ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some ideas about one masculine team sport, football, in the context of the modernization of Argentina and how this sport is involved in the formation of national identity. It argues that the nation is an ‘imagined political community’ in the sense that its members share a sovereign boundary and have a strong feeling of communion. For Argentinian national football, the ‘foundation myth’, is located in the 1920s, and is associated with the following aspects: the cult of ‘dribbling’; the appearance of ‘pairs’ in a team; and the crystallization of a style defined as elegant, skillful, cheeky and lively. Football as a cultural bond had considerable force in Argentinian society when immigration was so dominant. Argentinians were not born Argentinians; their nationality needed to be invented. Argentinians demonstrated that it was possible to play and to win with less continuity and physical strength than many European teams.
