Fans expect Argentina to live up to the reputation

ABU DHABI // After some stumbling during the World Cup qualifiers, Argentina has recently found some form, and many are citing them as favourites to win the tournament this year.
Among those is Juan Graziani, 31, a fitness trainer who recently relocated to Abu Dhabi from Rosario, Argentina's third largest city. He is one of at least 1,000 Argentinians in the UAE.
"We as Argentinians are expected to win the World Cup," he said.
Excitement is starting to build back home, even though Argentina has not made it beyond the quarter-finals since 1990, when the team lost to West Germany in the final.
The South American country has two World Cup trophies to its name, the first being at home in 1978, and the second in Mexico in 1986 – the tournament in which Diego Maradona scored his infamous "Hand of God" goal against England.
With such high expectations this year, Mr Graziani says the whole country is on tenterhooks.
"We are very, very anxious about the World Cup because in Argentina, football is everything," he said. "We are fanatics."
The World Cup amounts to a major source of pride for Argentinians, said Romina Arougueti, 27, who lives in Dubai.
"For us, the World Cup is like the representation of our country in every area, in all the world," she said.
Mr Graziani is pretty sure that Argentina will move past the first round, in which the South American country face Bosnia, Iran and Nigeria. "Maybe the hardest team is Nigeria," he said.
Then on, he said he hopes Argentina plays Ecuador or Switzerland in the next round.
Fans also dream of defeating Brazil at the tournament. If this happened, said Ms Arougueti, it would be almost as rewarding as winning the World Cup itself.
If Argentina should win the cup without defeating its neighbour, "I don't think the country would still be happy," she said.
The team's immense talent – such as forwards Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez, defensive midfielder Javier Mascherano and winger Angel Di Maria – is both a blessing and a burden. "Our problem as Argentinians is that we believe we're the best in the world," said Mr Graziani. "We have a lot of good players, but we need a team."
That means Argentina could fair worse than lesser teams that have more unity, he said.
"In Argentina, it's Messi, it's Mascherano – it's selfish sometimes," he said.
Ms Arougueti, an events planner from Buenos Aires, said she plans to watch surprise players included on roster.
But she said the youthfulness of the team – part of a generation that grew up hearing about World Cup victories and Maradona – could be its key to victory.
"It's not about their ability. It's about the passion with which they perform in the match," she said.
Mr Graziani would like to see his country reach the finals, which he said would probably be a match against either Brazil, Germany or Spain. He hopes that the victor is not Brazil or England.
When the World Cup is on, "the world stops" in Mr Graziani's country, he said.
Argentine primary and secondary schools let pupils leave school early.
"It's been happening since I was in high school," he said.
When he was secondary school during the World Cup in France in 1998, classes normally started at 7am and ended at 1pm, he said. But for the match against Croatia at 11am, pupils were allowed to leave at 10am.
Football is huge for most countries, but for Argentinians, it serves "to show the world that we still exist," Ms Arougueti said.
"Everyone talks about it but our team actually has the tools to win."
lcarroll@thenational.ae