Steven Petrov
The Paw Print
The country’s history within the World Cup competition dates back to the year of 1930, when the 1st World Cup was held in their neighboring country, Uruguay. Finishing 2nd in the tournament, by only losing to the hosts Uruguay at the final with 2:4, “La Albiceleste” gave a great start to what it would eventually turn out to be great World Cup performance throughout the years. The team has won the Mundial twice in 1978 as a host and in 1986 in Mexico. Argentina has always been a major presence in the World Cup throughout the years – lost two finals (1930 and 1990) and has placed in the Top 5 teams in 6 out of the 15 times it has qualified for the tournament. The countries in South America have a couple of other important and major international competitions that they have been actively participating in the past century, like South American Championship, Copa America, Pan American games, and the Summer Olympics. When looking into “La Albiceleste’s” results and trophies from these competitions throughout the years we would be able to draw a more conclusive explanation about their success rate, tournament experience, as well as all other special and individual trends and characteristics that they have been showing throughout the years.
The South American championship, which is now known as Copa America, started in 1916 as Argentina being the first country to host the tournament. For these 51 years (1916-1967) of the South American championship’s existence, “La Albiceleste” was the one team that really stood out with the consistency and quality of its performance, winning 12 titles and 10 second-places. Even though the team has not been as successful in Copa America, it have still managed to win the trophy twice and to finish 2nd twice for the 36 years that the tournament has been around (1975-2011). Another international, South American competition that Argentina has been regularly participating in is the “Pan American Games”, which had started in 1951 and have been held every 4 years ever since then. “La Albiceleste” has won 6 Pan American trophies as well as being a runner up twice throughout the years. These two continental competitions as well as the World Cup and the Summer Olympics, have shown us throughout the years that Argentina can play a major international tournament almost every year, and still be performing at the highest level.
The country’s World Cup experience is fairly large, qualifying for 15 out of the 19 tournaments that have been held and reaching at least the quarter finals for 8/15 times. However, the country’s reign was in 1978 and 1986. In both cases something identical happened – one phenomenal player led his great teammates to the title. In Argentina 1978 World Cup the hosts were led by their star – Mario Kempes. At the age of 23 the talented striker, who was playing for CF Valencia at that time, scored 6 goals and went on not only to win the World Cup, but also win the top goal scorer and the best player of the tournament awards. “La Albiceleste” beat the Netherlands at the final with 3:1 after an extra time period, and by that winning its 1st World Cup trophy. What happened 8 years later in Mexico 1986 World Cup was very similar. The all-time best number “10” for Argentina, Diego Maradona led his country to the trophy, by also winning the best player of the tournament award. At the age of 25, Napoli’s midfielder and captain of “La Albiceleste” was outstanding throughout the whole tournament and almost single-handedly brought the trophy back to Argentina.
Even though the team has not achieved much success in the World Cup competition ever since 1986, “La Albiceleste” tends to need someone truly special as a player to lead them forward to the trophy and Lionel Messi is as special as it can get. The 4-time Ballon D’or winner has been widely criticized for his underperformance with the national team. At a club level Messi’s been definitely one of the best players in the world in the last 4-5 years, but he somehow finds it difficult to deliver the same results when playing for his country. When you have 225 goals in 250 games for FC Barcelona, it’s hard for people to accept as normal scoring only 37 goals in 83 appearances with the national team. The phenomenal talent of Lionel Messi will have the chance to make up for the “underperformance” so far as a national player, next summer in Brazil. Now being 26 years old, Leo has more than enough experience and confidence to be that special player who “La Albiceleste” truly needs.
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