The Argentine collective ecstasy after winning the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 had a soundtrack that began like this: “I was born in Argentina, land of Diego and Lionel, of the kids from Malvinas that I will never forget.” Four years later, in the fight to win the fourth star, Messi, Maradona and the islands once again shared verses in the new football anthem: "For Malvinas, for Diego, for Leo's last, Argentina, I want to see you two-time champion."
In Argentina, football and homeland go together. Here there is no greater and more popular nationalist cause than the recovery of the islands that Great Britain has occupied since 1833. The Falklands awaken a mixture of pride, pain and belonging, but they also generate a consensus that makes them a political resource always at hand to turn the spotlight when reality becomes uncomfortable. Javier Milei just did it.
Why do the Malvinas occupy a central place in the Argentine imagination? Some researchers believe that to understand it, it is necessary to go back to the founding story of Argentina and its truncated destiny, the one that remembers with nostalgia that it was a powerful and prosperous nation and that it stopped being so. “When Argentina emancipated itself from Spain, the Malvinas were inside and then they stole it from us and that is associated with the trauma of Argentina, with what it could be and what it is not,” says political scientist Mariana Altieri, author of the book Malvinas and Gibraltar, entrenched conflicts. Remember that since the beginning of the British occupation, successive governments and also great literary figures such as José Hernández, the author of Martín Fierro, claimed Argentine sovereignty over the islands. “These rights never prescribe,” Hernández wrote in 1869.
“The further away the idea of recovering them gets, the more the logic of revenge grows,” continues Altieri, pointing out that football has been one of the scenarios in which this revenge has been possible in a symbolic way. The most remembered, in 1986, just four years after the Malvinas War, when Diego Armando Maradona scored a goal with his hand and another after dribbling past five English players and the goalkeeper in a masterful play. The last one, this 2026, in the World Cup semi-final, with his heir, Lionel Messi, as captain of the Albiceleste in the comeback with which they once again beat them 2 to 1. The euphoria with which the second goal was shouted in front of every television in the country increased at the end of the match, when some players displayed a handmade flag on the field that read "The Malvinas are Argentine." Nobody cared about the expected sanction from FIFA.
Anthropologist Rosana Guber, one of the most recognized specialists on the Malvinas war, says that “it was obvious” that there was going to be some political demand during the game. "The players were a channel. The protagonist was a guy who was in the hotel, who grabbed a sheet and painted the claim on it. It was nobody. Or it was all of us. Because what he did was shout that we beat the British, that we have rights over the islands and that we must be recognized," says Guber.
This anthropologist, teacher and senior researcher at Conicet, believes that the feeling that the Malvinas awaken in Argentines is understood if we think of them as a symbol. "A symbol such as the flag, the anthem or the cross. And symbols have different meanings, not just one. They challenge people who may have different positions on everything. That was the point that Milei appealed the other day, saying: 'we are all in this together'. Just like in 1982," he points out.
Of all its multiple meanings, Guber highlights three: the pending question of sovereignty that Great Britain does not sit down to settle with any Argentine government; the popular cause that demands the Malvinas from the soccer stands, in parades, demonstrations and in any other area; and the 1982 war, to which the dictatorship sent thousands of conscripts between 19 and 20 years old and which caused the death of 649 Argentine combatants and 255 British combatants.
An omnipresent drawing
The historian Esteban Rodríguez lives in Río Grande, the closest city to the Falklands. It is less than 600 kilometers away, compared to the almost 12,800 kilometers that separate them from the British coast. The province to which Río Grande belongs, the southernmost in Argentina, is called Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands and the drawing of the islands is on all the uniforms of the Fuegian students, on all the kits of the local clubs and on numerous murals and plaques. The provincial anthem is the Malvinas March. They learn it from the moment they enter school: “Behind their blanket of mist, we must not forget them, the Argentine Malvinas, the wind cries and the sea roars.”
It is easy to understand this way because Rodríguez affirms that the Malvinas are an inseparable part of Argentine identity, especially in the south. “We feel about the Malvinas as a loss and it is a loss that is etched in our memory because we are reminded of it all the time,” says this historian. That feeling worsened after the defeat in the war declared by the dictator Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri.
