A tribute to the land of El Diego and Lionel: The story of Muchachos, Argentina's favorite corner

It was the soundtrack to Argentina's 2022 World Cup victory — and you probably heard it at this tournament, too. ‘Muchachos’ is the song about disillusionment, the late Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and the country’s successful search for a third World Cup star. It references the Falklands War, Maradona's parents and the several finals La Albiceleste lost before winning football's most prestigious honor again in Qatar, 36 years after their previous victory in Mexico. His infectious rhythm has been sung in the stands and in the dressing rooms. Messi chose it as his favorite corner from Argentina's victorious campaign four years ago. It is, as fan Cristian Raña says, “the battle cry of the Argentine fans”.

The original version is a song by the Argentine band La Mosca Tse-Tse, which has no relation to football, called ‘Muchachos, Esta Noche Me Emborracho’ (‘Boys, This Night I’m Going to Drink’). It was adapted by professor Fernando Romero following Maradona's death in November 2020 and Argentina's victory in the Copa América final against Brazil in Rio de Janeiro eight months later — Messi's first major international trophy after years of almost there.

“I felt anguish at the beginning about losing an idol and someone very dear to this country,” says Romero, 34 years old. "That Copa América didn't erase my sadness at his absence, but, in sporting terms, it gave us back our smile. It made us feel that there was also some justice for Leo.

“I told myself it was a good time to remember that we all belong to this earth and to these two — not one or the other, we belong to both.”

Romero says he created the lyrics in 10 minutes. The song came naturally — the 2003 original, Muchachos, was well known in Argentina, had already been adapted for the Racing Club stands and was easy to sing.

“For fans to choose a melody to support their team is so magical that you can’t do it in a premeditated way,” says Guillermo Novellis, lead singer of La Mosca Tse-Tse, who played at Maradona’s 40th birthday and Messi’s 20th birthday. “It’s very mysterious. If we only knew what this mystery is to create success every day.” Romero and Novellis still cannot explain this mystery.

After a World Cup qualifier game in Brazil in 2021, in which health officials invaded the pitch to try to take Argentina's players away under Covid quarantine rules, journalist Matias Pelliccioni asked his followers to create a song about the incident. Romero couldn't help with that, but offered the lyrics to his version of Muchachos for free in the responses. The reporter must have realized he was onto something big: he invited Romero and his friends to sing the song live before Argentina's next game against Bolivia in Buenos Aires. The clip went viral, and the players sang it after their victory in the Finals against European champions Italy at Wembley in June 2022.

La Mosca Tse-Tse invited Romero to collaborate on a new version of the song before the World Cup — “He doesn’t sing very well; he played the drums,” says Novellis — and it became the team's anthem on their journey to glory in Qatar. When Messi was lifted onto the shoulders of his friend Sergio Aguero on the pitch after the final against France, he held the trophy in one hand and waved with the other as he sang Muchachos with the fans.

“On the day that football did justice andgave him this World Cup, the player who was the best in the world throughout his career sings a song that came from my heart," says Romero. "This is totally unthinkable and incomprehensible. It’s inexplicable.”

It wasn't all smooth sailing. After Argentina lost their first World Cup game to Saudi Arabia, Romero had to face his students at school.

“They told me, ‘Your music brought bad luck,’” he says. Novellis and his band, meanwhile, watched the quarter-final against the Netherlands from a hotel room before playing a show that night.

“We were winning 2-0, they drew 2-2 and we went to penalties. We were saying, ‘If we lose, what do we do? Shall we play? Will people stay to watch the show? Or do they leave bitter and sad?'" he says. "There were many moments like that.

“My digestive system suffered a lot.” The melody is catchy, but the lyrics make Muchachos. “They have a lot of tango,” says Novellis, referring to the Argentine music and dance genre that centers on love, loss and longing. The song begins with the line “En Argentina nací, tierra del Diego y Lionel” — “I was born in Argentina, the land of El Diego and Lionel.”

For so long, Messi lived in Maradona's shadow in the national team, despite his record-breaking exploits in Europe with Barcelona. What differences did Novellis notice between them when he played at their respective parties?

“Diego came on stage with us to play the drums — he was the master of the party,” says the 66-year-old. "With Leo, I invited him to come up and he didn't want to. His mother had to push him to do it. He went up for a minute, then ran away. That speaks to his shyness and his extremely low profile.

“There is a big difference in their personalities; everyone is as they are.”


The first stanza makes reference to “the Falklands boys that I will never forget”. Las Malvinas is the Argentine term for the Falkland Islands, where hundreds of its soldiers — most of them young and poorly equipped — died in 1982 after being sent by the country's military junta to try to recover that territory from the United Kingdom. Many other veterans survived, but felt the effects of a lack of support in the years that followed. The Argentine government still claims “las Malvinas son argentinas” and fans in football stadiums chant “those who don’t jump are English”. Maradona dedicated his famous goal from the hand of God against England in the 1986 World Cup to the Argentines who died in the conflict.

There is emotion in Romero's voice as he describes meeting a woman whose husband served in the Falklands, struggled with depression, and got out of bed “because people were singing a love song for them.”

The song then laments “how many years we cried for the finals we lost” — at the 2007 Copa América, the 2014 World Cup, and the 2015 and 2016 Copa América for Messi, the latter leading to him briefly leaving the national team. “But that’s over,” the lyrics continue, as the rhythm reaches its most hopeful point, “because at Maracanã, in the final against the Brazilians, ‘daddy’ won again.”

And then, the defining refrain:

Muchachos, now we turn to illusion I want to win the third season, I want to be world champion Y al Diego in the sky we can see With Don Diego and with Tota, encouraging him to LionelBoys, now our hopes have been renewed I want to win the third, I want to be world champion And in the sky we can see Diego With Don Diego and La Tota, supporting Lionel

The 2022 World Cup was Argentina's first since Maradona's death, so he watched from heaven. Don Diego and La Tota were his father and mother — who became celebrities in their own right in Argentina thanks to their son's fame and success.

“They appear because in one of the last interviews Diego gave, the journalist asked him if he was happy and he said yes, but that he missed his parents and started crying,” says Romero.

“So the only thing that comforted me the day he died was thinking that he was back in the arms of his mother and father.”

For fans, even the word 'muchachos' — what you might say when inviting your friends over for a drink — symbolizes a unity and sense of closeness to the national team that they hadn't felt for many years before their multiple victories over the last five years.

Romero never met Messi and company. The closest he came was participating in an event with Conmebol, where he presented four of the players with an award.

“But I will be the creator of that song for my whole life, and they will be world champions from that year on for their whole life,” he says. “So at some point God will bring us together.”

Other versions of Muchachos have been sung since 2022 — including by the players, who changed the lyrics on the flight back from Qatar to sing “now we won the third, now we are world champions”.

But Novellis and Romero have not released a version for this tournament, as they feel it is so closely linked to the events leading up to the last time.

Would Romero see himself writing another song if Argentina win back-to-back World Cups with a 39-year-old Messi this summer?

“In this entire process, nothing was forced,” says the professor. "It all came from a real feeling, finding a need — and I wrote about it. If there's something I want to express, I express it, and if it comes out well, it comes out well."

“And if it stays on my phone forever, it doesn’t matter.