Sports
Main article: Sport in ArgentinaThe official national sport of Argentina is pato, although it is not very popular. It is played with a six-handle ball on horseback.
Football is the most popular sport in Argentina. The national football team has won 25 major international titles, including two FIFA World Cup, two Olympic gold medals, and fourteen Copa América. Over one thousand Argentine players play abroad, the majority of them in European football leagues. There are 331,811 registered football players, with increasing numbers of girls and women, who have organized their own national championships since 1991, and were South American champions in 2006.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) was formed in 1893, and is the eighth oldest national football association in the world. The AFA today counts 3,377 football clubs, including 20 in the Premier Division. Since the AFA went professional in 1931, fifteen teams have won national tournament titles, including River Plate with 33 and Boca Juniors with 24. Over the last twenty years, futsal and beach football have become increasingly popular. The Argentine national beach football team was one of four competitors in the first international championship for the sport, in Miami in 1993.
Basketball is the second most popular sport; a number of basketball players play in the U.S. National Basketball Association and European leagues including Manu Ginóbili, Andrés Nocioni, Carlos Delfino, Luis Scola, and Fabricio Oberto. The men's national basketball team won Olympic gold in the 2004 Summer Olympics, and the bronze medal in 2008. Argentina is currently ranked third by the International Basketball Federation. Argentina has an important rugby union team, "Los Pumas", with many of its players playing in Europe. Argentina beat host nation France twice in the 2007 Rugby World Cup, placing them third in the competition. The Pumas are currently ranked eighth in the official world rankings.
Auto racing is a popular sport that has important racers in Dakar Rally, like Alejandro Patronelli, who has won the first place in Quads. If we talk about the past, Argentina had a Formula One driver who got five international titles, we are talking about Juan Manuel Fangio.
Other popular sports include field hockey (Las Leonas), tennis, boxing, volleyball, polo, and golf.
The Vamos vamos Argentina chant is a trademark of Argentine fans during sporting events.
Read more about this topic: Argentine Society
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)