Karush - National Identity in The Sports Pages

Academy of American Franciscan History
National Identity in the Sports Pages: Football and the Mass Media in 1920s Buenos Aires
Author(s): Matthew B. Karush
Source: The Americas, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jul., 2003), pp. 11-32
Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History
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The Americas
60:1 July 2003, 11-32
Copyrightby the Academy of American
FranciscanHistory
NATIONALIDEN'I'''Y IN THE SPORTSPAGES:

FOOTBALLAND THE MASS MEDIA IN 1920s
BUENOS AIRES*
rT nhe 1920ssawtheemergenceof a distinctive,newurbanculturein the

city of Buenos Aires.1 Although this culture did not extend to the
bordersof the nation,it was a nationalculturein the sense thatit con-
tinuallymanufacturedand reproducedimages of Argentinenationalidentity.
Research conducted over the last two decades has greatly improved our
understandingof this new culture. We know that it was, to a great extent,
forged in the city's new, outlying barrioswhere manual workerslived side
by side with skilled workersand membersof the middle class. The relatively
strong performance of the Argentine economy during these years made
social mobility a more realistic aspirationfor more people than it had ever
been before. Partly as a result of this economic reality,the new barriocul-
ture revealed a less militantattitudeon the partof porteno workers,a trend
visible as well in the significant decline in membershipand effectiveness
experienced by labor unions.2But the new cultural milieu reflected more
thanjust economic prosperity;it was intimately tied to the birth of a mass
culturedisseminatedby radio, cinema, and tabloid. In particular,the 1920s
witnessed the commodificationand massificationof tango and football, two
popularculturalpracticesthatwere now transformedinto quintessentialrep-
resentationsof Argentinidad.
* The authorwould like to thankChris

Boyer, JoanBristol, MarianoPlotkin,the anonymousreview-
ers of The Americas, and JudithEwell for their insightful comments on earlierdraftsof this article.
' See, for example, Jos6 Moya, Cousins and Strangers:Spanish Immigrantsin Buenos Aires, 1850-
1930 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1998), p. 383.
2 Most
importantamong this researchis the work of LeandroH. Guti6rrezand Luis AlbertoRomero.
See Guti6rrez and Romero, Sectores populares, cultura y politica: Buenos Aires en la entreguerra
(Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,1995). For a recent summaryof the new historiographicalconsensus, see
RicardoGonzdlezLeandri,"La nueva identidadde los sectores populares,"in AlejandroCattaruzza,ed.,
Nueva Historia Argentina,vol. VII (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,2001), pp. 201-237. On the decline of
the union movement in the 1920s, see Ronaldo Munck with Ricardo Falc6n and BernardoGalitelli,
Argentina:FromAnarchismto Peronism (London:Zed Books, 1987), pp. 101-102.
11
12 NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE SPORTS PAGES
The consolidationof a distinctive,porteiiocultureduringthis periodis, in

part,a storyof immigrantassimilation.The first two decadesof the twentieth
centuryhad seen the formationof a foreign-bornworkingclass whose alien-
ationfromelectoralpolitics andfrommainstreamArgentinesociety facilitated
the rise of a fiercely combative labor movement. In this context, Argentine
elites, politicians, and intellectuals worried about the lack of a cohesive
nationalidentity.A stronglynationalistcurriculumin the public schools was
one solutionto this problem;a legal andmilitarycrackdownon anarchistlabor
organizerswas another.The issue took on even greaterurgency after 1912,
when the Ley SaienzPeiia inauguratedArgentina'sfirst experimentwith an
open, competitiveelectoralsystem based on universalmale suffrage.Itself a
responseto the crisis in nationalidentity,the electoralreformnecessitatedthe
transformation of the childrenof immigrantsinto loyal, patrioticArgentinecit-
izens. But what education,repression,and politics could achieve only in part,
the mass cultureof the 1920s seemed to accomplishfar more thoroughly.By
that time, a new generation of native-born children of immigrants had
emerged,ready to embraceArgentinenationalidentity,the dreamof upward
mobility,and the new mass culturalcommodities.
Nevertheless, assimilationdoes not necessarily entail the constructionof
homogeneity or the erasureof social conflict. The children of immigrants
became assimilatedArgentines,but the nationthey joined was hardlya har-
monious communityof equals. The mass cultureembracedby this new gen-
eration produced versions of Argentine national identity that subordinated
ethnic differences to national unity but often foregroundeddivisions based
on class. The capitalistlogic of mass culturalproductionled to the commer-
cialization of class solidarities,as producerssought to develop commodities
that would appealto masses of lower-class consumers.Yet elite and middle-
class Argentines were often scandalized by the result. This article will
explore these processes by examining the national images produced by
media coverage of internationalfootball matches during the late 1920s.
Although it is not surprisingthat Argentine football teams in international
competitionwere often describedas the representativesof nationalidentity,
these descriptionsproducedcomplicatedand contradictoryeffects.
Scholarship on sports, and particularlyfootball, in Latin America has

often stressedits socially integrativefunction.In her classic study of Brazil-
ian football, JanetLever argues that the sport's "paradoxicalability to rein-
force societal cleavages while transcending them makes [it] the perfect
means of achieving a more perfect union between multiple groups."3
3 JanetLever, Soccer Madness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 6.
MATTHEWB. KARUSH 13
Accordingto Lever, football unifies Brazil by offering a safe and sanctioned

arenafor the expressionof social conflict. In a similarthoughless optimistic
vein, scholars have identified the tendency of football "to furtherthe hege-
monic interests of the government in power and the respective model of
development it sought to actualize."4As these scholars have demonstrated,
Latin American governments,from populist regimes like those of Getulio
Vargasand JuanPeron to the militarydictatorshipsof the 1970s, have har-
nessed the popularappealof football in orderto advancetheir own political
projects.In these accounts, it is the massness of football, its capacity to fill
stadiums with thousands of spectators, that makes it a useful hegemonic
tool. In this sense, football representsone example of a familiarphenome-
non in the history of Latin American popularculture.As the culturalprac-
tices of poor people are disseminated and repackagedby the mass media,
they are sanitized for a heterogeneous, multiclass audience, and they lose
their oppositional meanings. In this form, they are available for nationalist
appropriationby the state. Of course, subversive readings are still possible
at the point of reception, and mass culture can occasionally provide the
ingredients for cultural resistance. But for the most part, scholars have
depicted the transformationof popularcultureinto mass cultureas a step in
the process of hegemonic nation building.5
4 William Rowe and Vivian Schelling, Memoryand Modernity:Popular Culturein Latin America
(London:Verso, 1991), p. 141. On the political appropriationof football in the Argentinecase, see Vic
Duke and Liz Crolley, "Fiutbol,Politicians and the People: Populism and Politics in Argentina,"The
InternationalJournal of the History of Sport 18:3 (September2001), pp. 93-116. For the case of early
twentieth-centuryPeru, Steve Stein argues that the emergence of mass culture and the growing inter-
vention of the state strippedfootball of its usefulness as a site of "popularexpression"and transformed
it into an effective tool for "social control."By contrast,in a nuancedaccountof Brazilianfootball during
the strugglefor democracyof the early 1980s, MatthewShirts shows that the sporthelped generatepop-
ular identities and social movements with progressivepolitical implications.See Steve Stein, "The Case
of Soccer in EarlyTwentieth-CenturyLima,"and MatthewShirts,"S6crates,Corinthians,and Questions
of Democracy and Citizenship,"in JosephL. Arbena,ed., Sportand Society in LatinAmerica:Diffusion,
Dependency,and the Rise of Mass Culture(New York:GreenwoodPress, 1988), pp. 63-84 and 97-112.
For the case of Costa Rica, see ChesterUrbinaGaitan, Costa Rica y el deporte, 1873-1921: un estudio
acerca del origen delfuitbol y la construccidnde un deporte nacional (San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial
UniversidadNacional, 2001).
5 On the
hegemonic appropriationof popularmusic, for example, see Robin D. Moore, Nationaliz-
ing Blackness:Afrocubanismoand ArtisticRevolutionin Havana, 1920-1940 (Pittsburgh:University of
PittsburghPress, 1997), esp. pp. 6-8. More generally,for a nuancedaccountof the tension between mass
culture and popularculture, see Rowe and Schelling, pp. 7-12. On the question of reception, see Jesus
Martin-Barbero,De los medios a las mediaciones: comunicacion, cultura y hegemonia (Mexico City:
Gili, 1991). For an account of Argentinefootball that is sensitive to the ways in which nationalidentity
can be constructedfrom below, see Pablo Alabarces,"Fdtbolargentino:Un cacho de culturas,"in Pablo
Alabarces and Maria Graciela Rodriguez, Cuestidn de pelotas: Fu'tbol, deporte, sociedad, cultura
(Buenos Aires: Atuel, 1996), pp. 17-33.
Mass culturalrepresentationsof Argentinefootball from the 1920s pres-

