December 2022: In South America, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro storm Brazilian government buildings. (Image: AFP/File)

Adages don’t come more prosaic than “football is a game of two halves”. But there is profoundness in the anodyne. Just ask Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, our two stalwarts at the FIFA World Cup final in 2022 in Lusail, Qatar. Argentina and France squared off, each with the divine right to add a third star to their sacred crest. La Albiceleste and Messi on the scoresheet in the first half, a rampant 2-0 and all set to take the Jules Rimet trophy to the Americas.

And then, Kylian Mbappe, widely touted to be the greatest since Pele, having already won the last World Cup in his teens, had something to say. Another two goals were scored in this half, except by Les Bleu, and 2-2 it was. Extra Time followed the same script, a goal on each side, 3-3, and then penalties.

For a while, it looked like Kylian Mbappe, would have two World Cup titles at the age of 23, a feat achieved by the great Pele. But in one fell swoop, both Messi and Mbappe can empathise – as they both have the experience of a World Cup Final won and lost.

The continent of South America, that’s added riches to the world of football, ten World Cups between Brazil (5), Uruguay (2), and now Argentina (3). But Brazil and Argentina, archrivals on the football pitch, experienced two different sets of overwhelming emotions in December.

For Argentina, three Ms are sacrosanct and enmeshed in the identity – Maradona, Messi, and the Malvinas, better known as the Falkland Islands. So central, it is to Argentine identity, that Diego Maradona’s two goals against England in the 1986 World Cup, one devilish and the other divine meant more to Argentina than it ever would, as it came after the South Americans lost a bloody battle in the Falklands, that till this date, has soured Anglo-Argentine relations.

Don’t have to take my written word for it, the unofficial anthem for Argentine fans during the 2022 World Cup, Muchachos, had the starting lyrics, "En Argentina nací, tierra de Diego y Lionel, de los pibes de Malvinas que jamás olvidaré,” which translates to "In Argentina, I was born, land of Diego and Lionel, I'll never forget the young men of the Falkland Islands”.

Messi wasn’t even born when Argentina last won the World Cup in 1986, which had Diego Maradona’s signature all over it. But last month, it was Maradona who looked down from the skies, as the Argentine sun on the flag, draped all over Lusail stadium, for the star on the ground in Lionel Messi reached his own heaven, his zenith attained, the prodigal son to every Argentine, had answered the burning question, “can he”?

A poignant moment for every Argentinian as they realised they had it wrong all along. It wasn’t Messi who owed them a World Cup, it was them, the team, and the country who had to win the World Cup for Messi. The profound thing about the FIFA World Cup is that Argentina and Qatar have little in common and are as distant by culture as far as they are by geography. But I’ll be darned if you can find an Argentine who can daresay that Doha now is not a special place in their hearts.

Euphoria and Despair

In Argentina, it’s both Messi and messy. The former is a synonym for football and brilliance and the latter for the political and economic quagmire surrounding Buenos Aires. The country, once the economic miracle of South America is now reeling under high inflation, escalating poverty, currency fluctuations, and political upheaval. It comes as little surprise that Argentina is the biggest debtor to the IMF.

The win won’t mitigate the economic morass, but it is a soothing balm and an assuaging calm in the volcanic ash of economic despondency. There is respite in knowing that Argentina is the numero uno until 2026.

Argentina’s closest neighbour and fiercest rival Brazil are having their own conundrum. In late 2022, Brazil went to the polls, and the far-right conservative incumbent Jair Bolsonaro lost to former President, the leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula).

Bolsonaro, the former military man turned politician had styled himself on a la Trump-style approach, calling himself the Trump of the tropics. His supporters would prove the nomenclature eerily accurate as they stormed the seat of the federal government, and ransacked the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace, citing the elections had been stolen. If the January 6, 2021 insurrection were a movie script, then Trump would be suing Bolsonaro for plagiarism and copyright violation.

Brazil was hurting on two other counts. The Selecao (the football team), widely touted as one of the favourites to win the tournament were dumped out at the hands of another European nation, unable to break the quarter-final hoodoo in the last four of the five editions. Just like one last chance, one final dance for Messi, for Brazil, the most successful side in this format, would have wanted to win it for Pele, then watching on with ailing and failing health.

Pele, departed on December 30, 2022, leaving a void in Brazil and the world. The debate between Pele and Maradona on the football pitch has no clear winner, it depends on whom you ask, and what generation they hail from. But unlike Maradona, Pele had no character credentials challenged. He was held in high esteem as a regal, humble, affable soul. Pele wasn’t a diplomat, but he grew to be the sport’s finest ambassador. Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, his meteoric rise from barefoot poverty to epitomising greatness had captured the global imagination like few could. His feet achieved the feat of having won three World Cups, an honour held by no one else. Messi will attest to how hard it was to win one.

But it wasn’t just his athletic prowess, it was the time in the way he rose and when he rose. I visited the Afro-Brazilian museum in Sao Paulo in 2019. Brazil was the last country to formally abolish slavery and had its own insidious history of indentured labourers and slavery with 4 million blacks that were shipped from Africa.

One such descendant was Pele. His meteoric rise in the 1960s was at a tumultuous time in the world. As America celebrates Martin Luther King Day on January 16, a reminder of how the Black population had to fight for respect, universal suffrage, and civil rights. Pele reached the highest echelons at the same time as empires fell, colonies were free, and egalitarianism in society for non-white people was starting to become a practice.

Brazil today is a multi-racial society and despite a colourful canvas of diversity, it is far from utopia. However, many would say they have Pele to thank. An athlete who transcended the sport, added colour to lives, at a time when skin colour mattered, and brought colour into your homes, when viewers saw the 1970 World Cup, the first in colour, as Pele lifted the coveted trophy at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City.

There is little reason why states like Kerala and West Bengal in a country like India,

with no international football pedigree, should be bleeding for Pele and Maradona and the Selecao and La Albiceleste. There is no Spanish/Portuguese linguist affinity or cultural identity with a continent that far off. But the reality is that Pele and Maradona were ambassadors for the Global South. Born in relative penury, they rose to the fame of popes and princes and in Pele’s case, remained as humble as a pauper.

Pele joins his football icon Maradona in the skies. They said they will play in heaven.

Pele may now even be able to shake “The Hand of God”.

I’ll leave the interpretation to you.

Akshobh Giridharadas is a Washington DC-based former journalist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.  Pele,