[BostonCard]

I wasn’t impressed when Messi tried to get Cucurella carded for covering his mouth when it was clearly a transient gesture (like scratching his nose). 

No, it was not just Cucurella scratching his nose. He clearly said something to Messi.

----

Here is video of that and another interaction with some speculative lip reading captioning. Whatever Cucurella says is pretty short- this video has it as "you good?" though that is a guess.

https://x.com/porqueTTarg/status/2079266...78574?s=20

My point was that he was clearly not covering his mouth to say something offensive without it being discovered; the mouth covering was incidental (though it looks more like him scratching his mustache than his nose).

I wasn’t impressed with the antic, but I think the hate on Argentina is a bit much (here and elsewhere).  It’s the finals of the World Cup; sometimes emotions are going to get the best of you.  In this case, Messi just saw his teammate get carded off.  Maybe Cucurella said something offensive, maybe he didn’t, and even though I don’t think he tried to obscure lip reading something offensive, he did momentarily cover his mouth.  In the heat of the moment, it’s a chance to get back to even strength.

This is a case where the way the match was called wound up clearly benefiting Spain.  In a World Cup final, the refs often let a lot more slide so as not to influence the outcome with their calls.  I wonder if Argentina expected the ref to keep the cards in his pocket than he did and was hurt when he called a fairly tight game.

In any case, I was glad Spain won, but more because they deserved it than because of animus towards Argentina.

BC

---

PS, I don’t know if this will be readable, but the Economist’s Latin America newsletter touched on why other Latin countries hate Argentina.

https://view.e.economist.com/?vawpToken=...id=2208757

Critics point out supposed Argentine defects. One is ego. “Argentines are seen as arrogant, provocative and pompous show-offs, which is almost certainly true,” laughs Pablo Alabarces, a sociologist and football researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. Such haughtiness, haters claim, stems from a sense of historic and ethnic exceptionalism. Argentina was once the world’s eighth-richest country per person and Argentines are among the whitest populations in Latin America. In 2021, then-President Alberto Fernández declared that “the Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships...from Europe.”

That fuels the other allegation, which is that Argentines are racist. There is an unsavoury history. In 1996 an Argentine magazine ran a cover titled “Let the Monkeys Come” about a game between Brazil and Nigeria. In 2024 the national squad filmed themselves singing about French players being from Angola. Numerous incidents marred this World Cup as well. During a match against Cape Verde Islands, a woman allegedly told African-American influencer IShowSpeed “to go cry at the zoo”. The following fixture saw Egyptian fans pelted with bottles. In Miami supporters chanted about Brazilians “crying in the favela”. Of course plenty of other Argentines detest such behaviour and neighbouring countries are no paragons of racial justice.

A lot of this is rooted in stereotypes and generalizations from the actions of players and fans at their worst.  There is plenty of nationalist, sexist, homophobic and racial animus throughout Latin America (and, indeed, much of the world), and yet, as a whole, the culture throughout the continent is fun, warm and welcoming.

The Argentine team’s final act left a lot to be desired, but throughout the tournament, they played with grit, dedication, and a never give up attitude.  They twice were taken to extra time and twice scored the winning goal in injury time.  They came back from a goal deficit in the 85th minute against the third best team in the tournament.  They believed in each other and up until the final match were more than the sum of its parts.  If you watched some of the locker room speeches that Messi gave to his teammates, it was hard not to feel goosebumps.  The best team won on Sunday, but the second best team was playing them, and was about 15 minutes away from sending the game to a penalty shootout.

BC

[BostonCard]

I wasn’t impressed when Messi tried to get Cucurella carded for covering his mouth when it was clearly a transient gesture (like scratching his nose). 

No, it was not just Cucurella scratching his nose. He clearly said something to Messi.

----

Here is video of that and another interaction with some speculative lip reading captioning. Whatever Cucurella says is pretty short- this video has it as "you good?" though that is a guess.

https://x.com/porqueTTarg/status/2079266...78574?s=20

My point was that he was clearly not covering his mouth to say something offensive without it being discovered; the mouth covering was incidental (though it looks more like him scratching his mustache than his nose).

I wasn’t impressed with the antic, but I think the hate on Argentina is a bit much (here and elsewhere).  It’s the finals of the World Cup; sometimes emotions are going to get the best of you.  In this case, Messi just saw his teammate get carded off.  Maybe Cucurella said something offensive, maybe he didn’t, and even though I don’t think he tried to obscure lip reading something offensive, he did momentarily cover his mouth.  In the heat of the moment, it’s a chance to get back to even strength.

This is a case where the way the match was called wound up clearly benefiting Spain.  In a World Cup final, the refs often let a lot more slide so as not to influence the outcome with their calls.  I wonder if Argentina expected the ref to keep the cards in his pocket than he did and was hurt when he called a fairly tight game.

In any case, I was glad Spain won, but more because they deserved it than because of animus towards Argentina.

BC

---

PS, I don’t know if this will be readable, but the Economist’s Latin America newsletter touched on why other Latin countries hate Argentina.

https://view.e.economist.com/?vawpToken=...id=2208757

Critics point out supposed Argentine defects. One is ego. “Argentines are seen as arrogant, provocative and pompous show-offs, which is almost certainly true,” laughs Pablo Alabarces, a sociologist and football researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. Such haughtiness, haters claim, stems from a sense of historic and ethnic exceptionalism. Argentina was once the world’s eighth-richest country per person and Argentines are among the whitest populations in Latin America. In 2021, then-President Alberto Fernández declared that “the Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships...from Europe.”

That fuels the other allegation, which is that Argentines are racist. There is an unsavoury history. In 1996 an Argentine magazine ran a cover titled “Let the Monkeys Come” about a game between Brazil and Nigeria. In 2024 the national squad filmed themselves singing about French players being from Angola. Numerous incidents marred this World Cup as well. During a match against Cape Verde Islands, a woman allegedly told African-American influencer IShowSpeed “to go cry at the zoo”. The following fixture saw Egyptian fans pelted with bottles. In Miami supporters chanted about Brazilians “crying in the favela”. Of course plenty of other Argentines detest such behaviour and neighbouring countries are no paragons of racial justice.

A lot of this is rooted in stereotypes and generalizations from the actions of players and fans at their worst.  There is plenty of nationalist, sexist, homophobic and racial animus throughout Latin America (and, indeed, much of the world), and yet, as a whole, the culture throughout the continent is fun, warm and welcoming.

The Argentine team’s final act left a lot to be desired, but throughout the tournament, they played with grit, dedication, and a never give up attitude.  They twice were taken to extra time and twice scored the winning goal in injury time.  They came back from a goal deficit in the 85th minute against the third best team in the tournament.  They believed in each other and up until the final match were more than the sum of its parts.  If you watched some of the locker room speeches that Messi gave to his teammates, it was hard not to feel goosebumps.  The best team won on Sunday, but the second best team was playing them, and was about 15 minutes away from sending the game to a penalty shootout.

BC