ent a more complex picture. In this initial moment of massification,before
the state had begun to co-opt and control spectator sports, the meanings
associated with football were contested and in flux. Fans encounteredthe
sportthroughboth hegemonic and counterhegemonicdiscourses. While the
traditionalporteniopress-newspapers like La Nacion and La Prensa-pre-
sented football as a model of discipline and proper behavior, the football
coverage in Critica, the city's most popular tabloid, was steeped in pop-
ulism.6 These diverse representationsreflected the ongoing conflict over
Argentine national identity. By celebratingthe good sportsmanshipof ath-
letes who representedthe nation, the traditionalpress promoteda version of
national identity that served hegemonic interests. By contrast, Crftica's
sports section employed a gendered and racialized discourse that accentu-
ated class divisions. The paper's enthusiastic accounts of the exploits of
lower-class football playersproducedimages of Argentinidadthat subverted
the dominant social hierarchyand made support for the national football
team a potentially oppositional or counterhegemonic gesture. And yet
Critica did not embrace this discourse completely. The tension between
social control and subversivepopulism was visible even within that paper's
football coverage. As a result, the powerful nationalimages disseminatedin
Critica's sports pages were ambivalent and unstable, an instability that
reflected and reproducedArgentina'ssimmeringclass tensions.
Broughtby the British in the late nineteenthcentury,football emerged as

a significant mass entertainmentin Argentina during the 1920s.7 During
these years, a preoccupationwith nationalidentity infused mass media dis-
course on the sport.As EduardoArchettihas shown, it was in this periodthat
the notion of a criollo or native Argentine style of football was developed
and disseminated.Archettihas analyzed this discourse as it appearedin the
pages of the weekly sports magazine, El Grdfico, in which journalists
argued not only that Argentines had become exceptionally skilled at the
game, but also that the way they played it revealed certainessential aspects
of the nationalcharacter.The Argentinestyle of football, they wrote, had as
6 My usage of the terms"populist"and "populism"drawson Emesto Laclau'sdefinitionof populism

as a discourse in which "popular-democratic elements are presentedas an antagonisticoption againstthe
ideology of the dominantbloc." In this case, football, a sport of the popularsectors, is articulatedwith
an explicitly anti-elitistnationalism.See Emesto Laclau,Politics and Ideology in MarxistTheory:Capi-
alism, Fascism, Populism (London:NLB, 1977), p. 173.
7 For a general history of Argentine football, see Osvaldo Bayer, Fu'tbolargentino (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana,1990). For a more institutionalhistory, see Ariel Scher and H6ctor Palomino, Futbol:
pasidn de multitudesy de elites: Un estudio institucionalde la Asociacion de Futbol Argentino(1934-
1986) (Buenos Aires: CISEA, 1988).
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 15
its central characteristicthe art of dribbling,which foregroundedthe indi-

vidual player's cunning and creativity,his ability to single-handedlyevade
opposing defenders. Argentine players were crafty, wily, imaginative-in
contrastto the British, whose play was more rigid, machine-like.8
This discourseon Argentinefootballwas not uniqueto El Grdfico.At least

as enthusiasticin theirdescriptionof criollo style were the sportsreportersof
Critica,BuenosAires's most popularnightlynewspaper.Foundedin 1913 by
Natalio Botana,Criticabegan as a rathertypicalevening daily.But the news-
paperreinventeditself in the 1920s when it embracedthe sensationalisttech-
niques of Hearstand Pulitzerand therebytransformedthe Argentinejournal-
istic landscape.With its attention-grabbingheadlines,its extensive reporting
on crime, its detailedcoverage of porteiionightlife, and its many otherinno-
vations, Botana's paper achieved tremendouspopularity.By October 1924,
Critica's average circulationwas 166,385, putting it in third place among
Buenos Aires's many dailies; by the end of the decade, the paperwas selling
more than 300,000 copies per day.9Critica'svertiginousgrowthwas enabled
by the massive expansionof literacythat followed modernization,economic
development,the diffusion of public education,and the coming of age of a
generation of Argentine-bornchildren of immigrants. Like the romantic
"weekly novels" publishedin the mainstreampress and the growing number
of publishing houses specializing in inexpensive books, Critica addressed
itself in large partto these new readers.10
In her recent book on Critica, Sylvia Saitta reveals that the newspaper
built its audience throughtwo complementarystrategies.On the one hand,
the paper pursued"expansionthroughspecialization,"continually generat-
ing new sections in orderto appeal to distinct groups of potentialreaders.1
Thus, Critica included not only sections on sports, food, theater,film, and
8 Eduardo P. Archetti, Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina (Oxford: Berg,
1999), pp. 46-76; andArchetti,"In Searchof NationalIdentity:ArgentinianFootball and Europe,"Inter-
national Journal of the History of Sport 12:2 (1995), pp. 201-219. See also JuanJos6 Sebreli, La era del
fiitbol (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,1998), pp. 30-33.
9 At roughly the same time that Critica achieved a daily circulationof over 300,000, El Grdficowas
selling approximately100,000 copies per week. Clearly many more porteiiosencounteredthe discourse
on criollo football style in Critica thanin El Grdfico.For El Grdfico'scirculation,see Archetti,p. 57. For
Critica's, see Sylvia Saitta, Regueros de tinta: El diario Critica en la decada de 1920 (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana,1998), pp. 49, 73.
10 On the weekly novels, see Beatriz Sarlo, El
imperio de los sentimientos:Narraciones de circu-
lacidn periddica en la Argentina(1917-1927) (Buenos Aires: CatdlogosEditora,1985). On the inexpen-
sive books of the period and on Critica's status as the "primerejemplo porteniode periodismo de corte
popular,"see Luis AlbertoRomero,"Unaempresacultural:los libros baratos,"in Gutierrezand Romero,
pp. 47-50.
1 Saitta, 117.
p.
business, but also a psychoanalysis section, a constructionguide, a section

on pets, and columns on each of Buenos Aires's barrios.The newspaper's
internaldiversity reflected its effort to captureas wide and heterogeneousa
readershipas possible. On the other hand,duringthe 1920s, Critica adopted
a consistenteditorialpose as "thevoice of the people."12The papertypically
employed this language in a vague and inclusive manner,using its circula-
tion figures as evidence of its status as the true representativeof popular
interests.But Critica'spopulism also pushed it into an explicit alliance with
the working class and the poor. In 1923, Critica distinguisheditself through
its outspoken support for Kurt Wilckens, the anarchist who assassinated
LieutenantColonel Hector Varela in retributionfor the latter's role in the
brutalrepressionof strikingworkers in Patagonia.Throughoutthe remain-
der of the decade, Critica supportedArgentina's labor unions, organized
charity drives on behalf of the needy, and repeatedly presented itself as a
defenderof the poor.13In the sportspages, this self-presentationresultedin
a distinctly populist twist on the discourse on criollo football style.
Like El Grdfico, Critica consistently emphasizedthe distinctive style of

