Argentina flew home from the World Cup without their best player, and the welcome they got matched the mood perfectly — a red carpet, a military band, and nobody important enough to embarrass themselves with.
Lionel Messi didn't make the trip. After Sunday's 1-0 final loss to Spain in New Jersey, he reportedly flew straight to Miami, with plans to visit his hometown of Rosario separately. You can't really blame him. There's no parade when you lose a final, and Messi has never been one for performative grief.
The government put on what it called a "ceremonial welcome" at the airport — guard of honor, red carpet, regimental band playing "Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar," the song that became Argentina's unofficial anthem during the 2022 Qatar triumph. The same song, the same ritual, but this time without the trophy that made it meaningful. The irony wasn't subtle.
Milei's holiday quietly shelved
President Javier Milei had floated a national holiday in the immediate aftermath of the defeat — then made it conditional on the players actually wanting one. They didn't. According to local media, the squad wasn't in the mood to celebrate a runner-up finish, and the holiday was quietly dropped from the agenda.
Milei had also instructed politicians to stay away from the airport, not wanting officials to "hijack the soccer celebration." That left the welcome feeling deliberately low-key — appropriate, arguably, but also a little hollow compared to what a winning return would have looked like.
A significant chunk of the squad didn't even make the flight home. Enzo Fernández, Lautaro Martínez, Julián Álvarez, and Rodrigo De Paul all headed directly from the US to rejoin their clubs or begin their breaks. The squad that stepped off the plane in Buenos Aires was already a reduced version of itself.
The team bussed from the airport to the AFA's training facility in Ezeiza in the rain, fans lining the route regardless. That detail, at least, was genuinely touching — people standing in the rain for a team that just lost. Argentina's relationship with this squad runs deeper than one result.
But the result is what it is. They were one goal short, and no amount of military bands or red carpets changes that.
