A schoolteacher in Buenos Aires, Fernando Romero, was cooking his breakfast when the lines gushed out of his mind: “I was born in Argentina, land of Diego and Lionel, Of the kids from Malvinas, which I will never forget.” He set the lyrics to the background score of a popular song Muchachos, composed by the reggae and punk nine-piece band La Mosca Tsé-Tsé at the stroke of the century.
What Argentines refer to as Islas Malvinas and claim sovereignty over, are the Falkland Islands – a self-governing British Overseas Territory now, but also the cause of the 10-week war in 1982.
Little did Romero then know that, in December 2020, a week after Maradona’s death, his song would become his country’s sporting anthem, rendered passionately by the fans in stadia, players in the locker room and by masses in the streets.
Romero was not the first one to adapt the song which meant “Boys, we will get drunk”; several adaptations could be heard during club games in most stadia around Buenos Aires. But this became the most iconic one, and the band, which was disbanded several years ago, reunited to re-record the song with Romero’s lyrics.
He wanted to sing during a World Cup qualifier between Argentina and Bolivia inside Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. But he couldn’t procure tickets. He and his friends started singing the song outside the arena, which a local television crew captured and the original band members happened to watch and later re-recorded.
The band won the equivalent of a national award and Romero was invited to sing this song to an audience that included Lionel Messi. His only regret, he told Argentina media outlet EFE, he could not take a picture with Messi.