00:00Why does Argentina play like this? And again, it's one for psychoanalysts, of which Argentina has many. It's famous for
00:08them. But I think I would highlight two things there.
00:13One is many Argentines, and you see this in their politics, assume that you have a hidden agenda, because they
00:23have often. And they're quite kind of surprised if you don't have, or they don't believe that you can't have.
00:31And so they assume that the opposition will employ dirty tricks, right?
00:36I think there's also quite a lot of an Italian legacy there. I mean, in the 1960s and the 1970s,
00:44Italy used to play rather as Argentina does now. You raise an interesting point that the stakes are almost too
00:54high.
00:55That the sense of needing to avoid failure at all costs. What I've seen, there's been almost no self-criticism
01:05of the team's behavior, both during the play and after the final whistle and the brawl you referred to.
01:15I mean, one somehow doubts that this FIFA will impose any severe sanctions on them, either for the post-match
01:26punch-up or for the banner on the Malvinas, the Falklands.
01:33I mean, you know, there's a right to freedom of expression. I obviously respect the point of view of many
01:39Argentines on the islands. But on the other hand, I think FIFA is right that if you start allowing political
01:47expressions, then where do you stop?
01:49I think there's no doubt there has been a decline. And it's right that football is even more important, perhaps,
01:56in Latin America than it is in Europe, important though it is here.
02:00I think, I mean, you can measure that by the fact that in this World Cup and the previous one,
02:08only one Latin American team made it to the last eight, whereas before that it was two.
02:15And I think that's probably the best measure of kind of strength in depth, as it were.
02:20But I think it really behoves Latin Americans to look hard at their domestic leagues. There's a lot of corruption
02:27in the management of football in Latin America.
02:31And really, I think the societies should push for better organized and cleaner national leagues, which might help to attract
02:43players who nowadays go to Europe to stay at home, particularly if they're paid reasonably well.
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