Football: Old Cup rivalries get loud and insulting

Argentina fans were good-natured for their team's match against Nigeria in Porto Alegre though authorities were taking precautions. Photo / AP

The video circulating around a gleeful Argentina has not been lost on the long-suffering Brazilians, just across the eastern border. It depicts Sergio Aguero and Gonzalo Higuain dancing around their World Cup training base with Argentinian fans, singing the new tune on the country's lips.

Brasil, decime que se siente, tener en su casa a tu papa - Brazil, tell me how it feels, to be bossed about in your own back yard - begins the song, which develops into a musical excursion around the events of the Italy World Cup in 1990, when a relatively weak Argentina side blessed with Diego Maradona beat the Brazilians 1-0 in a round-of-16 match which they entered without a prayer in Turin.

"Even when years go by" continues the lyric being sung by Argentines from the hills of Belo Horizonte to the Metro system in Buenos Aires, "we will never forget that El Diego 'did' you ... You've been crying ever since Italy up until today. You're going to see Messi. We're going to bring the Cup home. Maradona is better; greater than Pele ... " And if that manifestation of the brash, noisy South American neighbour wasn't enough, the Argentines were yesterday swarming over the Brazilian border in what must be one of the great sporting mobilisations of all time. A total of 100,000 Argentines were expected in Porto Alegre today at the only World Cup venue reachable by road from their country, where Lionel Messi and teammates needed a point to top their group and book a second-round appointment with Ecuador or Switzerland.

Then there was the question of accommodation. A campsite was thrown together at the Parque Maminia - the location usually reserved for the annual celebration of how this region of Rio Grande do Sul once fought for independence from Brazil.

But the invasion has also sharpened Brazilian thoughts about Argentina, which they would rather have kept out of mind until next month, given that the two titans of South America cannot meet each other in this competition before its final.

"They are a superior and boastful people," said Adrian Boas, a Brazilian, of the Argentines.

"Forgive the discourtesy but I believe that that is because there are English roots to their culture. They are uncontrollable when they come here, too. They drive their cars so fast that our police cannot stop them."

These insults have been raining in for days. The Brazilian media characterises the fight in straightforward terms - Messi v Neymar, Maradona v Pele - though it is actually far more complicated and interesting than that. The Brazilians might consider the Argentines to have all the qualities of a wasp but Alex Bellos, author of Futebol, subscribes to the view that Brazilians are not all that interested in that nation. They look to Miami and Paris, rather than Buenos Aires. Argentina have a narrower perspective. They just want to put one over on their neighbours.

The picture is even more complicated here in the southerly Rio Grande do Sul, which in some ways is Argentinian by any other name.

The region shares with Argentina and Uruguay some of the same vast grasslands which gave birth to the gaucho cowboy.

The gaucho, most commonly associated with Argentina, is the local symbol, just like theirs. The players of this colder, harsher corner of the vast Brazilian nation are even known as "gaucho" players - Ronaldinho was Ronaldinho Gaucho when he played at Gremio. Brazilians love a gaucho in their team because it is thought they are tougher, run harder and with more heart and passion than those from the heart of Brazil.

Messi creates another layer of complication. Brazilians just can't abhor him like they did Maradona, because they feel he has a touch of Brazilian about him.

But the subtleties tend to get cast aside in a World Cup. Neither nation has grounds for supreme confidence because both remain heavily dependent on their single star commodity.

The arguments will run and run until one of the teams drops away from this tournament, or else the two collide in the Maracana on July 13. For now, the Argentines are making the most of what is their most emphatic annexation since Goose Green.

The World Cup-winning teams from 1978 and 1986 were also expected in the stadium here today, having joined in the mass exodus.