Colombia and Argentina at the World Cup: Two Ways of Understanding Football and Life

Colombia and Argentina have big differences. Before the tournament started, this World Cup gave Colombia the chance to vindicate the American dream of millions of Colombians who migrated to the United States searching for glory, yet the dream died early again. The group of players led by James Rodriguez, Luis Diaz, and Nestor Lorenzo promised they had prepared to stay as long as possible in the tournament. What was possible was five games. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Colombian team should know what playing in the United States represents. It was the chance to settle a score with destiny over the ’94 World Cup fiasco. It could have been a belated vendetta. In the match against Switzerland, it became apparent that the players did not feel this way, as they once again crumbled when the stakes were highest. Argentina’s tournament has had a different approach. They have suffered, but they are just close to adding a fourth star to their crest.

After defeating England in “The Battle of Atlanta,” Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi told reporters they play for the average Argentine, for the people who can’t make ends meet, because they know they need something to believe in.

In contrast, Colombia left the country in the middle of controversy over the flag ceremony with President Petro, where James Rodriguez found himself at the center of a pre-tournament controversy involving the president’s daughter, and the heavyweights of the squad failed to consolidate a single, unified message.

The humbleness and awareness shown by Argentina’s captain is one of the many things Colombia and its players should learn from Argentina, a team about to play its third World Cup final in the last four editions.

V for victory … and vendetta

Before it started, this World Cup presented both Argentina and Colombia with the possibility of revenge. Colombia had the chance to avenge the catastrophe of the 1994 World Cup, where the national team, among the tournament’s favorites, crashed out in the group stage.

It was the chance to avenge the assassination of Andres Escobar, who was killed after scoring an own goal during that World Cup. It was the chance to avenge hundreds of thousands of Colombians who have been unable to fulfill their American dream. A World Cup is so much more than a tournament of football matches. It’s the chance to represent your country before the world, and to square debts with football, life, history, and politics.

This is something the Argentine fan and this Argentine team understand because they, too, were presented with their own chance for revenge. Before the tournament began, “The Song of the Fourth Star” spread across the country, singing of revenge for Diego Maradona and what happened to him at the 1994 World Cup.

After Argentina’s match against Nigeria that year, Maradona was randomly selected for an anti-doping test and tested positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine.

Maradona maintained he had taken the substance involuntarily, through a diet supplement his trainer had prescribed to help him lose weight for the tournament. FIFA banned him for 15 months, ending his international career and his participation in the tournament that had made him a myth. “They cut my legs off,” he said, after the ban was confirmed.

This World Cup gave Argentina a chance for another vendetta in the semifinals against England. It was clear this was not just a football game for them. From the moment the anthems were sung in Atlanta, you would have had to be oblivious not to sense there was something else at stake.

And from that same moment, you could tell there was no way they were losing. After an underwhelming first half and after falling behind early in the second, Argentina did not flinch, finding a way through the brilliance of Enzo Fernandez and Lionel Messi to turn the game on its head and knock out the Three Lions once again — just as Maradona had in 1986. After the win, the players displayed a flag that was, in fact, a hotel bedsheet spray-painted with a message: Las Malvinas Son Argentinas — the Falklands are Argentine.

Both countries had the chance to take revenge in their own way, for different things, both on and off the field. One has taken it all the way, playing in the tournament’s final match, in their captain’s last World Cup. The other went home with their own captain having been substituted early in the most important match of the tournament, because he was in no physical or footballing condition to play.

Argentina and Colombia on responsibility at the World Cup

One of the best quotes to come out of the England-Argentina match was Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni’s take on his players’ sense of responsibility. “Football and life are about this: giving everything until the end,” Scaloni said. “This team is a demonstration of many things — of a group, of brotherhood. These players are like ‘indios,’ if I may be understood in using that word. They were raised in extreme situations, where they feared nothing. Responsibility doesn’t weigh on them; they play as if they were seven or eight years old.”

Perhaps the clearest example of that responsibility came from the semifinal’s two goal scorers. After the match, Messi said he had spent a full year preparing for the tournament. It showed: at 39, he was, without question, its best player. Enzo Fernandez said he locked himself in his room before the semifinal to watch the 1986 game that made Maradona a myth.

Responsibility is shown through actions and decisions. Gonzalo Montiel, who had a poor year at his club, River Plate, came onto the pitch on Wednesday carrying the responsibility of helping flip the game — and delivered.

What does it say about Colombia that its captain didn’t have a club for most of the year preceding the tournament? What does it say that the manager kept picking him anyway, over alternatives who were fitter and playing better? On Wednesday, Scaloni sent De Paul — an integral part of the 2022 winning squad and one of his best players — to the bench. There was no controversy. There was simply an understanding of what was best for the team.

The Argentine players have decided, simply, that they are going to represent their country to the best of their ability, and that they will not give up. They dream of glory and of making their country proud.

Messi told reporters exactly who he was playing for. No Colombian player in this tournament said anything like it. Ultimately, these are the differences between a group of champions and a group of players who try only until it gets hard.

It is an unfaithful representation of the average Colombian, who, in many instances, has to leave everything on the field until the last second to get what he needs for himself and his family — the very thing the Argentine team represents.

It is only logical, then, that beyond Messi himself, so many people across Latin America and the world see themselves in that Argentina team on the pitch. It’s the sporting manifestation of their everyday lives. When will Colombia do something similar?