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From author's telegram

The world’s eyes are on Lionel Messi, as Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup Final. The diminutive superstar has gained a massive following across the planet, not least in Israel, thanks to his numerous business and security connections with the Apartheid State. From being the face of an Israeli A.I. company led and run by Israeli spies, entrusting his private security to a team of Israel secret agents, I explore the reasons why Benjamin Netanyahu considers him to be his favorite football player.

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LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry all own stock in Israeli drone companies. LeBron has been about as pro-Israel as you can be without outright calling yourself a Zionist.

There comes a point with highly successful/rich athletes have more material connection to billionaires and the ownership class than they do with the working class.

Also a good reminder that the systems are the ultimate enemies

[-] Coco0330@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not really like Ronaldo is any better because Trump. (Edited the first part out since I was kinda wrong sorry.)

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

What makes you think he supports Milei? The guy is as anti-argentinian as it gets, hates football, hates asado, has no family, is loud and obnoxious, etc... Messi quite literally shares nothing of that.

[-] Mzuark@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago

There is always a correlation between a celebrity or athlete and sudden, inexplicable omnipresence in the media: Ties to Israel

[-] Angry_Fuck@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 day ago

Pelé would never

[-] tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 18 points 1 day ago

The old saying, “never meet your heroes" would apply here if his disgusting political ties hadn’t been so open, all of the time.

[-] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

An Argentinian star of generations past, Diego Maradona, became close friends with Fidel Castro and admired Che Guevara.

Edit: as clarification, I am comparing football stars and not countries. For legal reasons that's as much as I will say.

[-] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 22 points 1 day ago

Maradona was also pro-Palestine.

[-] commiewolf@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 day ago

There was a saying that Messi inherited everything from Maradona, except for a soul

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As Mexican, you can not make me not support Argentina. There is a massive ongoing campaign with the objective of isolating Argentina of Latin America, let's not fall for it.

[-] burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 day ago

Agreed. People need to keep in mind this attempt does not come only from the external media. The Argentinian bourgeoisie always attempted to create an image of Argentina being an European nation in South America. They try to this day erase the cultural identity of the afro-argentinian population and the indigenous Argentinian population. Also, don't confuse the Porteños with the whole Argentinians. Buenos Aires province has far more indigenous descendants than Buenos Aires the capital.

Let's keep in mind that the exact same thing happens in other countries, like Brazil. In some cases, it's even worse. The Brazilian Northeast, where I come from, developed its economy through sugar cane and cotton plantations, which required a huge amount of slave labor. Because of this, the Afro and mixed population in Northeast region is huge. Since the Southern Brazilian oligarchs became the dominant power in the beginning of the 20th century, they started promoting the same logic of "whitening" of the population and with this they promoted European migration and stimulated miscegenation to whiten the population and get rid of phenotypical traits of indigenous peoples and Africans, especially in the South and Southeastern regions. Because of this, there's constant discrimination against Northeasterns as they seem less white than Southerners. Most working class people in Brazil are from Northeast or at least Northeastern descendants, as we were from the region which developed first in Brazil.

So the same thing you see in Argentina, happens in Brazil. They always wanted to see us Latinos fighting against each other, to avoid building a common national or regional identity and a class counciousnees. So don't fall for their tricks.

That said, most football players have shitty political positions. Even Brazil national team has many far right supporters. Even Vinicious Jr and other players like Daniel Alves and Neymar, which suffered from constant racism in Europe, were Bolsonaro supporters. I don't doubt that Messi and other stars from Argentina are in the same path. They all suffer from a petit bourgeois consciousness that was developed when they started getting rich from football.

[-] TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nordestino tbm??

que mundo pequeno.

[-] burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Pois é, camarada, estamos em tudo o que é lugar!

[-] TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

massive ongoing campaign with the objective of isolating Argentina of Latin America

As a Brazilian, I don't know much about this but Argentina does feel very separate in a way (Brazil as well, but I don't know if it's due to the language or any organized campaign). Do you have any sources on this?

