Superstitions and football have long had a close relationship. All over the world, fans, players and coaches rely on ritualistic beliefs and habits that supposedly bring good fortune to their teams or misfortune to others.
In South America, superstitions are known as “cábala” and if you’re superstitious you’re considered a “cabalero.” Argentina in particular is a country whose football superstitions are plentiful — and sometimes morbid.
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Last week, Argentina national team manager Lionel Scaloni was asked by a reporter if he was superstitious, a cabalero. Scaloni admitted that he always steps onto a playing surface with his right foot first. “I’ve done it since I began playing football and I’ll never stop doing it,” Scaloni said. “It doesn’t matter what the result of the game is.”
That’s simple enough, right? Start the day off with your best foot forward. Well, not all Argentine soccer superstitions are that inconspicuous.
In 2022, a man took his grandfather’s skull to an Argentinean Copa de la Liga semifinal match between Boca Juniors and Racing de Avellaneda. The deceased was a devout supporter of Racing, so his grandson took his skull to the stadium so that his grandfather could “watch” the match.
“My grandfather, Valentin Aguilera, was a Racing supporter to the death,” said Gabriel Aranda, as he held his grandfather’s skull. “I’ve kept this because Racing is my love and so is (my grandfather). He made me a Racing fan. I take him everywhere I go.”
In 2019, Aranda had removed his grandfather’s skull from his tomb to celebrate Racing’s title that season. At that time, he told reporters that he removes the skull from a burial chamber every time Racing plays, for good luck.
The world champion Argentina national team doesn’t go to such extremes, though there are a number of superstitions that Lionel Messi and his teammates have maintained since 2021. That year, Argentina broke a 28-year hex by winning the Copa America over arch-rivals Brazil. On the day of the final at the Estadio Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, Argentina Football Association (AFA) president Claudio Tapia was pictured alongside Messi and Argentina midfielder Rodrigo De Paul. Argentina would defeat hosts Brazil 1-0 and a tradition was born.
Tapia, Messi and De Paul posed together again before the Finalissima against Italy in June 2022. Argentina won that game, too. On the eve of the 2022 World Cup final against France, the trio repeated the photo. It was now officially cábala. Before Argentina’s 2024 Copa America debut on June 20, Tapia posted a photo of himself on Instagram seated with Messi and De Paul at the team hotel in downtown Atlanta. The hashtag read “Together Again.”
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De Paul is a central figure in another Argentina national team superstition, too. At the 2021 Copa America, De Paul and fellow midfielders Leandro Paredes and Alejandro ‘Papu’ Gomez began eating caramel candies at the start of the quarterfinals. As Argentina progressed, the sweets became an important part of Argentina’s pre-game ritual.
Argentina may be one of the most superstitious national teams in world football.
Here’s one pregame ritual that began at the 2021 Copa America: Rodrigo De Paul and Leandro Paredes eat caramel candy and scout the playing surface before kickoff. pic.twitter.com/FfLR9XYlik
— Felipe Cárdenas (@FelipeCar) June 25, 2024
Notably, that Copa America in Brazil was marred by health and safety concerns. The Covid-19 virus was still ravaging the continent. The tournament was played behind closed doors and Argentina had decided to set up camp in Buenos Aires and travel to Brazil on match days. Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez had a stash of caramel candies that he began to share with the team. Eventually, Argentina staffers were able to purchase a bulk order of the candies for the players.
Before the pre-match warm-ups and prior to the national anthems, De Paul and Paredes would walk onto the pitch in their national team polo shirts and eat candy. In Qatar, Martinez had his brother send him another large order of caramel candies to keep the tradition alive in the Middle East. Misfortune followed, however, when Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia.
But a shock defeat to open the tournament didn’t deter the players from continuing with their superstition, and they went on to win the World Cup.
Last week, before Argentina’s Copa America opener against Canada, Paredes and De Paul walked onto the Mercedes-Benz Stadium pitch in Atlanta, their cheeks bulging with candy. Argentina defeated Canada 2-0 on the night.
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“No matter what, we have to walk onto the pitch before (kickoff) to eat caramel candy,” De Paul told Argentine broadcaster TyC Sports earlier this month. “Everyone knows about the caramel candy and that for me is the most important (superstition). There are many that we can’t talk about.”
Another superstition involving Tapia has a sinister feel to it. In a photo posted on his Instagram account on June 16, Tapia was seated with three members of Argentina’s staff and midfielder Exequiel Palacios inside a hotel room at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in downtown Atlanta. Seated on the bed in the background of the photo was a Chucky doll, the star of the horror anthology Child’s Play, which has been traveling with Argentina’s national team since the 2021 Copa America.
Tapia told AFA Studio after the World Cup final against France that he was initially concerned about the presence of that doll inside the team’s dressing room. “I walked into the equipment room and saw the doll,” said Tapia. “It was missing an arm and a leg…I asked who had brought it. That doll brings bad luck.”
Silence followed. Finally Juan Cruz, one of Argentina’s kit men, spoke up and said that his son, whose nickname is Chucky, had given him the doll before the start of the Copa America in Brazil. “That doll brings good luck,” Cruz told Tapia, who then dared the staffers to get Chucky tattoos if Argentina won the title.
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A trip to the tattoo parlor followed and since then, Chucky has been a mainstay with the team. After Argentina defeated Italy in London in the inaugural Finalissima match, an Argentina player’s Instagram live feed captured the doll seated next to a bottle of champagne. Alex Vincent, who portrayed the young Andy Barclay in Child’s Play (1988) and Child’s Play 2 (1990), shared a screenshot of the doll and wrote “Congratulations Argentina! They sure know how to celebrate!”
Messi has been involved in a few superstitious rituals, too.
As Argentina prepared for the 2022 World Cup, Messi and De Paul became close friends. The two would drink maté together at exactly 9.30am inside Messi’s hotel room. Messi is a creature of habit, so when De Paul arrived one morning at 10, he was greeted with a scowl from his captain.
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“It wasn’t 9.15, 9.20 or 10 minutes before 10 in the morning,” De Paul told AFA Studio in 2022. “One day I slept in and arrived at 10. You should’ve seen (Messi’s) face.”
At the World Cup in Qatar, Messi called in reinforcements to ease his own anxieties before the final against France. His longtime international strike partner and roommate Sergio Aguero’s playing career had ended shortly before the tournament, but Aguero was still a big part of the Argentina delegation in Doha. The night before the final, Messi asked Aguero to sleep in his room at Qatar University for good luck.
You know what happened next.
(Top photo: Gustavo Pagano/Getty Images)