Río Grande was the main city in the war conflict. From there the Super Etendards took off that were going to bomb the British ships. After the defeat, every April 1, on the eve of the day the war began, a vigil is held to pay tribute to the fallen and keep their memory alive. The tribute was maintained despite the demalvinization policies imposed in the eighties and nineties, in which veterans supported the cause against the current. Nowadays, despite the low temperatures and the icy wind that blows almost non-stop, “the vigil can bring together up to 20,000 people,” says Rodríguez.
Some unknown islands
The journalist Nicolás Cassese has just published the novel Puerto Stanley, 1982 and has traveled to the Malvinas three times as a columnist for the newspaper La Nación. He considers that many Argentines know little about those islands beyond the dispossession, in 1833, and the war, a century and a half later: “The latest Argentine nationalist outbreak is based on the triple M—Messi, Maradona and Malvinas—, but about the first two we have an enormous amount of information and about the Malvinas we know almost nothing,” says Cassese.
As an example, he says that when he published the novel, some friends asked him about the title because they did not know what Puerto Stanley was referring to and there were those who associated it with a well-known brand of thermoses. They were unaware that it is the name with which the British call the largest town in the archipelago, which appears on Argentine maps as Puerto Argentino. Although he was accused of selling his country online, he explains that the town was founded in 1845, when the British already controlled the islands, and that the Argentines themselves called it that for decades. The unknown also includes the strong cultural and commercial links that existed between the Malvinas, Tierra del Fuego and also the extreme south of Chile. “The first sheep that arrived in Santa Cruz at the end of the 19th century were brought from the Malvinas,” he says by way of example.
Knowledge about the islands is rarely first-person. Less than 1% of Argentines have visited the Malvinas. The trip is very expensive, it involves staying at least a week and accepting to have your passport stamped. However, they are an indispensable part of the historical construction of national identity. "In the 19th century, Argentina was a new country, with many immigrants who spoke different languages, and education was very important to create a common identity. Malvinas was part of the story," says Cassese. Others, like Guber, believe that the school's role was less than it is often attributed, even minimal.
Experts speak of the Malvinas as a symbol, a space of mourning and an open wound. But they are also one of the few meeting places of a society divided in two. This unity has facilitated its political use on numerous occasions. Milei took advantage of a statement by Donald Trump in which he suggested that the United States could review its position of historical neutrality in the dispute over the sovereignty of the islands to defend on national television that “the Malvinas are Argentine.” In his speech, which ended with “long live the country,” he announced sanctions for companies that operate in the area without Argentine authorization and promised the construction of a military base in the south.
Since there is already a 2011 law that imposes these sanctions and the announced base had already begun to rise before he stopped it, the opposition accused him of being opportunistic and galtierizing the cause. The Center for ex-combatants of La Plata (Cecim) called Milei a hypocrite and criticized him for turning to Malvinas as a “lifesaver that hides his miseries.”
Cassese, on the other hand, believes that "for Milei it is all gain to embrace the Malvinas cause" and points out that with it he protects "one of his weak flanks, that of being accused of being a traitor" for trying to reform the law that places a limit on lands in the hands of foreigners.
Argentine foreign policy on the Malvinas has oscillated for decades between confrontation and attempts at rapprochement. Altieri believes that Milei has opted until now for the line of cooperation, just like Mauricio Macri before him. In 2025, Milei was in favor of the self-determination of the Kelpers: "We hope that the people of Falkland prefer to vote for us with their feet. That is why we seek to be a power, to the point that they prefer to be Argentine." On the contrary, his televised speech on Thursday “was a 180 degree turn,” says the political scientist from the Meridiano Foundation.
While the economic course set by Milei divides society, “the announcement of sanctions, of generating costs for the British, generates a lot of support, the majority agrees that this is what needs to be done,” adds Altieri. In his third year of government, Milei has just discovered the power of a flag that transcends the rift.