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Maybe ill write this more in-depth in a separate post but it all boils down to the Messi-CR7 divide, recently media started giving focus to a study that concluded that people with left-leaning politics tend to like Messi more than CR7 and vice-versa, which has led to a massive campaign in social media where influencers push the narrative that the world cup is fixed in favour of Argentina, that the FIFA is communist, jews run the world, etc... It doesn't really make much sense, its just there to channel people's feelings and lead them astray into far-right conspiracies and politics. I kid you not but i've had real people crash out because of how CR7 was robbed and stuff like that 😂, it's like a psyop that has been cultivated for decades.

For me the clearest sign that there is money pushing this is that in Mexico we even had the past conservative presidential candidate (Xochitl Galvez) making a video about it, heavily implying that it's rigged.

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

There was an article published on the LA Times a couple of days ago explaining some of the background of why many Mexicans don't support Argentina. Unfortunately, it's paywalled, but the gist of it was that some Argentinian players and politicians have said nasty things about Mexicans in the past, in additional to Argentinians' reputation in Latin America in general. I'm not saying that what you described isn't true. I'm saying that there are other reasons as well.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-07-15/world-cup-argentina-hate

Specifically about the idea of the World Cup being fixed, there were blatant poor refereeing calls in favor of Argentina in multiple games in this tournament so that has made it pretty easy to sell conspiracy theories that it's rigged for them for whatever reason(?).

Anyway, I had come into this World Cup intending to only support "global South" countries, so to speak, but after learning more about Argentina and Argentinians (from both personal and legit online sources, not social media trolls) I decided to exclude them from my support list. Milei alone is reason enough to not want them to win as that would benefit him. The difference between how Argentina's leader and Spain's leader have approached Israel and their genocide seems pretty drastic to me.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There was an article published on the LA Times a couple of days ago explaining some of the background of why many Mexicans don’t support Argentina. Unfortunately, it’s paywalled, but the gist of it was that some Argentinian players and politicians have said nasty things about Mexicans in the past, in additional to Argentinians’ reputation in Latin America in general. I’m not saying that what you described isn’t true. I’m saying that there are other reasons as well.

I'm mexican myself lmao. As i said before, there is a massive media campaign to isolate Argentina from the rest of latin america, for obvious reasons as they're being actively butchered by the US. it is true that we've had a rivalry, as we do with many other latin american countries, but that does not change the fact that they're our brothers. You'd have to be delusional to think that the average mexican is going to support Spain (of all countries) against argentina.

Anyway, I had come into this World Cup intending to only support “global South” countries, so to speak, but after learning more about Argentina and Argentinians (from both personal and legit online sources, not social media trolls) I decided to exclude them from my support list. Milei alone is reason enough to not want them to win as that would benefit him. The difference between how Argentina’s leader and Spain’s leader have approached Israel and their genocide seems pretty drastic to me.

If 2 years of Milei and a handful of empty rhetoric speeches by Pedro Sanchez is all it takes to crumble your "support", we really don't want it. and i mean it seriously, this is how one can end up supporting Israel genocidal policies because they're apparently pro-LGBT.

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

I knew you're Mexican, I read it in one of your other posts on this thread. I'm Brazilian myself.

Your reply is fair enough; however, I will say that Milei is only one of several factors, and many of the negative things said about Argentina pre-date Milei or Trump. Maybe I'll revert to my original position after most of the global South countries were eliminated, which is essentially that I want all the remaining ones to lose, if that were possible.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sorry if sounded mean but these topics get me emotional, you should know that we are very backwards in social policy throughout latin america, that is as clear as day in mexico and brazil and argentina, but we must not miss the forest for the trees, Spain and european countries are only socially progressive because they're rich and they built that wealth of our backs. The european nations would wage genocidal wars if they were in our economical situation as they have proved from time to time, and as we are actively watching them take off the mask.

Argentina is going through s terrible situation and we must not discard them away, Milei is not argentina as Bolsonaro is not Brazil.

