In a country like Argentina, with more than 45 million inhabitants and with a very high percentage (70, 80%) of football supporters and enthusiasts, one of the greatest mysteries – never revealed until today, nor in times of foundation of the game nor in contemporaries – that’s what gets up every day: Where does the talent come from? Why has almost a century of the World Cup of the most universal sport passed and the Argentine national team remains the protagonist?

Messi’s generation and his young teammates, with the immense Dibu, De Paul, Alexis, Cuti, Julián or Enzo in a dramatic final, showered us with emotion and brought Argentine football back to the top. Eternal glory to all of them and to the leadership of Scaloni and his team.

Results are a contingency and much more in this sport. “Football is a theatrical representation in which you never know where the crux of the work is,” defined Valdano. However, the global statistics speak for themselves: without being the greatest power in world football, the Argentina national team is one of the few They have not lost any Cups in the last half century and have amassed three titles, as well as three other finals. In 22 editions of the World Cup, only eight countries have enjoyed the glory of a title. And it is not worth, at this point, which constitutes our daily life, to understand what surrounds us: the economic decline, with its social correlate, as well as the political turmoil. Nor does Argentine sport have a solid foundation of physical preparation, conditioned by that same structure (economic-political-technological), a base and all the resources that high or medium-developed countries have.

Not even the very structure of Argentine football – being the most powerful within the sport in our country – can be compared with the more developed ones (the European Champions League, or the closest Brazil, to cite well-known examples). The disorganization of the internal competition, the inevitable violence and the obligation to emigrate more and more young people constitute the daily panorama in the local leagues.

And despite everything… there is our Selection, which revives the passion for our colors and recalls history.

There are many – from sport, but also from culture and politics – who have tried to shed light on that mystery. “Perhaps it helps us understand why football means so much to us Argentines – wrote Roberto Fontanarrosa – It’s not an invention, it’s not an imposed habit or one that is imposed from outside, such as Halloween for example. They are names, anecdotes and emotions that we have heard from our parents and grandparents, which have acquired colors of their own, even if the game itself has been taught to us by the English. Even the tango may have had its African or Spanish origins, but here it has acquired a special way of understanding and expressing itself. That story that takes the field when any Argentine team takes the field, and above all, the national team gives us an intonation, a seal and a pride. They come with us, even if we don’t know it and sometimes we deny it”.

But it’s not a linear story. We cannot resort to the comparison with football (and sport) of almost a century ago for obvious technological reasons. For European teams, playing a World Cup in South America in the 1930s had little appeal and, conversely, the same was true for South American countries. The universalization of football took place in full from the following two decades, with continental competitions and with the most convening World Cups.

Brazil, Germany and Italy emerge as the historical powers, while Argentina – after the so-called “Swedish disaster” of 1958 – surprisingly discovers that it is very far away. Above all because the memory of local glories seemed only a “romantic” matter, because physically, tactically and technically the sport had transformed and the few international frictions had led to a 1-6 defeat against the Czechs on that bitter day in Helsingborg , Sweden. .

They went to receive our players with coins in Ezeiza… However, the natural and competitive gene of the Argentine player has not died out: and touches have been given such as the conquest of the Nations Cup in 1964 against Pelé and Gerson’s Brazil , the first victories of our teams in the Intercontinental championships (Racing, Estudiantes), the courage of the national team at Wembley in 1966.

A few more goals would arrive: the debacle in the ’69 qualifiers, the jolt that Cruyff’s A Clockwork Orange gave us with his “total football” and the 4-0 at the ’74 World Cup (when our team was physically and tactically devastated and could only reach the rival goal once in the whole match). It all happened until they noticed where the problems were going. Some technicians, managers and journalists have seen it: disorganization and improvisation.

Only after the next cycle, led by Cesare Luis Menotti and with the continuity – albeit with a different football approach – that he has been able to achieve Charles Billard the “long-term jobs” were given. Thus, the Argentina national team was placed in the table of finalists of the modern era. And world champions. “Argentine football has always had a remarkable number of good players, in demand at all latitudes of the planet. But, to win a World Cup, you need a very good combination. Those that Menotti had in 1978. Or someone out of the ordinary like Maradona in 1986, with a solid team behind him, the one that Bilardo put together by embracing his convictions ”, summed up the journalist Natalio Gorin in a book by him.

Those epics, led by such dissimilar characters and whose football styles were also different, are always present in the golden register of our football. Perhaps the essential thing about Menotti – and beyond his football creed – is that he understood and fought for the organisation, the international contact and the physical development that our players needed. “Continuous competition has been the only method to definitively put an end to ghosts and surprises when you play a major tournament with European teams,” he insisted. This is why the 3-1 final against the Dutch at the River would no longer be so sensational, it arrived with our seasoned and expert team for high competition. With the possibility of facing a European power on an equal footing. That same Selection could not be repeated in Spain 82. But Mexico 86, with an imperial Maradona, gave us back the glory. “We started very badly and finished very well. We played the first match against Korea without knowing if we would be able to win it and when we played the final against Germany, we knew it was very difficult for us to lose. And this happened in a month,” Valdano recalled.

A lot has happened since then, with the ups and downs of the changes of the era. Another serious job like Sabella’s in 2014 left the national team at the door of its consecration. The transformation of football as an industry, a sport and a technology has been impressive, especially in the last decade. It is unthinkable to come to terms with the organizational concepts of 20, 30 or 50 years ago: today almost all our young talents are required very early in the European championships, the national team coaches have little time to concentrate, the media-economic pressures are also different.

Speed ​​and physical preparation in general, in line with what happens in all sports, also changes the environment: today the same quality is required, but at a higher rate. More time. However… And yet, the most pleasant thing is that a new generation of talents, the one that Messi illuminates and accompanies these revelations (Enzo, Alexis, Julián) brings Argentina back to the World Cup podium. Therefore, the mystery remains and not even the greatest experts of modern football techniques could reveal it.

The neighborhood, the pasture, the neighborhood club, competitive aggressiveness and the passion for football since childhood? They are elements that identify Di Stéfano, Kempes, Diego or Messi (to mention the Argentines who have reached the Olympus of football), but they constitute only a part of it. An identity. “There is no greater pride than playing for your country and these players play for the people, for all Argentines.

We were deservedly champions,” Scaloni said on Sunday. The seriousness of organization that, already in more recent times, was offered by Pekerman, Sabella or now Scaloni, is another factor. In the meantime, for us, it’s worth enjoying. The spirit competitive, the innate talent and supportive play that our team has shown, beyond the ups and downs and demands of each match, has represented happiness for everyone. At the culmination of that story. Our exquisite story.