The History of Argentine Football

Football was introduced to Argentina in the latter half of the 19th century, as in many other parts of the world, by the British immigrants in Buenos Aires, numbering round 40,000 people, along with rugby union and other sports.

In the 1930 Fifa World Cup, the world turned to South America for the first Fotball World Cup, held inUruguay, and Argentina had an important role, losing to the host country in the final match. A year later, football was professionalized, and was already the most popular sport. Since then, football kept gaining popularity, and Argentina became a synonym with football around the world.

Many great players abandoned Argentina to go to better paying leagues such as the Spanish, Italian and the English. Raimundo Orsi, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Omar Sivori, Mario Kempes, Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, and Juan Román Riquelme are just a few examples of the many Argentine footballers who have left the country to become famous in Europe.

Late in the 20th century women started practicing the sport in the amateur level, leading to the creation of the Argentina women's national football team, which participates in the Sudamericano Femenino since its creation in 1991.

They also qualified for and participated in the FIFA Women's World Cup 2003.

Superclásico is a title most commonly used to describe the football game between Buenos Aires rivals River Plate and Boca Juniors. It derives from the Spanish usage of "clásico" to mean derby and the prefix super is used because Boca and River are the two most popular and successful teams in Argentine Football. And, according to some statistics, comendering more than 70 percent of all Argentine football fans between them. It's the most important local derby in Argentina.