FOOTBALL

LATIN AMERICA

Appearance of football in Latin America :

19th century : Football came to South America through the port of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where European sailors played the game. Early on, only an elite few enjoyed the game, but eventually the masses would adopt it and make it their own, more often than not through the establishment of local clubs that reflected regional and social identities.

1867 : - Members of the British community there formed the first club, the Buenos Aires Football Club (FC)

- in about the same time, British railway workers started another club, in the town of Rosario, Argentina.

1893 : first Argentinian league championship played. Most of the players belonged to the British community, a pattern that continued until the early 20th century.

1894 : Brazil is believed to be the second South American country where the game was established. Charles Miller, a leading player in England, came to Brazil in and introduced football in São Paulo; that city’s athletic club was the first to take up the sport. Brazil is the only country in the world that has won the FIFA World Cup five times: in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and in 2002.

1889 : In Chile, British sailors initiated play in Valparaíso, establishing the Valparaíso FC.

1891 : In Uruguay, British railway workers were the first to play, and in they founded the Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club (now the famous Peñarol), which played both cricket and football.

1902 : In Paraguay, Dutchman William Paats introduced the game at a school where he taught physical education, but the country’s first (and still leading) club, Olimpia, was formed by a local man who became enthusiastic after seeing the game in Buenos Aires.

1903 : In Colombia, British engineers and workers building a railroad near Barranquilla first played football.

The Barranquilla FBC was founded in 1909.

Argentina before playing its first official match ever, v. Uruguay, on July 20, 1902. This is also the first photo recorded of an Argentina national team

An Argentina line-up of 1908, using the light blue and white jersey for the first time

Soon local people across South America began taking up and following the sport in ever greater numbers. Boys, mostly from poorer backgrounds, played from an early age, with passion, on vacant land and streets. Clubs and players gained popularity, and professionalism entered the sport in most countries around the 1930s.

Many players had been paid secretly before then by their clubs. The exodus of South American players to European clubs that paid higher salaries began after the 1930 World Cup and has steadily increased.

Children playing football in the street, 1940

Inscription in the popular culture :

By the late 1930s, football had become a crucial aspect of popular culture in many South American nations; ethnic and national identities were constructed and played out on an increasingly international stage.

Football’s simplicity, its power to captivate and its universal allure have been the primary reasons why it has reached the size it has, and why, at various times of its existence, it had gained significance as a political force, put to use by political actors.

In South American nations, nonwhite players fought a successful struggle to play at the top level.

In Rio de Janeiro, Vasco da Gama was the first club, in 1923, to recruit Black players and promptly stormed to the league championship, encouraging other clubs to follow suit.

In 1916, South American countries were the first to hold a regular continental championship, later known as the Copa América.

In 1960 the South American club championship (Libertadores Cup) was started; it has been played annually by the continent’s leading clubs (with the winner playing the European club champion), and, as a result of its popularity, various other international competitions have also been held between clubs. Domestic league championships are split into two or more tournaments each season with frequent variations in format.

Women in football in Latin America

Latin America still has a long way to go. In FIFA’s list of top 50 female national soccer teams, Brazil places 10th — below the U.S and Japan —, while Mexico and Colombia both place 26th — after Ukraine and Iceland. Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay follow the former, on the bottom of the ranking of female soccer players.

As for football, Rugby was brought to Argentina by the British.

To this day, there’s animosity between Buenos Aires and the provinces. Everyone wants to beat the big city. Cordoba and Tucumán became powerhouses, especially Tucumán. This is remarkable, as it is a very small and rather poor province. But whoever plays Tucumán should be prepared to go to war. Players from the country and players from Buenos Aires are considered as two separate groups.

Interestingly, rugby is not seen as a totally elite sport there, it is just more popular, though it has nothing compared to football. It is still mostly amateur, as many of the top Argentine players cross the Atlantic to play their club rugby in Europe.

Onzari's olympic goal against Uruguay in 1924

CAPITANES_libertadores_interior4.jpg_115

1960, the South American club championship

ARGENTINA

At the international level, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay stand out as the most valuable teams in Latin America.

Having won the World Cup twice, Argentina stand out in the region. Argentina got the 11th position in the world ranking of men's national soccer teams in 2019, after a remarkable performance in the mid-2010s.

Argentina, Boca Juniors tops the market value ranking, closely followed by its nemesis, the River Plate.

Since its arrival, football developed in a number of British schools established in Argentina, spreading rapidly throughout the country from there. Clubs formed as offshoots of these schools, many featuring English-language names (Newell’s Old Boys, Banfield) that still persist today.

But of these early clubs, none have had quite the success of River Plate and Boca Juniors. These two teams have won a combined 56 Argentine club titles, nearly half of all national titles, and battle for the label of best team in Buenos Aires.

Both had origins in the poor La Boca district of the city, but when River moved north to the Nunez neighborhood in 1923, the followings of these two teams diverged. River Plate became the team representing more affluent classes of Buenos Aires, while Boca Juniors remained the team of the people poorer.

Still today, the rivalry persists as one of the most intense in the world of professional football.

Since the start of the professional football era, Argentina and its players have long played an important role in world football.

One of Argentina’s early top exports to Europe was Alfredo di Stefano.

The Argentinean national team’s success on the international soccer stage was limited after its runner-up showing to neighboring Uruguay in 1930 World Cup, the country soon began to assert itself politically as one of South America’s most progressive nations.

The 1946 election of General Juan Peron ushered in a new, socialist-influenced political climate in Argentina. During his tenure as head of state, living and working conditions in the country improved significantly.

Football meant for Peron’s supporters to rally, with spontaneous chants often breaking out at Boca Juniors games of “Boca, Peron, una corazon” as a sign of the President’s immense popularity amongst the working class supporters of Boca.

But in the midst of the political turmoil, Argentina was gearing up for an event of global proportions – the FIFA World Cup in 1978. The Videla junta led massive efforts to “prepare” for the Cup by ramping up measures eliminating all signs of political dissent. One of the most visible signs of dissent came from a group of concerned mothers. Called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, parents of disappeared political dissidents gave a public face to the atrocities of the junta. Every day at three o’clock in May leading up to the start of the Cup, the mothers would go to the Plaza de Mayo to protest — only to have the police waiting for them to arrive.

Argentina won the 1978 FIFA World Cup. The win was exploited by the junta to the greatest possible extent. For them the victory articulated the excellence of the nation and the importance of staying together, like the national team, against all kinds of enemy.Football was defined as a privileged arena as far as patriotism was concerned. Videla proclaimed four days after the final that the ‘triumph was obtained with capacity, courage and discipline,’ and not, as Argentine national coach stated, with ‘technical ability.

10 percent of the national budget was allocated to the 1978 World Cup.

After this government Argentina came back to democracy. Argentina claimed the 1986 World Cup title, its second all-time. Winning the 1986 World Cup finally meant a win for all of unified Argentina, a win not clouded by the disturbing politics of a military junta.

Until today Argentina has participated 17 times in the World Cup.

1960, the South American club championship

In 1945 River won a league title and the Copa Aldao.

Daniel Passarella

BUENOS AIRES

Football is the most popular sport, both in terms of participants and spectators, in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is home to multiple football clubs in the top tiers of the Argentine football league system