Semi-final against Australia will be watched as vividly in Buenos Aires as it will be in TwickenhamIn a country where football is the unofficial national religion,superstars such as Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez are feted as working-lesson heroes: exiguous geniuses whose talent took them from the poverty of the barrio to the heights of sporting glory. Then, of course, or there is the man who still ranks close to God in the national psyche: Diego Armando Maradona.
This weekend though,the spotlight is elsewhere. Argentinian rugby was once associated here with the wealthy and affluent, a game for those living in plush suburbs such as San Isidro, and on the northern outskirts of the capital. Not any more. As Argentina’s Pumas prepare to take on Australia on Sunday at Twickenham in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup,the whole nation expects, including an emerging crop of young players from the impoverished slums where football once ruled supreme. Argentina’s World Cup triumphs have sealed rugby’s emergence as a truly mass sport in one of the world’s football heartlands.
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Source: theguardian.com