Argentina's World Cup nightmare

Argentina's hopes for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea were high. A team stacked with super-talented and vastly experienced players such as Juan Sebastian Veron, Gabriel "Batigol" Batistuta, Roberto Ayala, Diego Simeone and Javier Zanetti were strongly tipped to carry La Albiceleste to their first world title since Maradona in 1986. But after two games in the group stage (a win against Nigeria and a loss against England), we had to face Sweden to decide who would stay and who would leave the competition.

I was a teenager then, and this was one of the first World Cups in which I knew the full Argentinian lineup, even the subs, and in which I had studied our rival teams. As a 13-year-old, I experimented daily with my emotions, my relationships and, sure, with my loneliness.

The World Cup was happening in eastern Asia, so the time difference was enormous and games happened at very inconvenient times. But the game against Sweden was the first Argentina match that was played very early on a weekday morning, which made it impossible to gather some friends to watch it. We had to go to school and there was no time to get people together. The day before the game I ate dinner earlier than usual, I set the alarm clock so it would wake me in time to watch the pre-match build-up, and I did my best to go to sleep.

When I finally managed to do so, I had a spectacular dream, in which I saw the game between Argentina and Sweden. The odd thing was that the game was being played at my beloved Platense's stadium but, as it still was a dream, that stadium was in Japan, where Argentina would play the game, though nobody around looked Japanese. I remember turning around and seeing Mariano Closs, a famous Argentine sports journalist and commentator. He told me that Argentina was out of the World Cup.

I woke up completely devastated, with tears in my eyes. The TV was on in my room and my nightmare was playing out in front of me. Closs was speaking in real life. Argentina had lost. My dream was over and so was Argentina's.

*As told to Africasacountry.