Europe 1 with AFP 9:07 p.m., December 20, 2022

"Muchaaachos, ahora nos volvimos a ilusionar..." A song, initially a favorite of a club in the capital, remodeled for the "Seleccion", has become the anthem of Argentinian supporters, from Doha to Buenos Aires, telling so well how a country "got back to dreaming", and forever associated with the 2022 title.

Impossible not to have heard it at least once during the 2022 Football World Cup. "Muchachos" has become in a few weeks the anthem of Argentina supporters and even, unofficially, of the World Cup. 

In the beginning the song was a hit from 2003, by the rock-ska-salsa fusion group "La Mosca Tse tse", in a "festive" register: "Muchachos, this night I'm going to get drunk...".

Then the air remained, adopted, with "house" lyrics, by fans of football clubs, including Racing Avellaneda in the suburbs of Buenos Aires.

Of which a certain Fernando Romero, a 30-year-old teacher, is a fan.

Fernando, obviously a supporter of the national team, prided himself this year on rewriting lyrics dedicated to the Seleccion, in the months preceding the World Cup.

It went on TV, the song went viral, and the whirlwind was on.

"What is happening is so crazy, so great that it makes you dizzy," he explained to Argentinian media during the World Cup.

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Maradona, Messi, Falklands, etc.

"I was born in Argentina / Land of Diego and Lionel / Kids (soldiers) from the Falklands / That I will never forget / (...) / The finals that we lost / How many years I cried / But it's over / Because at the Maracana / The final with the Brazuccas (pejorative name for Brazilians, editor's note) / We won it, old man".

Words that tell of Messi, the Falkland Islands lost but forever claimed, Maradona "who can be seen from the sky", tears for the finals lost since the last coronation (1986), but also of the Copa America 2021 won against to the great Brazilian rival: all the ingredients to touch the hearts of Argentines.

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"She represents everything"

"This song is huge!"

Nicolas Arias, 19, told AFP on Tuesday, who had come to drown in the jubilation of the Obelisk to wait for the team.

"She describes my country, my people very well (...) She has this emotional, creative side, and an explosion of feelings, she is very complete, brilliant!"

"I'm soccer to the core," supported Pablo Mendoza, who came with his wife from La Plata, 60 km from the capital.

"This song is everything, it's about Diego, the Argentine soldiers in the Falklands... Here look!"

he said, pointing to a tattoo of the Falkland Islands on his leg.

"Muchachos" could have been just one song, one ritornello among others, like the Argentinian hinchas, always inventive and biting - a little like the English fans - are regularly created as they approach major competitions.

Last year for the Copa America in Brazil, it was "Brazil, tell me how it feels..."

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"I just made a stadium song, so that we have something to encourage the players, so that they can feel proud to be Argentinian, and remember it, with each ball disputed" in match, explained modestly Romero.

So his head just turned, incredibly proud, when he learned that Messi had given his anointing to the song, and that he saw videos of the Albiceleste players regularly singing in the bus or the locker room "Muchachos ", re-recorded in 2022 by Mosca Tse Tse, brought out of oblivion, with the words of Romero.

And then the crescendo of Lionel Scaloni's Seleccion in Qatar, the feeling of unity it gave off, and of course the world title at the end, did the rest.

Immortalized.

So much so that the singer of "La Mosca", Guillermo Novellis is now considering recording a new version "because so many things have happened (...) It's a song that unites all Argentines, and It makes us very happy. She no longer belongs to us".

A revised and updated version, of course, the one that the Argentines sing now.

Where when the second stanza said "We want to win the third" (World Cup), it now proclaims "We won the third (...) And to Diego we say to rest in peace (...) for the 'eternity".