football played in Argentina (or in the Rio de la Plata region, since
Uruguayanfootball was often included in these descriptions).A series of
contests between Argentine and Europeanfootball teams during the 1920s
broughtthe nationalistelements of this discourse to the fore. In additionto
matches played in Argentinaagainst visiting Europeanteams, the European
tour of the Buenos Aires-basedBoca Juniorsin 1925, as well as the partici-
pation of an Argentineteam in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam,provided
excellent opportunitiesfor nationalcomparisons.In a typical article,Crftica
contrastedthe "picardiay astucia"of Argentineplayerswith the stiff, almost
robotic style of their opponents, a visiting Scottish team called Mother-
well.'4 In its coverage of internationalcompetitions, Critica frequently
described the Argentineteams as "ambassadors"for the nation as a whole.
On the eve of Boca Juniors'departurefor Europe, for example, the paper
spoke of the team's patriotic mission: "A traves de tierrasextranjeraseste
grupode deportistasargentinosva a pasearel altivo pabellon de la patria."'5
Critica'sreporterssought to give their readersan intimateconnection to the
traveling players by emphasizing the bonds of national identity thatjoined
fans and athletes in a cohesive community. Towards this end, the paper
printed a note hand-writtenand signed by the Boca players during their
12Saitta, pp. 55-90.

3 Saitta,pp. 65-79.
14
Critica, 5/14/28, p. 5.
15 Critica, 2/4/25, p. 13. For Boca Juniorsas "ambassadors"see, for example, Critica, 2/5/25, p. 13.
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 17
trans-Atlanticjourney,in which "los footballersargentinos"send theirgreet-

ings to "todos los aficionados argentinos."16In his descriptionof the jour-
ney, Critica's reporternoted that the players brought tango records with
them, and he pointed out how wonderful this "musica criolla" sounded on
the sea.17Likewise, the paper's coverage of the ArgentineOlympic football
team in 1928 included photographsof the players dancing tango with each
other in orderto entertainthemselves "lejos de la patria."8" These recurring
images deployed Argentina's most popular musical and dance genre in order
to depict football players as representativesof the national community.On
another level, photographsof football players dancing in single-sex cou-
plings called attentionto the explicit masculinityof this representationof the
nation;women were clearly not integralto the proceedings.Unsurprisingly,
the national identities constructed in Critica's sports pages were heavily
gendered. Masculinity, most typically in the form of "virilidad,"was an
essential characteristicof the football player as nationalprototype.19
Critica describedall of Argentina'sfootball players as criollo, regardless

of their ethnicity. In fact, the newspapernever drew attentionto the ethnic
origins of Argentine athletes. The Provincia team that played Motherwell
included such surnameson its startingroster as Bearzotti,Talenti,Tornatti,
and Lunghi and yet was described by Critica's columnist as "un cuadro de
muchachos criollos."20While the creators of Argentina's football style
were, to a great extent, the sons of Europeanimmigrants,this fact did not
seem noteworthy to Cr'tica, nor did it disqualify them in any way for the
role of national representatives.21In fact, the newspaper frequently
describedethnically diverse football players as representativesof a distinc-
tive Argentine race. Critica thus proclaimed that the Boca Juniors' Euro-
pean tour would demonstrate"el admirableempuje de la sangre argentina"
16
Critica, 2/6/25, p. 4. These notes were printed in other papers as well. See, for example, La
Prensa, 2/4/25, p. 19.
17
Critica, 3/18/25, p. 7
18 Critica, 6/13/28,
p. 2. See also Critica, 6/9/28, p. 12
19 More researchis needed on the
consequences for women of the exclusively masculine national
identities constructedaround football. For one suggestive interpretation,see Donna J. Guy, Sex and
Danger in BuenosAires: Prostitution,Family,and Nation in Argentina(Lincoln:Universityof Nebraska
Press, 1990), pp. 190-192.
20 Critica, 6/4/28, 9.
p.
21 Archetti shows that
Grdfico's journalists, Borocot6 and Chantecler, did discuss ethnicity.
While Borocot6 argued that immigrants became criollo by virtue of their contact with Argentina,
Chanteclerdeveloped a melting-pot theory, in which each immigrantgroup contributedsomething to
the criollo style. See Archetti (1999), pp. 66-70. Notwithstanding these analyses of the origins of
criollo football style, Critica's day-to-day coverage of the sport never mentioned Argentina's ethnic
diversity. Regardless of its origins, the criollo style was seen to belong naturally to any player who
wore the nation's colors.
and the "guapeza... de esta nueva raza argentinaplet6rica de energias."22

Similarly,when Argentinaand Uruguay tied in the final round of the 1928
Olympic tournament(Uruguaywould eventually win the rematch.),Crftica
interpretedthis demonstrationof Rioplatense football superiorityin explic-
itly racial terms: "Y esta es la lecci6n duraderaque deja el partido: la
seguridad de que, ante la decadencia de la juventud europea, America
acrisola su vigor racial dando un ejemplo magnifico de fuerza y de cul-
tura."23Of course, the notion of an Argentine race was not unique to
Critica. Since the nineteenthcentury,Argentineintellectuals of all political
stripes had been preoccupied with assessing and improving the nation's
racial qualities whether through social reform, immigrationrestriction or
explicitly eugenic measures.24Critica's sports reportersdrew on this well-
established discourse of race and deployed it toward nationalist ends. By
racializing, and therebyreifying, the contrastbetween Argentine and Euro-
pean football players, the newspaperconstructeda cohesive nation out of a
diverse group of players and, by extension, a diverse population.That the
attributionof Argentinenationaland racial identity to the sons of European
immigrants made sense to Critica's readers demonstrates the extent to
which the assimilationof the majorethnic communities had been achieved
by the 1920s.
As Archetti shows, the discourse on criollo football style identified the

British as "the relevant 'other."'Only by contrastwith the British style did
Argentina's take meaningful shape.25 But Critica's football coverage
revealed an internal other as well. The newspaper repeatedly contrasted
criollo football players not only to the British, but also to the rich. This ver-
sion of the discourse defined criollo football style as a creation of poor
Argentines. In one typical formulation,the columnist Jose Gabriel argued
that until Argentinadeveloped a high culture worthy of export, the football
played by "nuestramuchachadavulgar" would serve as the nation's best
embassy abroad.26Similarly, following Argentina's second-place finish in
the Olympics, Critica published a short piece by the leftist poet Raul
Gonzalez Tui6nowelcoming Luis Monti, one of Argentina's star players,
22
Critica, 2/4/25, p. 13.
23
Critica, 6/10/28, p. 2.
24 On the diffusion of racial ideas
among Argentine intellectuals, see EduardoA. Zimmermann,
"Racial Ideas and Social Reform: Argentina, 1890-1916" Hispanic American Historical Review 72:1
(1992), pp. 23-46; Nancy Leys Stepan,The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender,and Nation in LatinAmer-
ica (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1991). To cite just one example, the influential socialist thinker
Jos6 Ingenieros,publishedhis essay, "Laformacionde una razaargentina,"in 1915. Zimmermann,p. 32.
25 Archetti
(1999), p. 71.
26
Critica, 5/28/28, p. 12.
B. KARUSH
MATTHEW 19
back to the country.27Entitled"La Pelota de Trapo"(prefiguringthe famous

