Football Fans and the Argentina Crisis of 2001-2002: The Crisis, the World Cup and the Destiny of the Patria

ALABARCES, PABLO

Football in the Americas: Fútbol, Futebol, Soccer

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2007; p. 94 - 111

While I was finishing my book, Fútbol y Patria, an analysis of the relations between football and narratives of the nation in Argentina during the twentieth century, the country was shaken by an unprecedented economic and political crisis, which led to mass demonstrations and ended with the resignation of two presidents in a fortnight. Those demonstrations showed, surprisingly, the everyday pervasiveness of a football culture that seemed to become politicised (in terms of songs, the shirts of both local and national teams, and confrontations with the police). A few months later, while the continuing political and social instability illustrated the deep fragmentation of society, the World Cup in Korea-Japan allowed the emergence of contradictory discourses.  Some believed, on the one hand,  that success in football would be the route to escape the crisis and lead to an eventual reconstruction of society, while many believed, on the other hand, that defeat for Argentina in the World Cup would instigate a new social crisis. Both predictions failed. This work aspires to read that process, through participant observation and the analysis of media (printed, radio and TV), and to postulate some hypotheses for the interpretation of a – new? – role of football identities in Argentina.