Monday, April 28, 2008

The Green Albicelestes

Mundo Albiceleste would like to invite you to read the work of one of our readers, John Kennedy, on the subject of Irish immigrants and the influence they had (and still have) in sports in Argentina.

I always refer to an old saying that goes: "The Mexicans come from the Aztecs and Mayans, the Peruvians come from the Incas and the Argentines come from...the ships!". I believe there's a lot of truth in that saying and certainly the Irish were among the people who made of this, such a great country in many many ways.

Some might say that the only thing we have in common is the strong influence Catholicism have in our society or the big and crowded celebrations you'll see in the streets of the Retiro area of Buenos Aires every St. Patrick's day.

But there's a lot more than that. There are a number of sports personalities in Argentina that have Irish blood running through their veins and so did many of the pioneers of several disciplines back in the late XIX century.

But before I go on and on talking about it, let's leave it to the people that really knows and did a lot of research about it.

Having a great interest in the history of sports, I strongly recommend you follow the link at the bottom and take your time to read the beautiful job that John Kennedy and his friends did. After reading this, I take even more pride of having picked the Republic of Ireland as my team in Winning Eleven (or Pro Evolution Soccer, for that matter) whenever I play a tournament with my friends.

Enjoy your reading...

www.irlandeses.org/imsla0803.htm

5 comments:

John said...

This one hell of a research done by our friend John Kennedy. Well done mate!!!

I have to admit I haven't finish reading yet but this is one article that is going to take my time while riding back home from work.

Not only it covers on sporting aspect but also a whole view of Argentine history.

David N said...

I'm Irish, and Argentina have always been my 2nd Team. The Irish love to claim anyone with Irish blood as one of our own (for instance, Wayne Rooney is obviously Irish - from Liverpool, Irish name, Irish face and build, ergo: Irish), so De Stefano will henceforth be added to my short list of truly great "irish" footballers.

I was in Argentina a few years ago and a little old man in a souvenir shop in Bariloche asked where I was from. "Ireland" I said.
"ah." he replied. "Roy Keane. Very good player."

Seba said...

Nice one, David!

It's such a shame that the rugby union players in both Ireland and Argentina national teams really hate each other. Did you know that?

I know it and I don't like it. But what can you do?

My love for Ireland was forever triggered by their campaign in the World Cup in 2002 (I already liked them and enjoyed them when they played in USA 94. That game against Italy in New York was a classics!)

But in 2002 I was working for ESPN and I was receiving a lot of footage from fans in the street in Korea and Japan and the Irish were the best!

Those songs like..."A team of Gary Breens" (to the tune of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine) is hilarious.

I remember jumping on my bed when Robbie KEANE scored an equalizer against Germany on injury time! It was probably 7 AM in Buenos Aires and I couldn't care about my neighbours! I was screaming my happiness out of my lungs!

And as I said, I play with Ireland when me and my friends have ProEvolution Soccer tournaments.

I'm glad in DI STEFANO you have found another co-countryman of yours!

Hey...I've got a little bit of a red beard...do I count as one?

David N said...

Red beards are a definite sign, yeah.

Its a shame the current Irish team is so un-Argentine in its approach to football. Only Andy Reid and Robbie Keane seem to respect the ball in the right way. Maybe Richard Dunne has the right brutality to be an Argentine centre half, too...

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