film of the 1940s), the piece nostalgically evoked Monti's childhood in a
lower-class suburbof Buenos Aires, where he played with a homemadeball:
"La pelota de trapo, sucia y descolorida,que muchas veces fue a parartras
de las tapias de los burgueses. ."28
. For Gonzalez Tui6on,Monti's qualifi-
cations as a nationalhero clearly included his humble origins.
In another column, Jose Gabriel used a football game to construct the

nation in opposition to the rich. The piece addressedan imaginary"sefior
muy asefiorado,"whose chauffeuredcar passes by the stadiumjust as one of
Motherwell's matches against an Argentineteam is ending. As a multitude
of 30,000 football fans pour into the street blocking his passage, the rich
man is bewildered.He is entirelyunawareof even the presence of a football
field there, let alone of its significance. The columnist fills him in and goes
on to explainjust how importantfootball and other mass culturalevents can
be: "El futbol y el cine son los grandesespectaculos de nuestrosdias. Si no
quiere reconocerlo, peor para usted. Pero, ademas, un partido de fdtbol
puede ser significativo. El de ayer lo era." More thanjust the setting for a
game, the stadiumcontains "la aglomeraci6nde la alegria de un pueblo."29
In this apocryphal story, the rich man has accidentally stumbled on a
national community forged by football, a community that excludes him.
Critica's sports reporterscelebratedlower-class football players as the cre-
ators of national style and the bearersof authenticArgentine identity,con-
structinga populistrepresentationof the nationthatfollowed logically from
the newspaper'sself-definition as "la voz del pueblo."
Critica's everyday sports coverage advanced this populist nationalism

throughsubtle rhetoricalmeans, including the use of certainracial classifi-
cations. For example the newspaper'sreportersdescribedArgentinefootball
teams as "once morochos criollos" and often referred to the star player
Manuel Seoane with his nickname,"el negro."30In so doing, they followed
a popularlinguistic convention whereby a general identificationwith subor-
dinateracial groupscould be used to express an anti-elitist,popularsolidar-
ity. Negro and morocho were epithets long applied by Argentine elites to
people from the interior,whose darkercomplexions presumablyrevealed
27 Critica, 6/15/28,
p. 5. On the extensive participationof portefiomodernistsin Critica during the
1920s, see Saitta,pp. 157-188.
28
Critica, 6/15/28, p. 5. An impoverishedchildhood in a lower-class barrio,where football is played
with rag balls on improvisedasphaltfields or potreros, remainscentralto the mythology of Argentina's
football heroes. See Archetti (1999), pp. 180-189.
29 Critica, 6/4/28, p. 9.
30
Critica, 5/24/28, p. 10; 5/17/28, p. 2; 5/18/28, p. 9.
their mestizo origins. By the 1930s, when thousandsof poor migrantsfrom

the interiorpoured into Buenos Aires to fill the new jobs in the country's
growing industrialsector, these racial insults were frequentlyapplied indis-
criminatelyto the working class in general. But if racial epithets were used
to express the class-basedprejudicesof the elite, they were also availablefor
populist reappropriation.Thus, Carlos Gardel, the great tango star of the
1920s, was popularlyknown as "el Morocho del Abasto," a nickname that
celebrated his lower-class origins by associating him with both a humble
Buenos Aires barrioand a certainvague non-whiteness.This populist usage
of racial terminologywould figure prominentlyin Peronistdiscourse in the
1940s.31But as early as the 1920s, Critica' sports reporterswere able to
employ racial classifications like negro and morocho to populist effect. In a
move no doubt understoodby their readers,they used the language of race
to express class-based distinctions.
Both the extent and the limits of Critica's populism become visible if we
contrastits football coverage with thatof its principalcompetitors.The con-
trastis particularlyvivid in the case of Buenos Aires' older,more traditional,
and more elitist newspapers,La Nacion andLa Prensa. While football occu-
pied as central a place in the sports sections of these papers, the discourse
on criollo style was far less dominant. Instead, La Nacion and La Prensa
mobilized an older discourse that associatedfootball with the values of "fair
play" and good sportsmanship.Dating from the 1880s and 1890s, when the
sportwas practicedin the privateschools and elite clubs of the British com-
munity in Buenos Aires, this discourse stressed the importanceof proper
conduct over the pursuit of victory.32Thus, on the eve of Boca Juniors'
departurefor Europein 1925, La Nacion opined:
No interesamuchoque obtengasonadostriunfosen los paisesque visite.Si

se logran,seraagradable
... peroes indudablequeel BocaJuniorstendrauna
funci6nmas importanteque llenaren el viejo mundo:mantenerla tradici6n
31 On Gardel'snickname,see Marta
Savigliano, Tangoand the Political Economyof Passion (Boul-
der: Westview, 1995), pp. 65-66. For a discussion of the populist usage of the term "negro"in Peronist
discourse, see Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine WorkingClass,
1946-1976 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1988), pp. 31-32. On "negro,"see also Jose Gob-
ello, Nuevo diccionario lunfardo(Buenos Aires: Corregidor,1994), p. 180. On the continuing salience
of racial categories in contemporaryArgentina,see Galen Joseph, "TakingRace Seriously:Whiteness in
Argentina'sNational and TransnationalImaginary,"Identities7:3 (2000), pp. 333-371.
32 Julio D. Frydenberg,"Prdcticasy valores en el proceso de popularizaci6ndel fitbol, Buenos Aires,
1900-1910," Entrepasados6:12 (1997), p. 7-29; Frydenberg,"Redefinici6ndel ffitbol aficionado y del
futbol oficial. Buenos Aires, 1912," in Pablo Alabarces,et. al., eds. Deporte y sociedad (Buenos Aires:
EUDEBA, 1998), pp. 51-65. Frydenbergargues that the values of "fair play" were threatenedby the
emergenceof football clubs organizedby popularsector youth in the early years of the twentiethcentury.
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 21
caballeresca de los sportsmen argentinos, tan ampliamenteexpuesta por el

conjuntode polo que obtuvo el campeonatoolimpico .. .33
According to La Nacion, Boca's trip had national significance because it

would demonstrate not how well Argentines played football but how well
they behaved on the football field. Moreover, the paper implied that the
lower-class athletes who played on Argentina's popular football teams ought
to conduct themselves like the more elite men who played polo. This con-
cern for the proper behavior of football players resulted from a sense that
this increasingly popular spectator sport would invariably influence the
behavior of the masses. As La Nacion put it in another context, "El football
es un sport educador. Puede serlo en el mejor o en el peor sentido."34 La
Nacion's football coverage aimed to discipline the popular sectors and
thereby reinforce the status quo.
La Prensa shared La Nacion's concern about the lessons football fans
might learn from the sport. This newspaper's reporters saw Argentina's suc-
cess in the 1928 Olympic football tournament as a badge of national pride,
proof that Argentines were "un pueblo de grandes posibilidades."35 But
while celebrating Argentina's football prowess, La Prensa stressed that the
value of international competition lay in forging bonds of friendship
between participating countries. Moreover, the newspaper strenuously con-
demned violence in football, arguing that sports must not be about winning
at all costs, but about cultivating "el espiritu de caballerosidad, la disposi-
ci6n a reconocer los meritos del adversario que resulta triunfador."36In La
Prensa as in La Nacion, the good sportsmanship discourse clearly trumped
jingoism, and sports reporters avoided drawing attention to the humble ori-
gins of Argentina's football stars. Covering the international competitions of
the 1920s, these papers could not resist the urge to cheer on Argentina's
teams, but they always tempered that nationalist enthusiasm with warnings
about the importance of sportsmanship. Concluding its report on the mas-
sive rally that accompanied Boca Juniors' departure from the Buenos Aires
docks, La Nacion seemed almost reluctant to wish the team success:
Acompaiiaal equipo del Boca Juniorsla simpatiapopular.Lleva los augurios

