Argentina’s economy may be sinking but the entire country is buoyant, basking in the elation of its football team led by iconic captain Lionel Messi reaching the World Cup final.
The dream of landing Argentina’s third world title, 36 years after the last one, seems — at least for now — to have let Argentines forget their woes.
That number three seems significant today, and not just because Messi and his teammates seek to put a third championship star on the team’s blue and white jersey.
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Sporting glory arrives at a time when many people believe the inflation that has wreaked havoc on the South American nation’s economy will reach a barely believable triple digits for 2022.
Last Thursday, the INDEC statistics institute published the price index for November, around six percent, suggesting inflation, which already stood at 88 percent over the last 12 months, is not decelerating.
Argentina has had double-figure inflation for decades.
But there is a genuine feeling that soccer success — and that Messi magic — can alleviate the pain of millions in a country where the poverty level is over 40 percent.
Before the tournament in Qatar began, Argentina’s Labor Minister Kelly Olmos was even asked whether lowering inflation was more important than winning the World Cup.
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“We must constantly work against inflation, but one month won’t make a huge difference,” she said.
“On the other hand, from a morale point of view, given what it means for all Argentines, we want Argentina to be champions,” Olmos added. “The Argentine people really deserve some joy.”
Predictably, that provoked a barrage of criticism.
‘A relief’
And yet Argentines crowd around television screens in droves to watch the team’s matches, whether in bars, homes, even a Buenos Aires ‘fan zone.’
Most of these fans could never dream of affording a ticket to Qatar in a country where the average wage is a meagre 66,500 pesos ($390).
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“People are well aware of the problems” but football and the economic situation “are on parallel paths, they don’t meet,” Lucrecia Presdiger, a 38-year-old hospital worker, told AFP after Argentina’s quarter-final victory over the Netherlands.
“Many people really need this joy and are making the most of it. But they don’t take it literally, they know it’s only football, they are perfectly aware of the problems,” Presdiger said, adding: “You shouldn’t take them for fools.”
For designer Tony Molfese, an Argentina triumph would be “a relief, a breath of fresh air, a joy, even momentary — and we deserve it.”
Olmos drew parallels with Argentina’s first World Cup success in 1978, when the country was run by a military dictatorship.
“We were under dictatorship, persecuted, we didn’t know what tomorrow held, but Argentina became champions and we went out to celebrate in the streets,” she recalled.
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“And then we went back to the reality, which was unrelenting.”
‘Transient and eternal’
Despite the great passions football inspires, it remains just a game, according to writer Ariel Scher.
“Football bestows individual and collective joy, but that joy is transient, it doesn’t eliminate the other problems of existence,” Scher, a university lecturer and football specialist, told AFP.
“It’s like when our child passes an exam: we’re delighted but that doesn’t pay the bills.”
The power of football is that “it gives us the possibility of a happiness that is both transient and eternal,” added Scher.
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“No problems will be resolved or eliminated but at the same time, even briefly, it dazzles us with something that leaves a lasting memory.”
In a November poll, more than three quarters of Argentines said the country’s fortunes at the World Cup would have an effect on people’s morale.
Some 32 percent even said they thought the result would affect the next presidential election in 10 months time.
Political scientist Raul Aragon scoffed at such an idea.
Regardless of what happens in Sunday’s final “the social mood will return to what it was before. And no political force could capitalise on any eventual victory.”
The Pope’s funeral procession through the center of Rome worries the Italian authorities
The complexity of the transfer of Pope Francis’ coffin through the center of Rome, from St. Peter’s Vatican to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will be buried, is the main concern for the Italian authorities, the head of Civil Protection, Fabio Ciciliano, acknowledged on Thursday.
That part of the device, which will take place on Saturday after the funeral, presents important logistical, infrastructure and security challenges, the official admitted at a press conference, in which he also said that the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel before, about 61,000, will increase in the coming hours.
On Saturday, after the funeral, his body will be taken in a vehicle in a solemn passage to the Roman basilica of Santa María La Mayor, to be buried in a chapel, as the Argentine pontiff arranged in life, which will collapse the center of the Italian capital.
“I remember that the burial ceremony will be a private ceremony, while immediately after the faithful will be given the opportunity to reach the side of their holiness, and obviously the sustained concentration of faithful must be taken into great consideration,” said Ciciliano.
The route of this funeral procession, which will extend over six kilometers, will be analyzed today in a meeting by those responsible for the organization, who are carrying out a “complete evaluation”.
Ciciliano focused on the exceptional fact that Francisco’s death has coincided with the Jubilee year, and that this is also a time when Rome is usually full of tourists, so it is difficult to estimate the number of people who will attend to follow the funeral.
