I wake up and prepare my mate. This time I add a handful of herbs (yuyos, as we call them)—I need that balance between what feels like home and a little extra calm. My morning starts late today. Thankfully. I can afford it, and I need it.
The emotional hangover is immense, thick enough to settle over everything.
For a week now, the sky has been heavy. This Monday in Valencia feels denser than any of the days before it, as though the atmosphere itself were pressing down.
My spirits are bruised. And yet, beneath all of it, there’s something steady—a kind of wrapping that holds everything together. It’s made of joy. Of something precious that has already been won, something unbreakable. It’s the solidity of knowing who you are and what you carry with you, regardless of any result.
This morning I texted some of my friends letting them know I’d be quieter than usual. When told them I needed to rest, recover from the emotional low, and reconnect with the routines I’d consciously set aside over the last fifteen days. a Uruguayan friend offered me her unconditional support—her aguante, as we call it in our slang.
Her support came after I finally managed to put into words something I hadn’t yet recognized was moving through me. I sent her a WhatsApp message trying to explain it after she asked how I was feeling, and her reply was:
_ «Qué heavy cómo te afecta.» (It’s incredible how deeply this affects you.)
Football is an engine. It moves passion, business, money and spectacle everywhere in the world. But for us Argentinians, it may also be the hopeful place where we can feel genuinely represented today.
I still surprise myself when I cry after a victory just as much as after a defeat. Because, although I love football as much as I love so many other sports, these tears have far more to do with me than with what other people achieve on the field.
I experienced the 2022 World Cup in Qatar with my sister, tucked away in one of those tiny settlements at the end of a mountain road, two thousand meters above sea level, somewhere along the border between Italy and Austria. Far away. Completely removed from the joy and collective madness unfolding back home in Argentina.
I returned to Mar del Plata during the end of January 2023, just in time to catch the echoes that were still vigorously alive—the occasional car horns celebrating that long-awaited third star, the everyday reminders woven into ordinary life, the beautiful madness that la Scaloneta had finally gifted us. (Scaloneta is the affectionate nickname we gave our national team after Lionel Scaloni became head coach)
This 2026 World Cup found me abroad once again.
Living in that strange place where you sometimes grow a sense of belonging… but actually not. Wondering, once again, what for—and for how much longer.
And this Monday, as I tried to make sense of my first wave of emotions after the match against Spain, I finally understood where much of my sadness came from. I realized it while talking to my partner over a video call.
He’s German, a devoted football fan, someone who loves breaking down every match. From Argentina’s very first game he wore the albiceleste jersey, embraced our spirit completely, as wholeheartedly as Schweinsteiger did in the fan zone.
From over here, one of the hardest things about losing isn’t the defeat itself. It’s missing the chance to celebrate together one more time. It’s not getting to extend that feeling of being close to home just a little longer. It’s not crossing paths with another Argentine on the street and exchanging a silent smile because you both already know why you feel happy.
It’s saying, «Good day, Beautiful morning, isn’t it?1» without needing to explain anything else. Without arguing. Without defending yourself. It’s celebrating simply because of who we are—and because we’re here, together. Not against anyone.
It’s stealing from an ordinary day the chance to feel, if only for a while, that you’re home.
Still, that’s exactly what we lived through over the past forty days. Maybe even longer. So, in the end, we’re all okay. In our own way, we still won. That’s why this Monday carries an emotional hangover.
What I’m about to say has surely been said before. But some things deserve to be repeated, celebrated, and held onto.
Why do I cry when I watch the celebrations at the Obelisk in Buenos Aires, and everywhere else? Why do I get emotional simply talking about how I feel? Why does all of this feel so immense to me—not only as sport, but as something profoundly human?
Because this Argentine national team—la Scaloneta—is a group that built an identity. An identity whose values, as far back as I can remember, have never been reflected by our politicians themselves. And that’s one of the deepest reasons this team moves us. Beyond football. Beyond the trophies.
They became champions by embodying values that make us proud to recognize in ourselves—and to imitate. For me, they have represented our country better than any political movement ever has.
Teamwork.
Friendship.
Trust in a captain.
Choosing unity and respect over individual egos.
Humour.
Picardía.
Humility.
Belonging.
And the joy of understanding that the collective is greater than any one individual.
If football must come with rivalry and friction, let it stay where it belongs: on the pitch, while the match is being played. Let the celebrations always be about what we’ve built, what we’ve earned, and what we’ve learned. Never about who you defeat. And I say that fully aware of how passionate I can be.
I choose to keep believing2 that it’s possible to build and sustain forms of representation like this. That everything capable of bringing us together through celebration and resilience deserves a place in what we call the collective unconscious.
So I step into the days ahead, here in Spain, overflowing with gratitude for this team ever since that first Copa América. Grateful to have lived through the Messi era. Grateful for coaches like Scaloni and his team, and for the culture they helped creating around them. And hopeful that those who come next will continue to place humility, perseverance, and that tireless garra at the very heart of what makes our national team truly great.
The contemporary Argentine artist WOS says: «Cuando el destino se pone austero, sale al rescate lo verdadero.»
(When fate turns harsh, what is true comes to the rescue.)
As I look toward both the present and the future, this is what I choose to believe is true. For every beautiful morning we’ve already lived—and for all the ones still waiting for us.
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