http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4362494,00.html

The conflict lives on

How the battles moved away from the islands and on
to the pitch. By Simon Kuper

Simon Kuper
Guardian

Monday February 25, 2002

If there was a moment that summed up the mental divide
between Britain and Argentina, it was the goal Diego Maradona
punched into England's net at the 1986 World Cup. Later in the
game, Maradona would dribble past half the England team to
score a brilliant second, but, he said in his autobiography, "I
sometimes think I preferred the one with my hand." Why? "It
was a bit like stealing the wallet of the English."

Most countries let realpolitik and economic self-interest guide
their international relations, saving their emotional nationalism
for World Cups. But Argentine governments have often brought
to political issues, particularly the Falklands, some of the
feelings of the football stadium.

Argentina in the Victorian age was part of Britain's "informal
empire". Second sons and black sheep shipped out from
Southampton to make their fortunes in cattle and wheat. They
built railways and introduced football, a game they played in a
muscular, disciplined style. But in the early 1900s, men with
Italian or Spanish surnames began playing with more
individuality and skill. Their style - known as criollo - came to be
seen as typically Latin, or Argentine, the opposite of the British
game.

Many among the Argentine poor resented the wealthy British.
Juan Peron, who first became president in 1946, exploited these
feelings in both rhetoric and economic policy. When Argentina
first beat England at football, in 1953, a politician exclaimed:
"We nationalised the railways, and now we have nationalised
football!"

But the bizarre sequence of incidents that has characterised
England-Argentina matches only began in 1966, at the World
Cup quarter-final at Wembley. Shortly before half-time, after
endless fouls by Argentina, their captain Antonio Rattin and the
German referee Kreitlein got into an argument though neither
spoke each other's language. Kreitlein famously sent off Rattin
"for the look on his face". Rattin refused to go.

The Englishman Ken Aston, supervisor of referees, entered the
field to try to persuade him. This only made matters worse, as
the Latin American teams had long since concluded that the
British and Germans were in cahoots to eliminate them from the
competition. Rattin went to sit on the sidelines, reportedly
trampling on the royal carpet in the process, before police
escorted him to the changing-rooms.

England won the match 1-0, and afterwards their manager, Alf
Ramsey, described the Argentine players as "animals". Many
Argentines read this as classic British racism.

England has since been the team they most want to beat. One
bumper sticker for the World Cup of 1978 in Argentina showed
the tournament's mascot, Gauchito, posing with his foot on a
British lion. England had not even qualified for the competition.

Argentina's military regime used that World Cup to arouse a
nationalist frenzy. An Argentine general of the era recalled for
me the scenes after the team beat Holland in the final: "There
was an explosion of ecstasy and hysteria. All the country was
on the streets. Radicals embraced with Peronists, Catholics
with Protestants and with Jews, and all had only one flag: the
flag of Argentina!" I asked if he would compare the emotions with
the Falklands war four years later, when the crowds filled the
streets again. "Exactly! It was exactly the same."

To the generals, creating a nationalist frenzy was a policy.
Whether this was done through football or war hardly mattered:
the World Cup song, Vamos Argentina, Vamos a Ganar (Go on
Argentina, go and win) was cranked out again for the Falklands.
In fact, the generals had planned to transmute the patriotism
aroused by football into war much earlier. During the World Cup,
in June 1978, the regime had said it would "take action" to
recover three islands in the Beagle channel that it was disputing
with Chile. The Vatican forced a settlement and the war was
aborted. But four years later the generals sent the body-bags
and arms for the Chilean war that never was on to the Falklands.
In a sense, the Falklands war belongs to the aftermath of the
World Cup.

Months before the war, the young Maradona was asked about
his politics. "All I want is for my country to be the best in the
world," he replied. This might seem the sort of simplistic
nationalism expected of a 21-year-old footballer, but it echoed
the simplistic nationalism of the country's rulers.

Four years after the Falklands war, Argentina finally defeated
England in Mexico City. The tiny criollo individualist had felled
the muscular Britons. "It was as if we had beaten a country, not
just a football team," Maradona wrote. "Although we had said
before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas
war, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed
them like little birds. And this was revenge."

Yet times were already changing. A civilian government had
replaced the generals, and nationalism was losing its grip on
Argentinian policy. The Falklands - the great emblem of
emotional nationalism - gradually became a side-issue. Britain
now rarely figures in Argentinian political debate. Even Maradona
has made his peace with the English. At the Oxford Union in
1995, he was asked about his goal. "Time heals all wounds," he
said. He received an ovation.

The football rivalry survives. "If you don't jump you're an
Englishman," remains a favourite chant of Argentine crowds, and
Argentina-England was probably the most dramatic match of the
1998 World Cup. Diego Simeone's play-acting to get David
Beckham sent off was chalked up in England as a historical
instalment of Argentine cheating. Yet the tensions between the
countries no longer reach beyond the game. Celia Szusterman,
an Argentina specialist at Oxford University, says football is just
football now. "That doesn't mean that during the match someone
won't shout, 'Malvinas!', but now it's just an excuse to stir up the
sporting rivalry."Argentinian football fans are even starting to
appreciate English football. Michael Owen, England's star in that
1998 game, became known in Argentina as "el pibe d'oro", or
golden boy, a great compliment since "pibe" is what Argentines
call their own criollo individualists. Maradona, the archetypal
"pibe", praises Owen for his "speed, wickedness, balls".

Klaus Gallo, a historian of Anglo-Argentine relations and football
fan, notes that many Argentinians have begun supporting
Manchester United since their compatriot Juan Sebastian Veron
joined the club last year. When united's games are shown on
TV, the local commentators often read out emails from viewers
expressing their allegiance to the team. Even Rattin, now a
far-right politician, rhapsodised to the BBC in 1998 about the
"privilege of playing at Wembley".

The next England-Argentina match, in Sapporo, Japan, on June
7 (seven days before the anniversary of the Argentine army's
surrender in Stanley) will be as heated as ever. Argentina's
strong team has an excellent chance of winning the World Cup,
and the country is yearning for a dose of old-fashioned emotional
nationalism to mollify the economic catastrophe. Nowadays,
though, those emotions are reserved for football.

? Simon Kuper is the author of Football Against the Enemy,
published by Orion.