Despite warning that parallels cannot be established with the death of John Paul II in 2005, Ciciliano reiterated that “we are estimating around 200,000 people, although we do not know if they will be deployed in St. Peter’s Square or along the funeral procession” to Santa María la Mayor.
Meanwhile, the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel of Pope Francis, which until 1:00 p.m. this Thursday already amounted to 61,000, will rise significantly in the next few hours, until Friday it closes at 19.00 (17.00 GMT) for the ceremony of closing the coffin before the funeral on Saturday, he anticipated.
The person in charge drew attention to the significant drop in temperatures at night, so he called on the faithful to dress like “an onion” to be able to add or remove layers as needed.
Regarding the arrival of new faithful in Rome, he said that there are 260,000 seats available to travel by train, and that on the day of the funeral about 500 buses to the Italian capital are expected to arrive.
“There will be state, commercial and private flights that will arrive at Fiumicino and Ciampino airports. We have also maintained Pratica di Mare as an airfield,” he added.
He also referred to the reception of the hundreds of world leaders and authorities who will be in Rome to attend the funeral, including the president of the United States or the kings of Spain, which he considered “very complex.”
The preparations “are being developed in close collaboration with the Prefecture of Rome for those aspects related to security, since there are elements that overlap,” he said.
This difficulty grows due to the fact that after the funerals most of these leaders will return immediately, but others prefer to stay in the city.
After the funeral, the second phase of the Civil Protection deployment will be activated, which includes the conclave to elect the new pope, when the forecasts point to an even greater number of faithful, which will also coincide with other massive events such as the final of the Soccer Cup on May 14.
A group of the poor and a delegation of migrants will participate in the funeral and burial of the pope on Saturday
A group of poor and needy and a delegation of migrants and rescuers will be present at the funeral and burial of Pope Francis this Saturday, April 26, as a last tribute to the pontiff, who was always close to the most disadvantaged and homeless people.
“A group of poor and needy people will be present on the steps that lead to the Papal Basilica of Santa María la Mayor to pay the last tribute to Pope Francis before the burial of the coffin,” the Vatican reported in a statement on Thursday.
The Arab League supports Hamas handing over control of Gaza and weapons to the Palestinian Authority
The Arab League expressed on Thursday its support for the Hamas Islamist group handing over control of the Gaza Strip to the Government of the Palestinian National Authority (ANPA), of President Mahmud Abbas, who assured that he must be the only one who controls weapons and represents the Palestinians before the international community.
The pan-Arab organization expressed its position on Thursday in a statement issued after the Arab ministerial meeting held on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, coinciding with a claim by Abbas that the ANP assumes political control of Gaza, and that Hamas releases the 59 Israeli hostages it still holds and lay down their arms.
“The Council of the Arab League affirmed its support for President Mahmoud Abbas’ vision regarding the importance of achieving national (Palestinian) unity based on the commitment to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),” the main member of the ANP that governs in small areas of the occupied West Bank, said the statement of the organization composed of 22 states.
In the note, the agency avoided mentioning Hamas by name, although it stressed that the PLO is the “only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, and invited all Palestinian factions to “comply with the political program and international obligations” of the ANP.
He also insisted that the different Palestinian factions “comply with the principle of a (only) system (of government), a law and a legitimate weapon, and allow the Government (of the ANP) to assume the responsibilities of governance in Gaza within the framework of the political and geographical unity of the Palestinian territory occupied (by Israel) in 1967”.
On the other hand, the statement “categorically rejected any form of displacement of the Palestinian people from their land, under any name, circumstance or justification, considering this part of the crime of genocide” against the inhabitants of the strip, where more than 51,000 people died in Israeli attacks since October 2023.
The Arab Foreign Ministers expressed, on the other hand, their support for the conference that France and Saudi Arabia plan to hold next June under the auspices of the UN to support the “two-state solution”, one Palestinian next to the Israeli.
They also showed their support for the Egyptian plan, supported last March by Arab and Islamic countries, for the reconstruction of Gaza, and “urging countries and financial institutions to quickly provide the financial support necessary for its implementation.”
Hamas has controlled Gaza since its militiamen expelled the forces of the ANP Government from the Strip in 2007, controlled by the secular group Fatah, also from Abbas and majority within the PLO.
The enmity between Hamas and Fatah resides, in addition to ideological differences, in the discrepancies that when facing the defense of a Palestinian State, since while Islamists advocate armed struggle and “resistance” against the Israeli occupation, the ANP opts for politics and negotiations.
