Millions of people in the South Asian country support Argentina, which will take on France in Sunday’s championship game in Qatar.
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Adnan Imam, a resident of Dhaka, is an ardent fan of Argentina’s football team. As he prepares to watch Sunday’s World Cup final between Argentina and France, he has resorted to superstition to help his team win.
The 26-year-old software engineer is usually a sceptic and doesn’t believe in any divine intervention or luck, but he said the jersey he wore for Argentina’s first match brought bad luck.
“Argentina lost against the Saudis,” Imam told Al Jazeera. “Since then, I have switched to an old jersey, and they are on a winning streak.”
Rohan Ahmed, meanwhile, arranged a special prayer on Friday for Argentina’s victory at a local shrine in the port city of Chattagram. Dozens of other Argentina fans joined him.
“I would slaughter two cows and throw a ‘Mezban’ [a traditional Chattagram feast] if Argentina wins the World Cup,” Ahmed, 39, a shipping agent, told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed’s and Imam’s fervour for La Albiceleste, as the Argentine football team is known, defies logic. Their country is thousands of kilometres away from Argentina, and the economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries are weak.
However, football transcends borders, and perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in this South Asian country, where a large chunk of its 170 million people become de facto Argentines every four years. They wear light blue and white jerseys and support the team and its players with the same zeal as Argentines.
Global recognition
Bangladesh’s love for Argentina’s football team is at least four decades old, but this year, it grabbed the attention of the world like never before – from FIFA tweeting a clip of thousands of Bangladeshis celebrating Argentina’s goal against Mexico to global football star Gary Lineker expressing surprise at such fandom.
Argentinians also took notice of the devotion for their football team in a faraway land and decided to return the favour. They opened a Facebook group for Argentina fans of Bangladesh’s cricket team and started watching the sport, in which Bangladesh is considered an emerging powerhouse. Within two weeks, the group attracted nearly 200,000 members.
In another surprising gesture, Santiago Cafiero, Argentina’s foreign minister, tweeted that his country will push to reopen its embassy in Bangladesh, which has been closed since 1978.
