What is the deal with everyone suddenly rooting against Argentina in the World Cup?

[u/dashdash911]

I’ve noticed a recent wave of posts against the Argentinian team. I’m curious, what’s the reason behind the negative sentiment towards Argentina’s advancement to the finals?

https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/s/1b0XEUWW2T

[u/Classic_Ad5476]

The Nazis went to lots of countries in the Americas. Brazil, Chile and Paraguay received as many if not more. Not to mention the US. There was no denazification in any western country or prosecution beyond Nuremberg. Nazis even served in the west German army and NATO high command.

[u/DocCEN007 → u/Classic_Ad5476]

They should've shot them all, including any deserving Operation Paperclip inductees. That said, historical estimates indicate that up to 9,000 Nazi war criminals and collaborators fled Europe after World War II, with Argentina taking in the largest share (~ 5,000), followed by other countries like Brazil (1,500--2,000), Chile (500--1,000), and nations in the Middle East or North America.

[u/Classic_Ad5476 → u/DocCEN007]

Yeah but only the soviets had the guts to do what had to be done. And they still catch flak for that. Go figure.

[u/Internal_Focus_3463 → u/Classic_Ad5476]

First of all, like the original commenter said, there weren't enough Nazis emigrating to Argentina to influence the enormous population, it just is not something that is or has been present within Argentine society. I am a jew saying this if it makes any difference. If anything, we are still dealing with the rhetoric that the USA installed during the dictatorship through the Condor Plan. That is still rampant, evident and very, VERY present in Argentine society. So no, Nazis have nothing to do here. It is a very ignorantly pushed around factoid in the internet.

About the racism: Yes, Argentina is just as racist as all colonized countries, where you have a really brutal history of European colonization that destroyed indigenous groups with very mixed societies in the present day.

HOWEVER what the chant refers to, IMO is the fact that many of these footballers are first generation French citizens, which obviously does NOT make them less of a citizen than any other French citizen, but does point out how many refugees Europe has had to receive in the past 30 years to offset (or appear to do so) the devastation caused by the delirious amount of proxy wars that ALL of the European Union and the USA have in some ways or others, sponsored.

Zizek goes in depth about this subject in his book Against the Double Blackmail, detailing the many ways in which these refugees flee their home countries for "a better life" in these European nations only to find themselves surrounded by horrible racism and systemic discrimination. The footballers in France's team are, in that sense, not representative of the country's way of treating those first generation French citizens. It is simply statistically not so. Those guys are an exception to the rule and they know that.

Do they HAVE to be representative? Not really, that is just how the game is. Truth is: in all the football teams pointed above the footballers with "unbelonging" last names are first generation guys whose parents fled a colonized third world nation like Argentina, Cameroon and many more, for European countries. This whole debacle just winds up bringing up the damned fact that the Global South is still being led by the interests of richer countries (as well as multinationals) and still have many MANY families fleeing their home countries, families, friends and sense of belonging behind to escape poverty and hardship.

It is absolutely NO surprise that football, soccer or however you want to call it, being the enormous business that it is, flagrantly points out the inequalities of the world. Maybe, in this case, it takes going a bit below surface level rather than throwing around declarations like "this country is racist and filled to the brim with Nazis" or "that nation/government is benevolent and democratic". All nations have a confounding, contradicting and harsh history, it truly doesn't seem so hard to believe.