mas felices y porque es un prop6sito decidido de los jugadores y delegados
desempeiiarsede acuerdo con su tradici6n sportiva, no cabe sino ser inter-
33 La Nacion, 2/4/25, p. 9.
34 La Naci6n, 2/19/25, p. 4.
35 La Prensa, 6/11/28, p. 10.
36 La Prensa, 6/5/28, p. 14. For another
example of the notion thatinternationalmatcheswere mainly
useful for cementing ties between nations, see the coverage of Boca Juniors'tour in Caras y Caretas,
XXVIII:1383 (4/4/25).
pretesde ese sentimientopopulary desearle,a la delegacion,el viaje mas

lisonjeroy los exitosmasrotundos.37
Elements of the good sportsmanshipdiscourse were apparentin Critica's
sports section as well. For example, the paperechoed La Nacion 's hope that
the Boca players would honor the nation by playing with "caballerosidad."
In Critica,however,the desire for good behaviorwas usually eclipsed by the
desire for good play:
La misi6n[de BocaJuniors]es porciertodelicadae importantisima. Se trata

de hacerconoceren los paisesmasadelantadosdel universoel progresoindis-
cutiblede nuestrosdeportes,representadoporla muchachada virily potente
quevestiranlos coloresnacionalesen estacruzadasensacional.38
The Boca Juniorsplayers ought to behave themselves appropriatelyon the
field, but Critica also expected them to win games on behalf of the nation
and, in so doing, to demonstratetheir powerful masculinity.
La Nacion andLa Prensa were conservativepublicationsthatavoidedbig
headlines and sensationalistjournalism, and it is not surprisingthat their
sports sections reproducedthis conservatism.But even La Razon, a newer
paper that explicitly addresseda popularreadership,stopped well short of
Critica'spopulist approachto football coverage. As Critica'smain competi-
tor for the evening audience,La Razdndid embracethe discourse on criollo
football style. This paper'ssportsreporters,like theircounterpartsat El Grd-
fico and Critica,definedArgentinefootball in oppositionto the more "math-
ematical" British approach.British football teams, the paper argued, spe-
cialized in long passes and emphasizedcollective discipline over individual
heroics, but they could not producemuch excitement.39The Argentine(and
Uruguayan)approachto football constituteda new school, "la de la gambeta
maravillosa y de la picardia que desconcierta." And for La Razon,
Argentina'sfootball style was not just more elegant and more exciting; it
was also superior.40But La Razon did not celebrate the lower-class back-
groundsof Argentineplayers the way Critica did. In fact, La Razon was far
more likely to emphasize the importanceof good sportsmanship.When the
Argentineteam qualifiedfor the finals of the 1928 Olympic tournament,the
newspapercongratulated"el caballeresco once nacional"not only for win-
ning but also for representingthe nation with dignity. In this account, the
37 La Nacion, 2/5/25,
p. 9.
38 Critica, 2/4/25, p. 12.
39 La Razon, 5/14/28, p. 4.
40 La Razdn,6/7/28, p. 1.
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 23
players were "argentinosque utilizan el football como un medio de fortale-

cer sus energias, disciplinar sus fuerzas y templar su espiritu, muchachos
nobles que prefieren la actitud correcta al desplante violento."41In La
Razon, as in La Nacion and La Prensa, football players were, first and fore-
most, models of disciplined, nonviolent behavior.
Critica distinguisheditself from all of its competitorsby rebellingagainst
journalisticnorms of proprietyin order to pursue a mass audience. In the
sportssection, this approachproduceda populistnationalismthat contrasted
sharplywith the restrainedcommentaryof other newspapers.In the context
of 1920s Buenos Aires, this populist nationalism must have helped sell
papers,but it also created a problem.Critica'smostly middle-classjournal-
ists had succeededin elaboratinga rhetoricthatinterpellatedthe paper'sread-
ers as a cohesive nationalcommunity.But the rhetoricthey used was inher-
ently divisive; it highlightedthe contrastbetween rich and poor Argentines.
This strategymade good marketingsense, helping Critica reach masses of
working-classreaders,many of whom continuedto harborclass resentments
even if they were less likely than their parents to supportconfrontational
labor unions.42But while Critica's reportersand editors were interestedin
increasing the paper's circulation,they did not intend to sow the seeds of
class conflict. Thus, the newspaper'ssports section oscillated between cele-
bratingthe criollo style of lower-class football players as representativesof
"el pueblo"andreinforcinghierarchyby discipliningthese athletesand hold-
ing them to the standardsof good sportsmanship.This tension produceda
nationalismwhose meaningswere shifting, ambiguous,and unstable.
This discursiveinstabilitywas evident in the images of masculinitymobi-

lized in Critica's football coverage. While its reportersapplaudedvirility
and aggressiveness on the football field, they were also careful to define
those attributesin acceptable,non-threateningways. Reactingto reportsthat
a Spanish referee had encouragedviolent behavior during a game because
he believed football should be "viril,"Critica's columnist claimed that the
Argentine notion of virility was quite distinct: "No podemos comprender
que patearle la cabeza a un hombre sea hermoso ni viril." Violence, he
argued, was only justified when it was necessary to defend a woman. He
41 La Razdn,
6/5/28, p. 9. La Razn 's less populist football coverage matched its more traditional
appearanceand conservative politics. For comparisonsof Critica and La Razdn, see Saftta, pp. 48-60;
Sergio Pujol, Valentinoen Buenos Aires: Los anos veintey el espectdculo (Buenos Aires: Emec6, 1994),
pp. 69-74.
42 On the persistenceof class resentmentsin Argentinain the 1920s, see MatthewB. Karush,Work-
ers or Citizens: Democracy and Identityin Rosario, Argentina1912-1930 (Albuquerque:University of
New Mexico Press, 2002), pp. 156-163.
insisted that Argentines, "los paisanos de los gauchos y repulsores de

tiranias,"celebratedvirility and "hombria."But, echoing La Prensa's insis-
tence on good sportsmanship,he arguedthat these masculine values were
reflected not in violence, but in healthy sport-"la inteligencia y la gracia
puestas en juego para divertir y no daiiar a nadie."43Similarly, Critica's
notion of masculine virtue included honesty and keeping one's word.
Althoughthe paperusually made a point of siding with playersagainstman-
agement, on at least one occasion it harshlycriticized a player for breaking
his contract and switching teams. Denouncing this action as a threat to
honor,discipline, and morality,Critica depictedthe playerin question"ofre-
ciendose como cualquier milonguita aburrida."44 By likening him to the
dancing girls for hire who were stock in
figures tango songs, the newspaper
ridiculedthe player's masculinityand defended the sanctity of contracts.In
the interestsof social order,then, Critica strove to regulatethe gender ideal
it promoted,to keep masculine aggressiveness from eruptinginto violence
or into an overt rejectionof authority.
The ambiguityof Critica's populism was visible not only in the ways it
defined acceptablemasculinity,but, more generally,in the way it conceived
of the interactionof players on a football team. The discourse on criollo
football style, as it appearedin El Grdfico, Critica, and La Razon, empha-
sized Argentineplayers' superiorityat dribblingratherthantheircapacity to
work together as a team. This celebrationof individual skills disturbedthe
ArgentineCommunistParty,which criticized both the nationalistand indi-
vidualist characteristicsof "bourgeois"sport and tried to develop its own
football organizationin orderto foment working-classsolidarityand collec-
tive unity.45But if this discourse was incompatiblewith orthodoxleftist ide-
ologies, its emphasis on the individual made it quite suitable for populist
articulations.By calling attention to individual talents rather than to the
accomplishmentsof the team as a whole, Critica's reporterswere able to
emphasize the players' personal attributes, including their class back-
grounds. In this way, the newspapertransformedfootball players into both
nationalheroes and representativesof the popularclasses. The paper's cov-
erage of Argentina'smatches against foreign teams was filled with descrip-
43 Critica,5/24/28, p. 10.
44 Critica, 3/17/25, p. 14. For an example of the papersiding with players against management,see
Critica, 5/5/28, p. 10. In 1926, Natalio Botana served as Presidentof the ArgentineFootballAssociation.
For analysis of how this "conflict of interest"affected Critica's football coverage, see Saitta, "Futboly
prensa en los aiios veinte: Natalio Botana, presidentede la Asociaci6n Argentinade Football (febrero-
agosto de 1926)," www.efdeportes.com(Revista Digital) 8:50 (July 2002).
45 CristinaMateu, "Politicae ideologia de la Federaci6nDeportivaObrera,1924-1929," in Deporte
y sociedad, pp. 67-86.
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 25
tions of individual heroics, which resonated unmistakably with populist

