Football in Argentina
is the most popular sport in Argentina and part of the culture in the country. It is the one with the most players and is the most popular recreational sport, played from childhood into old age. The percentage of Argentines that declare allegiance to an Argentine football club is about 90%.
Football was introduced to Argentina in the latter half of the 19th century by the British immigrants in Buenos Aires. The first Argentine league was contested in 1891, making it the fifth-oldest recognised league of a FIFA member. The Argentine Football Association was formed in 1893 and is the eighth-oldest in the world.
The Argentina national team is one of the eight to have won the FIFA World Cup, having done so in 1978, 1986, and 2022, while being runner-up in 1930, 1990 and 2014. Argentina has also won the top continental tournament, the Copa América, 16 times, and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 1992. It also holds the record for having more official titles than any other nation with 23. The nation's Olympic representative has won two gold medals, while the under-20 team has won a record six U-20 World Cups. At club level, Argentine teams have won the most Intercontinental Cups and the most Copa Libertadores.
Women's football has a national league since 1991, the Campeonato de Fútbol Femenino. In turn, the female national representative qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2007 and won their first Campeonato Sudamericano Femenino in 2006.
In futsal, Argentina were FIFUSA/AMF Futsal World Cup champions in 1994 and 2019. They also compete in the FIFA code of futsal, where they finished champions in 2016, runner-up in 2021 and fourth place in 2004. The team also won the FIFA Futsal Copa América in 2003, 2015 and 2022. Moreover, Argentina was world champion in futsal for the visually impaired in 2002, 2006 and 2023, and also won the gold medal at the IBSA World Blind Games 2015, a silver medal and two Bronze in the Paralympic Games, three runner-up world championships, three championships of the Copa América, three silver medals in the Parapan American Games and two runner-up finishes in the Copa América.
Argentina also compete in the beach football World Cup, where their best finish was third in 2001.
History
The beginning
Recovering from an oppressive dictatorship spanning from 1829 to 1852, Argentine leaders aspired to reconstruct their nation's reputation as a symbol of progress and democracy. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a highly influential intellectual and former president of Argentina, argued in favour of emulating the path taken by Western Europe and the United States. By 1867, there was a large British community in Buenos Aires. Most of them had established themselves in Argentina coming from the United Kingdom as managers and workers of the British-owned railway companies that operated in Argentina. British citizens founded social and sports clubs where they could practise their sports, such as bowls, cricket, football, golf, horse riding, rugby union and tennis amongst others.Two English immigrants, Thomas and James Hogg, organized a meeting on 9 May 1867 in Buenos Aires where the Buenos Aires Football Club was founded. The club was given permission by the Buenos Aires Cricket Club to make use of the cricket field in Parque Tres de Febrero, Palermo, Buenos Aires, on the site now occupied by the Galileo Galilei planetarium. The first recorded football match in Argentina took place on this pitch on 20 June 1867, being covered by English language daily newspaper The Standard. This newspaper, published in Argentina, was the first one to cover football matches in the country. That first match, originally scheduled for May 25 in La Boca, had to be postponed due to bad weather.
The match started at 12.30 and was played between two teams of British merchants, the White Caps and the Red Caps.. The teams consisted of eight players each as the organisers were unable to find more players for the match. The line-ups were: Thomas Hogg, James Hogg, William Forrester, T. B. Smith, J. W. Bond, E. S. Smith, J. Rabsbottom and N. H. Smith ; William Heald, T. R. Best, U. Smith, H. J. Barge, H. Willmont, R. M. Ramsay, J. Simpson and W. Boschetti. The team led by Hogg won 4–0, according to The Standard newspaper published on June 23. The match played was a blend of both association and rugby footballs, with no goals on the field. The use of hands was also allowed.
The first chronicle of a football match written in Spanish was published by local newspaper El Nacional on September 11, 1880. The chronicle referred to a "foot-ball" match played in a cricket field in Montevideo between an Uruguayan-Argentine combined vs a British team. The attendance was estimated in 1,000 people. Nevertheless, it is unclear what form of "football" was played due to the number of players on the field.
