In just under 2 hours, Argentina and England will square up to one another in what promises to be the most interesting match in the World Cup so far.
Argentina are predicted to win. We'll see.
However, the aggravation between the 2 countries has been beautifully condensed in this article in today's Times:
The rematch: Simeone v Beckham reflects 100 years of history.
By Ian Cobain in Sapporo
England fans believe Sir Alf Ramsey started something extraordinary when, on July 23, 1966, he declared that the Argentinians were “animals”.
The England manager had watched his side being booted about for 90 minutes, fumed as Antonio Rattin, his opponents’ captain, refused to leave when sent off until led away by a policeman, then raced on to the pitch at the final whistle to prevent George Cohen swapping shirts with Roberto Profumo, the Argentine defender.
It was, according to many, the birth of the greatest intercontinental contest in football of modern times.
But they are wrong. For the rivalry dates back not just 36 years but a century or more, informed almost as much by respect as by revenge.
When David Beckham and Diego Simeone take the field today at the Sapporo Dome in Japan, the match and the mood will be guided more by the hand of history than by Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” in 1986.
Even the two players’ own clash in 1998, when the Argentinian provoked Beckham into a moment of petulance that led to the England midfielder receiving his marching orders, is merely the most recent milestone down a long road of shared animosity.
For Argentinians the rivalry with England goes back to 1891, when an English schoolteacher called Watson Hutton was appointed headmaster of St Andrews, one of Buenos Aires’s most prestigious public schools, and promptly established the country’s first football league.
The teams established then, outfits with English names like River Plate, Newell’s Old Boys, and Racing, still dominate the domestic game today.
Back in the 1890s, however, locals were barred from the league, and the players were drawn from the British expatriate community that was building the country’s railways and running the beef and wheat export industries.
Argentinians have never forgotten that when they were finally allowed to play, they needed the English to teach them how to kick the ball.
As Roberto Profumo, who is now a psychologist, said recently: “When the English companies imported the sport, the local people couldn’t play with them. The way we see it, the English have this typical superiority, but they know they have to play very hard to win against Argentina.
“For us, winning against England is like the schoolkids beating the teachers.”
However fanatical the English support, however determined England are to win, the Argentinian craving for victory will be far, far greater.
Argentina’s obsession with beating England is a far more passionate and complex affair than Sir Alf could possibly have imagined.
“In 1986, winning the World Cup was wonderful,” Juan Carlos Gil, a 62-year-old businessman from Buenos Aires, said in Sapporo yesterday.
But, he added, summing up every Argentinian’s attitude to that tournament: “Beating England was much more important.”
“It was not about the Falklands war,” added Señor Gil, using the English name for the islands. “The war was still very fresh in our minds, but it goes back much deeper than that.”
This chippiness is heightened by the average Argentinian’s belief that he or she is essentially a European who has, by some sad accident of fate, been dumped 10,000 miles away at the far end of Latin America.
About 60 per cent of the population is of Italian descent, but the English influence remains pervasive. Many of the middle classes still take tea at four, eat cucumber sandwiches from Wedgwood plates, wear Harris tweed and brogues, and send their children to schools such as St Andrews, where they learn to speak English.
The Brazilians like to joke that an Argentinian is actually an Italian who speaks Spanish yet thinks he is an Englishman.
Today, however, while every Argentinian might somehow think that he or she is fundamentally European, or even dream of being English, they will be all too aware that each of their team’s opponents on the football field is the real thing.
The respect for British culture survived the Falklands war largely unscathed, but alongside it there thrives a simmering resentment of the English, who are seen almost as former colonial masters.
First the English plundered the Spanish galleons — piratas is still a common term of abuse for Englishmen — and in the early 19th century, as any Argentine schoolchild will tell you, they twice attempted to invade Buenos Aires. For many years, when Argentina was one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the British controlled the most profitable enterprises.
Finally there is the Malvinas issue. It is impossible to overestimate how angry Argentinians remain over the “British occupation” of the islands, and how completely the obsession with one day winning them back has developed into a national neurosis. Many Argentine fans in Sapporo yesterday insisted that their footballing rivalry was in no way fuelled by the pain of losing the war, but all of them would invariably add:
“The islands are ours.”
There is one last reason why Argentinians are so anxious to win today: the economic crisis that has gripped the country has left these proud people with precious little else to sing and shout about.
While there were about 8,000 English fans in Sapporo yesterday, there were just 1,000 Argentinians. Fifa, the sport’s ruling body, had sent the Argentine Football Association 3,000 tickets, but so few people could afford to travel to Japan that 2,000 were sent back.
Miguel de la Roya, a 23-year-old fan, said: “It is now so bad that some families cannot feed their children, and while many of our players live abroad, they must know how bad the situation is in their homeland. They know that the whole of Argentina is waiting for them to triumph.”
All this explains the Argentinians’ willingness to stretch the rules. The English, they say, are naive footballers, they are too honest.
Beckham may have suggested yesterday that he was ready to adopt a footballing form of noble-cause corruption, and that he would be prepared to punch the ball into the net as Maradona did, but few Argentinians will be convinced that England have finally taken to heart Bill Shankley’s famous dictum: football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that.
“You have to be bad to play football,” says Profumo. Argentinians demand that their players be prepared to handle, stamp and dive their way to victory.
When Argentina beat England in the 1998 World Cup, Buenos Aires erupted in celebrations so wild that the police had to use water cannon to control the ecstatic crowds.
Within seconds of the end, millions of people were pouring into the streets, chanting, dancing, blowing whistles and beeping horns.
Those inside ripped up books and hurled the pages from the windows, showering the city with instant, costly confetti.
In the Avenue Nueve de Julio, the vast, neon-lined highway that bisects the city, thousands of people danced around a 150ft blue and white Argentine flag, singing the anthem that is heard week in, week out on every one of the country’s football terraces.
It is the song that the whole country will be singing should they win again today, one that is intended to proclaim to the rest of the world, and especially to the English, that Argentina is still alive and kicking.
“El que no salta, el que no salta, el que no salta es Inglés,” they will sing: “He who is not jumping, he who is not jumping, he who is not jumping is an Englishman.”
Englishman, hoping for a jump.
