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After using the ‘Who should I cheer for’ website to compare Argentina and Nigeria, I was struck by the many compelling reasons to cheer for Nigeria in this match. For example, the average Nigerian is thirteen times poorer than the average Argentine and as such Nigeria is definitely the underdog in the match. While Nigerian’s emit nearly 75 per cent less CO2 per person, and the country spends less on its military and has more women in government.

However, the whole concept behind ‘Who should I cheer for’ is to get people thinking differently and not just conforming to their normal national ties and prejudices. Being English, not supporting Argentina would seem a little too much like conformity. After all the English enjoy hating Argentina (along with Germany) almost as much as they love supporting England. This national dislike of Argentine football teams is a mixture of geo politics and footballing grievances. First, came the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, when both Thatcher and the Argentine Junta used the blood and bodies of their countries’ youth to whip up support for their deeply unpopular domestic policies; the ensuing state violence left 258 British and 649 Argentines dead. And then if war wasn’t enough, to top it off, this was followed just four years later by the infamous Maradona ‘hand of God’ incident during Argentina’s 2-1 victory over England in the World Cup quarter final. To say nothing of David Beckham’s red card in the second round of the 1998 World Cup.

So to avoid bowing to conformity, I will be cheering for Argentina in solidarity with the workers of occupied cooperatives.

In the wake of the 2001 IMF sponsored economic meltdown, millions were left jobless and had their savings wiped out. Meanwhile, the rich who had benefited from the IMF economic policies upped and left the country taking their savings with them and leaving the country to fend for itself. But the people who had been locked out of their bankrupted workplaces chose not to stand idly by. They refused to allow their livelihoods be sold off to the highest bidder to satisfy the profits of foreign banks. Instead they broke in to their old workplaces; armed only with sleeping bags and simply refused to leave, defying the banks, their former bosses, the police and judges. Around 200 factories, bankrupt and abandoned by their owners, were taken over by their workers and turned into co-ops. And the workers began to produce goods for the community – providing both much needed work and goods. From tractor plants to supermarkets, printing houses to aluminium factories and pizza parlours, decisions about company policy were made in open assemblies and the profits split equally among the workers, they turned former exploitive sweatshops into a real alternative to private corporations.

In the wake of our own economic collapse and under threat of devastating public sector cuts and mass unemployment, it’s time for the English to look past their differences with Argentina and learn from Argentine workers. The millionaires that make up Argentina’s national team must also learn from the occupied factories and start playing as a collective like the workers of the cooperatives do; if they are to progress in the World Cup.

Posted in: Argentina, Argentina-Nigeria, Matches, Nigeria, Teams

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.