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

No worries, I understand! I've had really mixed feelings about it since I started to dig into this.

That's a really good point that European countries are only socially progressive because of all the wealth they stole and continue to steal from their colonies and other parts of the global South. I'll think about Argentina some more, but I would need to really think a different way to come around on this. I do support any country that has been exploited by the powerful regardless of ethnic composition, so maybe I'll take that angle.

[-] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

i hope spain wins and i don't even watch sports

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 day ago

And i want Argentina to win because Messi and Milei are not the whole argentina and Spain is ultimately part of the imperial core.

[-] stink@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Spain's govt is much less fash than argentina as we speak though

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Spain goverment? Whom head of state is a literal King and they're comitted to NATO military spending?

2 years in office of Milei has you supporting a core member of the imperial core ? Whom president may have good rhetoric but actively participates in imperialist institutions like NATO and the global finance system?

[-] stink@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago

I mean there's levels to it, I think Spain is the leading progressive force of the EU at the moment, they're still evil, but they are arguably much better than Milei who is selling out his entire country as we speak to the empire.

Argentina has also gone pretty mask-off, but I can't even say they're mask-off because they have a history of racism, with a 100-year period of open migration from europe to make their country whiter (blanqueamiento).

They committed their own american-style manifest destiny called the Conquest of the Desert, killing, enslaving, and displacing millions of the indigenous population.

I will say I am not as well-versed in Argentina's history as I would wish to be, but the more I read about them, the more I associate them with the brutal settler-colonial policies of Amerikkka and even "israel".

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

Argentina has also gone pretty mask-off, but I can’t even say they’re mask-off because they have a history of racism, with a 100-year period of open migration from europe to make their country whiter (blanqueamiento).

I had a discussion with a friend about whether or not to support Argentina's team because of their racism so I ended up trying to do some very basic reading about racism there. I learned that they still to this day have an article in their constitution exclusively encouraging and facilitating immigration of Europeans, and that this article has survived 7 constitutional reforms for over 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Argentina#%22European%22_racism_and_Article_25_of_the_Constitution

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 day ago

This reads to me like supporting Israel because they're gay and there are homophobic Palestinians.

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

I don't think the two are equivalent, but you may have a different interpretation of the two things than I do. I just haven't learned of a good reason to support Argentina other than some sense of Latin American solidarity, while many things I've read and heard about them provide indications that they would not reciprocate. See my reply to your other comment for further reference.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hello? It's Spain vs Argentina, Colonizer vs Colonized? Spain still lives off the interests of the wealth plundered in Latin America.

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Like I said in my other post, maybe I'll revert to wishing for them both to lose.

I initially thought in terms of colonizer vs. colonized too, but I now thing that that's a bit too simple. With admittedly only a little evidence (here's an example from a quick search), I understand that Argentinians like to think of themselves as European and not Latin American. Their demographics reflect this. Compare the ethnic composition of Argentina vs. Brazil vs. Mexico vs. Spain. Argentina's (estimated around 80% white or more) is a lot closer to Spain's (85%) than to either Brazil's (who they share a border with - 43%) or Mexico's (estimated at 10%) [figures all from quick glances at Wikipedia articles about the demographics of each country]. At what point does a colonized country become so thoroughly run over by the colonizers that they start to become the same people?

[-] demeritum@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Well I hope you dont look into Chile's history then.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago

There are levels to it, and Spain is on a different floor of reactionary, they were the conquistadores dawg 😅 it's like supporting England vs India because of their reactionary caste system and Modi sucks. At the end of the day, England/Spain still make interests of the wealth stolen from India/Argentina, them having better living conditions and social policies does not make them progressive forces at all.

Argentina is more akin to any other global south country than Spain is, disliking them because they're being butchered by a clown is a crazy stance to take imo.

[-] demeritum@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 day ago
[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Yup, empty rhetoric. They still live off the interests of the wealth plundered here.

this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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