Argentines go into World Cup with atypical mood: tempered hopes

BUENOS AIRES, June 4 : Felipe Mujica is heading into this month's soccer World Cup feeling less anxious than usual.

Mujica, a 39-year-old architect in Buenos Aires, typically watches World Cup matches yelling and swearing, getting so tense that "frankly, it's not good to be near me," he admitted.

But this time around, Argentina is defending its 2022 Qatar title, the pressure is off and he may actually enjoy watching the games, he said.

"We were waiting for 30 years to get another World Cup and after winning it the expectations are lower," he said. "I don't want to say it doesn't matter, as we get closer to the date it matters more, but we have a different kind of calm."

In three-time World Cup winner Argentina, soccer fever is unusually tempered less than two weeks before the 2026 World Cup kicks off in North America. While billboard advertisements featuring Argentine football hero Lionel Messi and the national squad are plastered across Buenos Aires, the temperature is less feverish than in 2022.

Then, "Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar" (Boys, We Are Now Going to Dream Again), a song that evoked Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, became the country's much-sung World Cup anthem.

The pressure was so high then because it was widely seen as Argentina's last chance to win a World Cup under the leadership of Messi, whose intelligence on the field and dribbling prowess made him the dominant global football player of his generation.

In December 2022, Buenos Aires came to a halt as several million Argentines filled highways, overpasses and the streets in the euphoria that followed Argentina's victory in Qatar, its first since Maradona led the team in 1986. 

"No one expects that to be exceeded," said Diego Murzi, an Argentine