nationalism:
El goalcaus6sensaci6n.Lapicardiacriollaunavez masse hizo veren forma
estupenda.El negroSeoanetom6la pelota... Cuandoel contrariosaj6nse
vino sobreSeoane,en trende disputarsela,el criolloabri6las piemasy la
pelotasiguioviaje.46
In this typical account,the Argentineplayer,ManuelSeoane, is not only dis-
tinguished ethnically from his foreign opponent (criollo vs. saj6n), but the
use of the nickname, "el negro," emphasizes his popularorigins. Seoane's
humble class statusenables him to embody Argentinenationalstyle. On the
other end of the spectrum,La Nacion 's reportersoften downplayedindivid-
ual achievements, stressing instead the importanceof harmony and cohe-
sion. Celebratingthe Argentines' victory against the United States in the
1928 Olympics, La Nacion declared that the team's success was due to its
determination"de eludir toda acci6n personal a fin de no sacrificarla obra
colectiva."47Seen in this way, football served as a model of a harmonious,
classless society.
But even though Critica was much more likely than La Nacion to cele-
brate individual performances,the need for discipline, cohesion and har-
mony also found expression in the paper's sports section. In fact, Critica's
reportersstruggledto define the appropriatebalance between the individual
and the team. In two articles in May 1928, the paper attemptedto account
for a disturbingtrendtowardslow scoring games. While both articlesagreed
thatArgentineplayerswere not shooting on goal enough, they saw this prob-
lem in very differentterms.The first article suggested that the stylistic pen-
dulum had swung too far, from a tendency to focus on individualskills like
dribblingand shooting to an emphasis on collective play involving precise
and frequentpassing. By contrast,British players owed their success to the
fact that the first thing they were taughtwas to put the ball in the net.48The
second articlesaw the problemin almost the opposite terms:Argentineplay-
ers, it said, did not shoot enough because they were too worriedaboutbeing
fancy, too busy "entreteniendoseen excesivos floreos." In this article, the
Britishare singled out not for theirpowerfulshooting but for theirpragmatic
commitment to teamwork: "Cadajugador, con verdaderoconcepto de la
misi6n que le esta reservada dentro de su team, trata de cumplirla en la
mejor forma posible, no supeditandoseen ningun caso a la eficacia practica
46
Critica, 5/17/28, p. 2.
47 La Naci6n, 5/30/28, p. 2.
48 Critica, 5/5/28, p. 4.
de sus intervenciones,a los floreos superfluos."49 Publishedonly three days

apart, these articles warned on the one hand that Argentine football had
become too much of a team game and on the other that it was too selfishly
individualistic. The newspaper thus promoted two contradictoryideals of
behavior, first endorsing football's individualist and populist appeal and
then stressingthe need to subordinateself-interestto the needs of the larger
community. Of course, these contrasting interpretationsmight reflect a
simple disagreementamong reporters,ratherthan a more systematic edito-
rial ambivalence. Critica, after all, was hardly a model of internalconsis-
tency. Yet the newspaper'stendency to undercutits own populist message
suggests an underlying tension in its nationalist discourse. In any case,
regardlessof the intentionsof Critica'seditors and reporters,readersof the
newspaper'ssports section received mixed messages.
The inconsistency in Critica's nationalismwas particularlyvisible in its
responseto a fight thatbrokeout between two Uruguayanplayersin an exhi-
bition matchheld in Paris.In a piece entitled"Les sauvages sudamericains,"
the newspaper criticized the Uruguayans harshly for demonstratingsuch
poor sportsmanshipin front of a foreign audience:
Las rencillasy resentimientos
debenventilarseen casa,no en tierrasextran-
jerasdonderesultaficil que quienesnos quieranmal suponganque bajola
aparienciacortesy cultade un sudamericano existeun indioind6mitoy sal-
vaje.... Y ahi estalo malde estasjiras.Antesde inciarlasdebiadarsea los
jugadorescatedrade buenascostumbres y educaci6n.... [E]lhechode serun
buenjugadorde footballno es un motivoparaserun maleducado.50
Soundingvery much like La Nacion or La Prensa, Critica here defined vio-

lence as barbaricand sought to purge it from the nationalideal.
Elsewhere in the same issue, however, Critica'scartoonistput a very dif-

ferentspin on the classic oppositionbetween civilization andbarbarism.The
cartoon,entitled "El indio triunfaen Europa,"featuresa huge Indian,com-
plete with dark skin, a beaded necklace and a featheredheaddress,holding
a football, wearing football shoes, and smiling triumphantly(see figure 1).
In the background,four Europeanslook on in bewilderedastonishment.The
caption reads as follows:
49 Critica, 5/8/28, p. 9. In their discussion of Brazilianfootball, Rowe and Schelling emphasize that
popularfootball style in that country valued improvisationand the art of the tricksterover mere goal
scoring. In this sense, Crftica'scondemnationof excessive fanciness can be seen as an effort to contain
and discipline a popularstyle. Rowe and Schelling, pp. 138-9.
50 Critica, 3/17/25, 14.
p.
MATTHEW
B. KARUSH 27
El indio triunfaen Europa
BX-" .,
?/. I
5ST7 --
FIGURE 1.
He aquf como se ve en Europanuestrafootball! ... Un indio, el valor f6rreo

de la raza, convertido en maestro del juego ingles. Con gesto de asombro,
franceses, italianos, espaiioles y alemanes, admiran la figura airosa del
'sauvage sudamericain', acrecentadaconsiderablementeante sus ojos. No
tendra elegancia, pero en cambio le sobra inteligencia y habilidad! . . .
iEuropa admirando a America! ... Vaya un contraste.51
Published just as Boca Juniors' European tour was beginning, this cartoon
offered a much more sanguine assessment of European impressions of South
American football players. Here, it was the athletic skill of the "sauvage
sudamericain" that provoked astonishment, not his propensity to fight.
While the cartoon poked fun at Europeans for being so foolish as to think
51 Critica, 3/17/25, p. 6.
thatArgentinesand Uruguayanswere Indians,it also embracedthe figure of

the Indian. In a sense, the cartoon merely echoed Critica's tendency to
racialize the distinctionbetween Argentinesand Europeans.But by encour-
aging readersto identify with an Indian(if only in the context of a joke), the
cartoonist employed the same populist technique used by sports reporters
who referredto Argentineplayersas negro or morocho.The image of Argen-
tine players as Indians defeating the Europeans represented a satisfying
inversion of racial hierarchy,a reverse conquest of sorts.
The unrepentantpopulism of the cartoonand the disciplinaryattitudeof

