Fútbol y Patria: el fútbol y (la invención de) las narrativas nacionales en la Argentina del siglo XX

Abstract

My presentation synthesizes the research that lead to my book Fútbol y Patria. In it, I traced and analyzed the relationships between the discourses linked to football (in journalism but also in the movies, the television and the fictional narratives) and the arguments about the nation through 20th Century, in an arch that began in the moment of the invention of the "creole football" (the 20s, contemporarily to the nationalist texts of the official intelectuals such as Lugones or Rojas) and ended with the World Championship 2002, also contemporary to the argentine crisis in December 2001. All along the century these relationships changed: from the subaltern complementarity of the football narratives in the 20s, to the centrality that acquired during the "Maradonian cicle" (1978-1994), the possibilities were varied and turned to be the central object of my analysis. My hypothesis is that in politicaly strong moments the debate about "the national", the centrality of football narratives decreases, until being transformed into pure mediatic merchandise (or supposed argumento to sell more). But, in the moments of crisis of the modern identity narratives, the importance of the footbalistic narratives increases significantly, exceeding even the male world from where they are spread.