The "Southern Railway Athletic Club" might have been the first organised team under the "Association" rules, according to The Standard, that published a chronicle describing the existence of that team, with records of a match played at Lanús A.C. field in 1888. The chronicle also named Alexander Watson Hutton as one of the GSRFC players. The early matches of the team, in fact, were against Buenos Aires English High School.
First league and development
The so-called "father of Argentine football" was a Glaswegian schoolteacher Alexander Watson Hutton, who first taught football at St Andrew's School in Buenos Aires in the early 1880s. On 4 February 1884, he founded the Buenos Aires English High School, where he continued to instruct the pupils in the game. In 1891, the "Association Argentine Football League" was established by F.L. Wooley, with Alex Lamont of St. Andrew's Scots School as one of its members. The AAFL was the first football league outside of the British Isles. Five clubs competed but only one season was ever played.In this early period, a number of football clubs were set up by the employees of the various British-owned railway companies in Argentina and a number of these teams have survived to the present day, including Ferro Carril Oeste, Ferrocarril Midland, Rosario Central and Talleres.
A new league with the same name as its predecessor, was formed on 21 February 1893. It eventually became the Argentine Football Association. In these early days of football in Argentina, nearly all of the players and officials were expatriate Britons or of British extraction and the oldest football clubs in Argentina like Rosario Central, Newell's Old Boys and Quilmes were all founded by British expatriates.
File:Alumni AC 1904.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Team of Alumni before playing English club Southampton in Buenos Aires, 26 June 1904. Southampton was the first foreign club to tour Argentina, then followed by several British teams
The most successful and admired team of this early period was Alumni, founded by graduates and students of Watson Hutton's English High School. Like all of the early clubs, it was composed mainly of British players.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the game became increasingly popular amongst other European immigrants, especially Italians.
Most of the early clubs had a policy of excluding the local creole population. The backlash against this policy at Quilmes Athletic Club resulted in the formation of Argentino de Quilmes in 1899, the first of many Argentine clubs for Argentine players. The name Argentino or Argentinos has remained popular in Argentine football. The most famous team with the name is Argentinos Juniors who won the Copa Libertadores in 1985.
British football clubs tours over South America contributed to the spread and develop of football in Argentina during the first years of the 20th century. The first club to tour on the country was Southampton F.C. in 1904 who were captained by George Molyneaux. They beat the Buenos Aires High School Alumni team 3-0 with Molyneaux remarking 'how far the Argentines were ahead of their European counterparts in France and Denmark.' Several other teams came afterwards until 1929 with Chelsea F.C. being the last team to tour.
British teams were considered the best in the world by then, and some of them served as inspiration to establish football clubs in Argentina, helped by the immigration of British citizens that had arrived to work for British companies. Belgrano A.C., Rosario A.C., Alumni and Quilmes are some examples of clubs established by British immigrants to South America.
Consolidation
The early years of the 20th century saw a large number of new clubs formed; by 1907, there were over 300 teams in Argentina. Most of the major clubs were created around this period; they played in the national amateur tournament or in local championships. By this time, matches had a considerable attendance and as the popularity of the game increased the British influence on the game waned. In 1911, Alumni folded and by 1912 the Association was renamed in Spanish as the Asociación Argentina de Football, although the tradition of giving the clubs English names continued for many years.During the early 20th century, many new football leagues were started in cities across Argentina as the popularity of the game spread out from Greater Buenos Aires, these include Rosario, Córdoba, Santa Fe, Tucumán, San Luis and Salta.
Although the city of Rosario did not have an organised league, since 1900 the football squads of Rosario A.C. and Rosario Central had taken part of the first international tournament in South America, the Tie Cup, played by teams of Rosario, Buenos Aires and Uruguay leagues. Rosario A.C. became the first Rosarian team to win an international competition after winning the cup in 1902, defeating legendary Alumni 2–1 in the playoff match. The squad would win two cups else, in 1904 and 1905 editions, totalling three championships in six years.
Teams from Rosario had also participated in the first National Cups organised by the Argentine Football Association, such as Copa de Honor Municipalidad de Buenos Aires,
The first official match played by the Argentina national team took place on 16 May 1901 against Uruguay, a 3–2 win for Argentina. This game marked the beginning of the Argentina and Uruguay football rivalry.