the anti-fightingarticle reflect the two sides of Critica's football coverage.
The newspapersaw the sport as an opportunityto interpellateits mass read-
ership as "el pueblo," a national community defined in opposition to the
wealthy. Emphasizingthe humble origins of the players while celebrating
their individualabilities, lauding their aggressive masculinity,and referring
to them with racialepithetsresignifiedas termsof endearmentall servedthis
project. At the same time, the newspaper did not reject completely La
Nacidn's more pedagogical and controllingdiscourse.If lower-class athletes
were to serve as models of Argentineness,they needed to behave appropri-
ately. Football's capacity to provoke this split response was, I would argue,
typical of Argentine mass culture in the 1920s. It was in this period that
tango gained widespreadelite acceptanceand, as the image of touringfoot-
ball players listening to the music suggests, began to resonate as a symbol
of the nation. Yet, tango also aroused deep suspicions on the part of the
authorities,who sought to regulate the cabarets where it was played and
danced, as well as the upper and middle classes, who only embraced the
music and dance form once its transgressivegender politics had been sani-
tized.52In the quest to build a national market,the burgeoningmass media
of the 1920s- tabloids like Critica, but also radio stations and recordcom-
panies-harnessed the power of popularculture,even as they often tried to
foreclose the subversive possibilities it contained.Nevertheless, the discur-
sive instability that characterizedCritica's football coverage suggests that
such attemptsto controlthe meaningof popularculturecould never be com-
pletely successful.
The inconsistentpopulism of Critica's sports section had political impli-
cations, which the paper occasionally made explicit. During Boca Juniors'
tour,the newspaperran an unsignedcolumn on the visit paid by the Spanish
King Alfonso to the visiting Boca players in Madrid.Critica describedthe
gesture as typical of the king:
52
Guy, pp. 142-156.
B. KARUSH
MATTHEW 29
Es don Alfonso un monarcaque ... pone especial cuidado en comunicarse

con todas las representacionespopularesque la casualidadle pone a la mano,
dando esta, con estudiada familiaridad,a cada uno de sus componentes y
estrechandoselastanto mas efusivamentecuanto son mas humildes.53
Critica'scolumnist thankedthe king for his courtesy towardsBoca Juniors,

"una entidad popular argentina,salida de las entraiiasdel pueblo mismo."
But he pointed out that the king's personal democracy contrastedsharply
with the authoritarianpolicies of the Spanish regime. While the King acted
like a friend to the poor, the Spanish people were oppressedby the tyranni-
cal rule of Primo de Rivera. Moreover, the columnist argued, it was the
naivete of the Spanishthemselves thatallowed the King to maintainhis pop-
ularity despite this glaring contradiction:"Ha conseguido hacerse, entre la
masa ingenua y sensibleraque abundaen todos los paises y singularmente
en los latinos, una fama de rey campechanoy democratico."In this column
as elsewhere, Critica presenteditself as the defender of democracy and of
the interests of the humble masses, representedin Argentinaby the Boca
Juniors players. Yet, while the column spoke up for the rights of the
oppressed Spanish people, it also criticized them for their gullibility, and it
attributedthis characteristicto "Latin"peoples in general. The masses, it
seems, deserved democracy,yet their own shortcomingscreated the poten-
tial for demagogueryand tyranny.Just as Critica's sports section wavered
between populism and social control, the papersupportedthe political aspi-
rations of the masses even as it tried to guardagainst the potentially nega-
tive outcomes of popularpolitical participation.
This attitudetowardsthe political potentialof the masses-the view that

they were deservingyet untrustworthy- shaped Critica'sanalysis of Argen-
tine politics. The same dynamic that destabilized the newspaper's sports
reportingresultedin its notoriouslyshifting political affiliations.As "la voz
del pueblo,"the paperneeded to identify with and defend the interestsof the
poor, but it needed to do so withoutunderminingthe social order.And as in
its sports section, Critica was unable to control completely the effects of its
populism.The desire to preventsubversionand regulatethe behaviorof the
masses led Critica to oppose fiercely the Radical leader Hip6lito Yrigoyen
for most of the 1920s, a stance the paper shared with the conservative La
Nacion. Like La Nacion, Critica defended its anti-Yrigoyenismoas a com-
mitmentto law and constitutionalityand against demagoguery,caudillismo
and mob rule. As the paperput it in calling on porteniovoters to supportthe
53 Critica, 3/23/25, p. 8.
Socialists in 1922, "Lagente decente debe votarcontrala chusma."54Never-

theless, during the campaign before the 1928 presidentialelection, Critica
reverseditself and supportedYrigoyen's runfor re-election.As Sylvia Saitta
has suggested, the paperprobablyhad little choice; its self-definitionas the
representativeof "el pueblo"gave it no alternativebut to embracethe hugely
popularcandidate.55In orderto boost Yrigoyen's chances, Critica turnedto
the popular-nationalcommunityconstructedin its sportssection. In an inter-
view publishedby the paperon the eve of the election, the Argentineboxer
VictorioCampolodeclaredhis supportfor Yrigoyen. Using the formerpres-
ident's popularnickname,Caimpolodeclared"iMe gusta el peludo de alma!
... Todo el mundo lo va a votar:los obrerosespecialmente."56 As a popular
athlete,Caimpolowas alreadya representativeof the less privilegedmasses;
by singling out workers as Yrigoyen's primaryconstituency,the interview
reinforcedthe populistmessage of Yrigoyen's campaign.57
Yet Critica'sanxiety aboutthe political participationof the masses weak-

ened its commitment to Yrigoyenista populism. Just five months after
Yrigoyen took office, Critica began to criticize the government, and the
paper soon reemergedas one of the president'smost hostile opponentsand
a majorproponentof the militarycoup of September1930. In its attackson
Yrigoyen, the newspapercomparedthe presidentto the caudillos of the past,
attackedhim for his demagoguery and presented itself as the defender of
civilization againstthe barbarismof the Radicalgovernment.58The newspa-
per's political inconstancyhad again revealed the limits of its identification
with the popular-nationalcommunityit helped imagine.
Football had played an importantrole in that imagining. In the quest to

expand its market,Critica sought to constructa nationalcommunitythat it
hailed as "el pueblo."Towardsthatend, the papercelebratedthe athleticabil-
ities of lower-class sons of immigrants,particularlyas they represented
Argentinain internationalcompetitions.Emphasizingtheir humble origins,
Critica made these football players into representativesof the Argentine
nationalideal, even the Argentinerace. The decline of the labor movement
54 Quoted in Saitta (1998), p. 222. On La Nacion's anti-Yrigoyensimo,see Ricardo Sidicaro, La

politica mirada desde arriba: Las ideas del diario La Nacidn 1909-1989 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,
1993), pp. 55-81, 108-22.
55 Saitta (1998), 234.
p.
56 Crftica, 3/31/28, p. 6.
57 Critica's effort to sell
Yrigoyen as a populist was not limited to its sports section. On the paper's
attemptto resuscitatethe reputationof the nineteenth-centurycaudillo JuanManuelde Rosas and to link
him with Yrigoyen, see Diana Quattrocchi-Woisson,Los males de la memoria:Historia y politica en la
Argentina(Buenos Aires: Emece, 1995), pp. 58-61.
58
Saftta(1998), p. 240.
MATTHEWB. KARUSH 31
combined with the persistenceof class divisions and resentmentsmade this

strategyparticularlysuccessful in 1920s Buenos Aires. Yet, the newspaper's
commitmentto this populist-nationalistrepresentationwas never absolute.In
the sports pages, it existed uneasily alongside a more repressivediscourse
drawn from La Nacion and other conservativesources. On the front page,
Criticawas similarlyambivalent:in meremonths,enthusiasmfor the people's
candidategave way to familiardenunciationsof demagogueryand mob rule.
As Critica launchedits campaignto overthrowYrigoyen, the newspaper

looked for ways to maintain its populist and nationalistcredentials. Once
again, the paper turned to football. In late July 1930, just over a month
before the military coup that would topple the Radical government, the
Argentinenational team was defeated again by Uruguay in the final round
of the first WorldCup football tournament,which was held in Montevideo.
In Critica, the loss became the occasion for an explosion of nationalist
indignation.The newspaperblamed the defeat on the Uruguayans'violent
tactics and on the officials who allegedly favoredthe home team. Moreover,
Critica attackedthose newspapersthat were unwilling to accept its account
of the game:
Nosotrossabemosque lo mas elegantees siempresaludarla victoriadel

