IM🇵🇹@Iconic_Mourinho
I have been thinking about why Argentina are so hated by everyone.
Is it all the polemics with FIFA? I don't think that explains everything.
Is it Messi hate? That doesn't make sense, because all the neutrals also seem to hate Argentina.
And I think I found out the reason.…
For the first time in 30 years, Argentina won trophies. And within 5 years, they became the most hated NT in the world.
Are they hated because they win? No, past World Champions didn't get this hate (in fact, those teams got more admired after winning).
They're hated because of how they handled success.
Let's elaborate:
In many sports' rivalries it's easy to spot who is the dominant team and who is the smaller team, just by looking at each team's posture. This can be called the "big brother x little brother effect."
The "big brothers" are teams that are consistently the best, and they know it. When they win, they see it as a natural result of their superiority. So they shake their opponents' hands and move on to the next one.
Most dominant clubs in each league usually behave like this (Bayern is the best example). Good examples are also NTs such as Germany, France, Brazil, and Spain (more recently).
The "little brothers" are teams that feel like the eternal underdog. When they beat their "big brothers", they have to gloat, rub it in everyone's face and make it last. They do whatever is necessary to beat the bigger team (even unethical behavior). These teams are sour losers and obnoxious winners.
A great example is Atletico Madrid. But in international football, the best example of this - by far - is Argentina.
Since the dawn of football, Argentina have been the little brothers to Brazil. When Argentina won their first World Cup, Brazil already had 3. Argentina had Maradona, but Brazil already had "King Pele". For every world class player Argentina produced, their neighbours Brazil produced 5. Decades and decades of this.
What can you do? You accept your fate. You are the little brother. You taunt, you provoke, you do anything to get out of Brazil's shadow. For every relevant achievement, you rub it in everyone's face and you don't let anyone forget.
Then came the 2020s. Brazil entered a football crisis, and Argentina finally won again. But, unlike previous World Champions, they felt the need to rub it in all their opponents' faces, so no one would forget.
But why are they still so attached to this obnoxious posture in 2026? Brazil have gone decades without winning the World Cup, while barely producing any remarkable players. Argentina were going for back to back World Cups!
Why not win with some class? Why not be the big brother, finally? This would be the time.
Maybe this "little brother" phenomenon can also be individual…
How is the life of Argentina's players most of the time?
Apart from Messi, McAllister and Lautaro, it doesn't look great…
6 of them actually play for Atletico Madrid.
Enzo has never even won a domestic trophy. At Chelsea, it's been all disappointing seasons, while being highly disliked by many of Chelsea's fans.
Romero's club career is also a disaster. No domestic trophies. Tottenham went downhill right after signing him. He's also highly disliked by many of Spurs' fans.
Emiliano Martinez spent his career as an Arsenal reject, and later joined Gerrard's Villa, where he's never won anything.
Even Otamendi, who played for Pep's Man City, was always seen as the weak link of that team, the perfect target for opponents.
Argentina has a culture of "little brother", but most of their players also became "little brothers" in football. So they kept feeling like underdogs, even after winning 3 trophies in a row with the NT.
This was the year they should have become the "big brothers" and started behaving like a winning team.
They didn't. They became an example of how not to act in sports.
They became hated because they couldn't handle their own success.
Argentina, the greatest "little brothers" in football history.