The first trophy won by Argentina was the Copa Lipton in 1905. They won their first tournament in 1910 which was contested between Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. Victories and defeats on the soccer field are sometimes seen as symbolic of the country's broader triumphs and challenges.
In 1916, Argentina competed in the first Copa América which was won by Uruguay. Argentina would win the tournament for the first time in 1921, and have gone on to win it a total of 16 times.
During the 1920s decade, Huracan was a strong competitor, winning most of the annual championships, as Racing Club did during the 1910s. To mention a tradition, the Huracán footballers and fans used to meet at the historical Japanese Cafe.
In 1928, Argentina Olympic football team competed at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, where they finished runners-up to Uruguay. Two years later, they competed in the first FIFA World Cup, again finishing runners up to hosts Uruguay.
Following two seasons of disrupted play due to mass cancellation and suspension of matches and the mid-season withdrawal of teams in the 1929, and 1930, 18 teams decided to form a breakaway professional league for the 1931 season. The amateur league carried on in parallel until it folded in 1934 with many of the teams joining the new professional second division The creation of the professional league helped curb the exodus of Argentine talent to high paying European football clubs. The 1934 World Cup Italy national team championship side featured several Oriundo in the squad composed of Argentine-born players such as Raimundo Orsi, Enrique Guaita, and Luis Monti who also played for Argentina in the 1930 World Cup.
In 1964, Independiente became the first Argentine club to win the Copa Libertadores, Argentine clubs have won the competition a total of 25 times.
In 1967, Racing became the first Argentine team to win the Intercontinental Cup. Argentine clubs have won the tournament a record 9 times.
In 1971, Rosario Central became the first club not based in Buenos Aires or Greater Buenos Aires to win the First Division League, after winning this year´s Nacional championship.
In 1978, Argentina hosted the World Cup, where the team defeated the Netherlands 3–1 after extra time in the final to win their first World Cup.
In 1979, a young Diego Maradona was part of the Argentina under-20 team which won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. Argentina have gone on to win a record six U-20 World Cups.
Soccer has been intertwined with national identity in many countries, including Argentina. The sport serves as a reflection of national pride, and the success or failure of the national team often mirrors the socio-political climate of the time. Political leaders, such as Perón, recognized the potential of soccer as a tool for promoting nationalism and unity among the population. In the article “Argentine Soccer and Political Power, 1930-1946,” Arkhurst explores how the Argentine government, particularly during Perón's rule, utilized soccer to further political agendas and cultivate a sense of national identity. This could involve examining how political power influenced soccer policies, team selections, or the portrayal of the sport in the media. Historical events, such as the infamous "Dirty War" and the military junta's use of the 1978 World Cup for political purposes, underscore the complex relationship between soccer and politics. The World Cup became a powerful propaganda tool for the government. The authorities utilized the success of the national team to convey an image of normalcy and stability, downplaying the grim reality of the political situation at home. The Argentine victory in the 1978 World Cup final against the Netherlands was strategically exploited by the military junta. The celebration of the triumph was intended to symbolize not only athletic achievement but also political success and control.
In 1982, due to an uncertain political atmosphere and an extremely unstable government with multiple presidents over the span of a short time, most football clubs were lacking the money to keep top domestic players. 1982 saw a whole slew of players leave Argentina for Europe: players like Diego Maradona, Mario Kempes, Daniel Passarella and many others leave for Spain, France, Italy or England.
In 1986, Argentina would win their second World Cup in the 1986 World Cup, where the team defeated to Germany 3–2.
In 1995, Rosario Central became the first club not based in Buenos Aires or Greater Buenos Aires to win an international cup recognised by FIFA, the Conmebol Cup. Argentine clubs have won the tournament a record three times.
In 2004, the Argentina Olympic football team won Gold at the Athens Olympic games; they defended their title in 2008 to become the first team to defend the Olympic football title since Hungary in 1968.
In 2022, Argentina won the World Cup for the third time, beating France 4–2 on penalties following a 3–3 draw after extra time.