𝗔𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗮, 𝗜𝘁𝗮𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲

Many of my friends — mainly Barca supporters and Messi fanboys — were torn between supporting Spain and rooting for Argentina because of the ties between Messi and Barcelona and by extension, Spanish football.

There’s even a viral image of a flowing-haired young Leo bathing baby Lamine.

Eight members of Spain’s World Cup squad play for Barcelona, most prominently Lamine Yamal, the young prodigy increasingly mentioned in the same breath as Messi and his legacy at the club.

But Argentine football has another, less discussed and perhaps even more fascinating European connection: Italy.

Argentina speaks Spanish because it was colonised by Spain.

Yet demographically and culturally, modern Argentina was profoundly reshaped by Italian immigration.

Between 1881 and 1914 alone, approximately two million Italians arrived in Argentina — almost half of all immigrants entering the country during that period.

Estimates of the number of Argentines with at least some Italian ancestry vary from about 20 million to 25 million — roughly 40 to nearly 60 per cent of the population.

You can see the Italian imprint simply by reading the names of Argentina’s footballers:

Passarella. Scaloni. Batistuta. Caniggia. Simeone. Zanetti. Milito. Lavezzi. Ruggeri. Di María.