Argentina’s Vice President Victoria Villarruel took to X on July 15 to deliver a message to England ahead of their FIFA World Cup semi-final that had absolutely nothing to do with football tactics. She called the English “piratas usurpadores” (usurping pirates) and “invasores” (invaders), invoking nearly two centuries of territorial grievance over the Falkland Islands. Or the Malvinas, depending on which side of the South Atlantic you’re standing on.
Football as foreign policy
Villarruel is the daughter of a Malvinas War veteran, which makes her rhetoric deeply personal as well as political. The Falkland Islands have been under British control since 1833, and the wounds from the 1982 war, which Argentina lost after launching an invasion, remain raw in Buenos Aires.
Her post invoked the ghosts of Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, framing the upcoming match in Atlanta as something far larger than 90 minutes of sport.
Argentina’s complicated Bitcoin relationship