adversarioy posarde deportistas.Perodesconfieel publicode ciertasacti-
tudeselegantesporquesuelenser las mas c6modasy las mas convenientes.
Muchasveces no hacensino ocultarel interesde no perderla ventade ejem-
plaresen Montevideo.59
Puttingpatriotismaheadof good sportsmanship,Critica singled itself out as

the only newspaperwilling to risk its internationalsales in orderto defend
the nation's athleticrepresentatives.Critica also used the occasion to attack
its political opponentsby denouncing,on its front page, an incident of van-
dalism committedagainstits offices: "[E]stimulandoindirectamenteal foot-
ball extranjeroen momentos en que nuestros muchachos daban todo su
coraz6n en el estadio Centenario,un grupitoklanesco e irigoyenistaorgani-
zado por el diario 'lacayo' intent6un ataqueveloz contraCritica."6 Even as
othernewspaperswere insisting thatfootball matches should not serve as an
opportunityfor politics or patriotism,61Critica sought to bolster its image as
the defenderof the people and to depict the Yrigoyen governmentas illegit-
59 Critica, 8/1/30, p. 3.
60 Crtica, 7/31/30, p. 1.
61 La Prensa, 7/31/30, p. 14. La Prensa also arguedthat Argentinashould not
complain about the
violent tactics used by Uruguayanplayers but should instead field a more manly football team capable
of withstandingthese tactics.
imate and anti-nationalist.Of course, populist nationalismwas a weapon of

only limited usefulness in a battle against demagoguery.Having celebrated
Yrigoyen just two years earlier as the champion of the working masses,
Critica could not convincingly arguethe opposite now. Instead,Critica pro-
fessed its loyalty to Argentina'sfootball team, wrappingits currentpolitical
stance in the trappingsof a less explicitly populist nationalism.
The images of nationalidentity disseminatedby the new mass cultureof

the 1920s did not transformArgentina'sdiverse population into a harmo-
nious community.On the contrary,many of these representationswere fun-
damentallydivisive. By turninglower-class sons of immigrantsinto national
heroes, Critica's football coverage expressed an oppositional nationalism.
The predominanceof this discourse in Buenos Aires's most populartabloid
reveals that although ethnic tensions no longer representeda significant
obstacle to national unity, class divisions still did. In this early moment in
Argentine mass cultural history, being a football fan, even a fan of the
nationalteam, could express and reinforcea populist, anti-elitistorientation.
But even within Critica, this counterhegemonic nationalism was often
underminedby a much more conservativediscourse on football reminiscent
of traditionalnewspaperslike La Nacion. In the end, Critica could not con-
trol the meaningsof the nationalistimages it had helped create.The populist
connotationsof football persisted throughoutthe 1930s and were available
for mobilizationwhen JuanPer6ncame to power in 1946.62 Peron'spopulist
and nationalistappropriationof football, like his use of other elements of
Argentine popular culture, built on the meanings produced over several
decades by an increasinglyinfluentialmass culture.
George Mason University B. KARUSH

MATTHEW
Fairfax, Virginia
62 The political use of football predatedPer6n. General

Agustin Justo, Argentina'spresidentfrom
1932 to 1938 and a friend of Natalio Botana, supportedArgentinefootball in general and Boca Juniors
in particular.But while he recognizedthe potentialpolitical significanceof football, he was not interested
in mobilizing the sport's counterhegemonicassociations. See Ariel Scher, La patria deportista: Cien
anos de politica y deporte (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1996), pp. 109-149. On Peron'spatronageand manip-
ulationof popularsports,see RaananRein, "'El PrimerDeportista':The Political Use andAbuse of Sport
in PeronistArgentina,"InternationalJournal of the History of Sport 15:2 (August 1998), pp. 54-76.

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Academy of American Franciscan History

NATIONALIDEN'I'''Y IN THE SPORTSPAGES:

rT nhe 1920ssawtheemergenceof a distinctive,newurbanculturein the

* The authorwould like to thankChris

The consolidationof a distinctive,porteiiocultureduringthis periodis, in

Scholarship on sports, and particularlyfootball, in Latin America has

3 JanetLever, Soccer Madness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), p. 6.

Accordingto Lever, football unifies Brazil by offering a safe and sanctioned

Mass culturalrepresentationsof Argentinefootball from the 1920s pres-

Broughtby the British in the late nineteenthcentury,football emerged as

6 My usage of the terms"populist"and "populism"drawson Emesto Laclau'sdefinitionof populism

its central characteristicthe art of dribbling,which foregroundedthe indi-

This discourseon Argentinefootballwas not uniqueto El Grdfico.At least

business, but also a psychoanalysis section, a constructionguide, a section

Like El Grdfico, Critica consistently emphasizedthe distinctive style of

12Saitta, pp. 55-90.

trans-Atlanticjourney,in which "los footballersargentinos"send theirgreet-

Critica describedall of Argentina'sfootball players as criollo, regardless

and the "guapeza... de esta nueva raza argentinaplet6rica de energias."22

As Archetti shows, the discourse on criollo football style identified the

back to the country.27Entitled"La Pelota de Trapo"(prefiguringthe famous

In another column, Jose Gabriel used a football game to construct the

Critica's everyday sports coverage advanced this populist nationalism

their mestizo origins. By the 1930s, when thousandsof poor migrantsfrom

No interesamuchoque obtengasonadostriunfosen los paisesque visite.Si

caballeresca de los sportsmen argentinos, tan ampliamenteexpuesta por el

According to La Nacion, Boca's trip had national significance because it

Acompaiiaal equipo del Boca Juniorsla simpatiapopular.Lleva los augurios

pretesde ese sentimientopopulary desearle,a la delegacion,el viaje mas

La misi6n[de BocaJuniors]es porciertodelicadae importantisima. Se trata

players were "argentinosque utilizan el football como un medio de fortale-

This discursiveinstabilitywas evident in the images of masculinitymobi-

insisted that Argentines, "los paisanos de los gauchos y repulsores de

tions of individual heroics, which resonated unmistakably with populist

de sus intervenciones,a los floreos superfluos."49 Publishedonly three days

Soundingvery much like La Nacion or La Prensa, Critica here defined vio-

Elsewhere in the same issue, however, Critica'scartoonistput a very dif-

El indio triunfaen Europa

He aquf como se ve en Europanuestrafootball! ... Un indio, el valor f6rreo

thatArgentinesand Uruguayanswere Indians,it also embracedthe figure of

The unrepentantpopulism of the cartoonand the disciplinaryattitudeof

Es don Alfonso un monarcaque ... pone especial cuidado en comunicarse

Critica'scolumnist thankedthe king for his courtesy towardsBoca Juniors,

This attitudetowardsthe political potentialof the masses-the view that

Socialists in 1922, "Lagente decente debe votarcontrala chusma."54Never-

Yet Critica'sanxiety aboutthe political participationof the masses weak-

Football had played an importantrole in that imagining. In the quest to

54 Quoted in Saitta (1998), p. 222. On La Nacion's anti-Yrigoyensimo,see Ricardo Sidicaro, La

combined with the persistenceof class divisions and resentmentsmade this

As Critica launchedits campaignto overthrowYrigoyen, the newspaper

Nosotrossabemosque lo mas elegantees siempresaludarla victoriadel

Puttingpatriotismaheadof good sportsmanship,Critica singled itself out as

imate and anti-nationalist.Of course, populist nationalismwas a weapon of

The images of nationalidentity disseminatedby the new mass cultureof

George Mason University B. KARUSH

62 The political use of football predatedPer6n. General

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