Conmebol, the governing body of soccer in South America, dressed up this Monday to pay tribute to the Argentina team, led by Lionel Messi, for the world cup they won last December in Qatar.
The Convention Center of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) was the setting for "La Noche de las Estrellas", an event that brought together soccer players and personalities from the king of sports in the region.
La Albiceleste arrived in Paraguay amid the expectation of hundreds of fans who aspired to salute their idols, but who had to settle for watching a caravan of three heavily guarded black buses pass by that took the players and the technical team to the stadium. ceremony location.
"I welcome you to the home of South American soccer, to your home, which coincidentally is the soccer capital of the world," Conmebol president Alejandro Domínguez said in his speech.
Domínguez, who asked to be the spokesman for the people, dedicated trills and heartfelt words to the champion team, which arrived dressed in sportswear with the colors of the albiceleste.
"What you did at all times is show humility," added Domínguez, for whom the last World Cup game in Qatar was between the French team against the "rest of the world." "They were and are ours, everyone's, our selection," she said, addressing the honorees.
The event, which started with video images, a play of lights and the live performance of violins, focused mainly on a series of gifts that Conmebol gave to the champions and to the president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), Claudio Fabian 'Chiqui' Tapia.
The protagonists were, however, fans whose celebrations during the World Cup went viral and who at times made their players move with their words from the stage.
"They represented us better than many people in the last centuries in our country," said Fernando Romero, whose song "Muchachos" became an Argentine anthem during the World Cup.
Tears were also seen among the champions during the intervention of José, a 12-year-old boy from the Argentine town of Embarcación. "Until I grow up, I will keep this moment in my life," said the little boy crying with emotion.
For his part, the Argentine coach, Lionel Scaloni, thanked his players and stressed that "football belongs to them." "We are coaches, because we can't play football anymore, it's the only reality. We'd love to be where they are, we try to contribute from what we think they need so they can get the most out of their football," he confessed. Likewise, he stressed that Argentina was not only Argentina but that it had "all of South America behind it."
But it was the space dedicated to Messi that was the most anticipated. The Argentine singer Soledad Pastorutti dedicated the song "Brindis" to Messi, which she performed at the time in honor of Diego Armando Maradona.
"It was time for a South American team to be world champion again," Messi told the audience and thanked the people for their affection.
"I think that we are still not really aware of what it means to be world champions," confessed the figure of the Argentine national team. "We think about what is coming and not about what we did and I think that this is for life," he added.
The 10th of Scaloni's team received a cane from Domínguez as a symbol of "world football leadership and command", as well as a replica of the World Cup and a life-size statue of him, among other gifts.
La Albiceleste travels this Monday back to Argentine soil to play, on Tuesday, a friendly against Curaçao, in Santiago del Estero. Already last Thursday, the world champions premiered their title with a 2-0 win against Panama, in another friendly.
