Happy tears flow for Argentina

It was in San Juan, Argentina, over a year ago that Lionel Messi had said: “Let’s go on because it will end well.” Argentina had qualified for the World Cup, having won the Copa America months earlier and being on a long unbeaten run, Lionel Scaloni had warned Messi “that the disappointment could be intense because people are very enthusiastic about this team.” To which, Messi had said: “If it doesn’t (end well), it doesn’t matter, we must try.”

The anecdote was shared by the Argentina manager after winning a “crazy game” for their third World Cup title. “I don’t know if it was anxiety, but…after his response we realised we did something right,” he said.

Argentina tried. Argentina triumphed. And the tears flowed at Lusail as Sunday melded into Monday. Angel di Maria had been overwhelmed after scoring maybe because having missed key games in 2014, he felt fates had conspired for a final fling at glory. He despaired when it looked like that was slipping away because France and Kylian Mbappe had woken up and then cried in joy when it was over.

In control of his emotions through the evening, typifying the serenity he had spoken of before Argentina began here, Messi’s eyes seemed wet when Sergio Aguero hugged him and when his mother did. In a tournament that had seen so much of maternal love from Morocco players, a mum’s embrace at the end felt apt.

Scaloni too was visibly emotional and once said he hoped he wouldn’t break into tears. He had while hugging Messi after Argentina had made the final. Pablo Aimar, one of Scaloni’s assistants, had wept after Messi’s goal against Mexico. The wobble against Saudi Arabia, the nervous start against Mexico seems so long ago but right till the end Argentina had to suffer. A country, hit by inflation and economic crisis that has pushed nearly 40% of the population into poverty, suffered with them.

“The team plays for the people, they play for Argentina.. everyone pulls together,” said Scaloni. So the first thing he would want to do is “go to Argentina and celebrate.” Before the match, he didn’t want to know about celebrations, he said. “Now we are champions, I am open to whatever the players, people and fans deserve.”

By then celebrations had started in the Argentina changing room and on the streets around the stadium that looks like a giant date bowl. Many former players had flown to Doha, “some on their own,” said Scaloni. On the pitch, Martinez had danced like he was Eminem after France fluffed a penalty kick. In the changing room, he led a train dance where Argentina observed a “minute’s silence for Mbappe who is dead.”

Martinez radiated positivity, said Scaloni. He had told his teammates he would stop everything in the penalties, said the coach. He stopped Kingsley Coman’s attempt taking Argentina closer to the title. He had kept them in the game by getting big on Randal Kolo Muani from open play.

There was more from the changing room. Such as dumpster diving with a difference as a player vaulted into an empty bin and was splayed with champagne as he emerged, a post shared by Aguero showed. Messi was jumping on the table with the World Cup.

As Lusail disgorged people, 88,966 of them, Argentina took a traffic-stopping open top bus parade down the Lusail Boulevard whose canopied sit-outs and shops hummed with activity. People lined orderly on either side of the boulevard to watch

Argentines cavorting on the bus led and followed by security convoys on horses. Some players were drinking beer and others pulling on a bottle of champagne. Some had flags draped around them. All were in Argentina shirts that had three stars and ‘Campeons.’

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said he had felt a lot of things here, among them gay, Arab and Qatari. On the holiday because it was also Qatar National Day, Doha showed that it felt Messi and Argentina. A cab driver said he had honked when Argentina won on penalties and was asked to continue instead of it being the opposite in this city of six-lane roads where cars swish by silently. Silence was broken by fireworks that glittered around buildings near Lusail in purple, orange and white. It was nearly 2am but no one was going home.

By then drone shots of people celebrating near the Obelisk in Buenos Aires had flooded social media. An entire country is going mad because of you, Scaloni was told by a journalist. “It’s too much, it’s too much,” the journalist said.

“I know it’s just a football match and this is just a football World Cup. For me, it doesn’t go beyond football but it’s more than football for Argentina. So let them celebrate and enjoy it…The problems we have are still there but they are a little happier,” said Scaloni.