Crazy Fist — The Life and Tragedies of Boxer Carlos Monzón

I made the whole world talk, their hearts beat. I made them see that everybody has blood. –Leon Gieco, Puño Loco The exemplar of calculated aggression in the boxing ring, Carlos Monzón was at times a blazing, uncontrollable menace out of it. He was Argentina’s über-celebrity of the 1970’s. He dated the most famous movie [...]

Jewish Argentina

A trip to McDonald’s may not be the first item on a Jewish traveler’s to-do list when arriving in a new city. But there is something special about Buenos Aires: it is home to the only kosher McDonald’s outside of Israel. The kosher version of the golden-arched fast food chain is found in the Abasto [...]

Lionel Messi — Argentine Soccer’s New Messiah

Argentina’s Lionel Messi has once again won the Ballon D’Or, the ‘Golden Ball’ award given to the best footballer in the world over the past 12 months, yet one gets the feeling that the humble, self-effacing Messi would have been just as happy to pass the baton to another player. This is the third time [...]

Maradona — Life After Soccer

←cont from: Maradona: The Scandals The most famous man in Argentina has not been able to settle down to a quiet life of retirement since leaving football. Drug and weight problems have continued to dog him. He underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2005 and has been to rehab on numerous occasions, most notably in 2000 [...]

Maradona — The Scandals

(← cont. from: Maradona: Goal of the Century) Diego Maradona’s life, like others who have fought their way out of extreme poverty to stand with the world at their feet, has followed a story arc that has included many profound lows to go along with the highs. Daniel Arcucci, sports editor of La Nacion told [...]

Diego Maradona: The Man, the Myth

The only positive to come out of Argentina’s humiliating 0-4 loss to the Germans in the 2010 World Cup Quarter Finals is that at least the nation’s citizens didn’t have to undergo the ordeal of seeing once great footballer, Diego Maradona run through the streets of Buenos Aires naked, as he had promised to do [...]

Gauchito Gil in Buenos Aires

←cont. from Gauchito Gil—Argentina’s Gaucho Saint In the bleak Buenos Aires neighborhood of Chacarita, in a tree-lined plaza just outside the country’s largest cemetery, a cluster of bright red clearly marks the location of a Gauchito Gil shrine. Old women come to place flowers in front of the glass-encased statuette of Gil. A youth in [...]

The Irish in Argentina

“The first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels.” —Ernesto Guevara Lynch, speaking of his son, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Everyone knows the iconic image of Argentina’s Che Guevara, but few know that the revolutionary was of Irish heritage, along with roughly a half a million Irish [...]

Italians in Argentina

They say that Argentines are Italians who happen to speak Spanish. With several waves of immigrants arriving from the boot-shaped nation since Argentina won independence from Spain, it seems every second person here has an Italian surname, and of those who don’t, most will have an uncle or a grandmother hailing from Genoa, Sicily, Friuli [...]

Gauchito Gil — Argentina’s Gaucho Saint

Folk Saint. War hero. Outlaw deserter. Dubious myth. Antonio Mamerto Gil Núñez, better known as “Gauchito Gil” is the colorful figure who represents many things to many different people in his native Argentina. Imagine Robin Hood meets patriotic soldier meets protective Saint and you will have some idea of the many sentiments this mercurial character elicits in Argentine popular culture