How soccer has helped shape national identities in England and Argentina

July 14 : The clash between Argentina and England in the soccer World Cup semi-final on Wednesday is freighted with history and rivalry, but also represents an interesting contrast of evolving national identities and how they play out on a global stage.

England, once the epitome of a team that stuck to ideas of nationhood defined by their supposed superiority to others — having invented the game, they declined to take part in the first three World Cups — now has a more inclusive approach, reflecting the country's increasing diversity and multicultural make-up. 

Argentina's sense of national identity, by contrast, remains rooted in an origin myth from the 1920s, which in many ways was set up in direct opposition to the English, cultural historians say.

In the decades after Britain introduced soccer to Argentina, the idea of developing a style of play and sense of identity radically different to the English one was strongly encouraged by Argentina's first sports journalists, according to Pablo Alabarces, a professor of popular culture at the University of Buenos Aires.

An influential article in 1928 by the editor of El Grafico, known as Borocoto, described what a statue of an Argentine footballer would look like.

It describes him as "short, malnourished, a shock of dark hair, his teeth worn down by eating yesterday’s bread ... a picaresque smile on his lips," said Jonathan Wilson, author of "Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina." "If you gave that description to somebody now, without any context, what would they say? It’s (Diego) Maradona. But this was 32 years before Maradona was born."

The 1920s origin myth of Argentine football, defined by this character, popularly referred to as a "pibe," and his