KEY POINTS:
BUENOS AIRES - In a country that lives and breathes football, Argentines are suddenly waking up to a game played with an oval ball, as the Pumas prepare to take on South Africa in the World Cup semi-finals.
As the national team has powered through the World Cup
rugby ranks in France to reach the semi-finals for the first time, Argentines have become increasingly aware that the Pumas stand on the verge of making history.
"Anything could happen, because anyone could win and Argentina is currently achieving lots of things for the first time, such as reaching a semi-final," said former Pumas player Cristian Viel.
"We can beat them and I think the Pumas could win against any rival in this World Cup," added Alejandro Cubelli, an ex-Puma and a player with Club Belgrano.
"It'll be close. But tactical. But that's the formula for winning in this World Cup," added sports journalist Jorge Buscio, who has also written a book "Being a Puma."
With all eyes on Sunday's game at the Stade de France just outside Paris, a new enthusiasm for rugby has been kindled among Argentines more usually captivated by the antics on the football field and for whom footballing legend Diego Maradona remains a national hero.
"We are all Pumas" read the posters which have sprung up on the streets of the capital Buenos Aires, showing the national team, arms in the air.
And since the start of the tournament, cafes and bars have hummed with talk of the game as armchair players discuss tactics and agonize over each move.
"Since the start of the World Cup, rugby has transformed itself into a topic of discussion in offices and bars," said the daily Pagina 12, pondering whether the spark of new interest will last beyond the tournament.
Raul Sanz, the secretary of the Argentine Rugby Union, says that it's the team's unique spirit which has so fired imaginations here.
"This team vibrates, that's why I think it is proving so infectious," he said.
Others argue the answer lies in the national spirit, and that every time a sports team does well in an international competition, the country mobilizes behind them.
"We were all Diego, or Ginobili, or Vilas," said sports journalist Juan-Martin Rinaldi on TyC television, referring to Manu Ginobili, who powered Argentina's basketball team to 2004 Athens Olympic gold, and tennis ace Guillermo Vilas.
Rinaldi added that he hoped rugby would be given the same boost in Argentina as tennis was after Vilas's unbeaten clay court streak, as the game is often eyed warily here as a sport for the elite.
"Rugby incarnates the ideals that football no longer represents in Argentina's reality: work, discipline and solidarity," wrote the weekly Noticias.
Rugby has a few lessons it can teach to football, the paper argued, such as respect for the other team and for the referee, compared to the violence often seen at football stadiums.
One of the characteristics of the sport here is that the teams are 100 per cent amateur players.
For some observers that explains why the sport has managed to retain its values, while others argue that it's just further proof of the game's elitism.
"The amateur nature of the game emerged in the 1930s as a reaction to the feeling of dispossession felt by the ruling classes when football turned professional," argued sociologist Pablo Alabarces.
"They decided then that this would never happen again, and so far they have had a certain success."
- AFP