Millions of fans fill Buenos Aires to canonise Messi and thank Argentina

World champions Argentina, in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, met fans who were with them far from the stands of the Lusail Stadium in Qatar when they clinched the World Cup.

This time the stadium was the size of a bus, where the entire team stood on its open deck, and the stands the size of all of Argentina where were fans in the freeways, streets, avenues, and public spaces.

As many as five million fans, perhaps more, wrapped in blue-and-white national pride, came out on the streets of Buenos Aires to meet their heroes, the ones that gave Argentina its third World Cup. It seemed no one wanted to miss out on the historic day.

The monochromatic night arrival of the team turned to colour at daylight and the rising of energy was blue and white, and on this day in Argentina those were the colours of victory. People hugged each other merely because they were in Argentinian colours. It was as if the heartstopping final game had taught their collective hearts to beat together and to set free their raw emotions.

Victory was still being felt across the country when, at 5 minutes before the planned noon departure toward the centre of town, the team came into view of the fans outside the Argentine Football Association grounds near the airport, and the crowds went delirious.

Along the breathtaking avenue 9 de Julio in central Buenos Aires, millions of people filled every space and waited for the team to come to the Obelisk as their meeting point. Ten minutes later, they would announce the team would not make it to the iconic avenue because the pace was too slow due to heavy crowds at the start of the journey.

On the team bus, Messi, with an Argentine flag tied around his neck, sat atop the back overhang of its roof, holding the cup and flanked by two teammates on each side; then headed down the city’s 25 de Mayo freeway with cheering crowds filling every space of both sides of the elevated freeway. So many people were around and in front of the bus that it moved at a snail’s pace.

Fans clamoured to touch the players, even touch the bus, they felt, with urgency, the need to see the team in flesh.

Authorities had Plans A, B, C, and more, including plans to evacuate the players if things got out of hand.

Blue smoke rose from chimneys, and the cheers and the songs in the air mixed in with tickertape-like shredded paper in the national colours thrown in large amounts along the parade route. At times, large balls bounced around as in invisible champagne. There was a constant melody of cheers accompanying the crowds.

Cheers rose into the air along with large pictures of Maradona, prompting someone to say that it felt like the celebration of a goal at the 1986 World Cup. That is how long Argentinians have been waiting for a World Cup victory. It had been a long time, and it showed. Broadcasters said repeatedly it was the greatest celebration Argentina had ever seen, a release of emotions into an explosion of indescribable happiness greater than ten-thousand fireworks at once.

“It's crazy, I can't tell you what it feels like, you just have to see it to imagine it. I wish the world could see it in person,” said fan Carla Cuello. “I assure you that no other country in the world can match such excitement and bewilderement”

The atmosphere was one of total madness.

When authorities made more changes to the route, people remained in relative peace, just to be around each other with whom to share their happiness. The Obelisk area remained largely crowded hours after it was announced the team would not make it there.

By the time the caravan reached the city’s Ricchieri freeway, exits, and entrance ramps were as full of people as all the lanes of the main road, and so were the streets that fed into it. Aerial shots showed people as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of thousands of people in the immediacy of the team bus.

The Casa Rosada Presidential Palace was decked with large flags and a podium had been built to receive the world champions.

In Buenos Aires’s Cabildo area, large flags rose heavenward in the form of a pennant, and a large banner with the words, “Thank You Champions,” awaited the team.

But the one champion everyone wanted to see and thank was Messi. Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of Messi, to show their joy and pay their homage, and they wanted to do it collectively with their countrymen. The day marked the moment in time when for Argentinians, Messi was the greatest ever, with the help from Maradona in heaven, as their song said.

By the time the caravan reached the city’s Central Market, at about 2:20 in the afternoon, the bus was barely moving, slower than walking pace. It was predicted that at that rate the parade would go on for some eight hours.

At about 3:40pm, two fans jumped onto the team bus from a bridge. One came within centimetres of Messi and the Cup. The other fell headfirst onto the concrete and had to be taken in with head trauma. Things were beginning to get out of hand.

The temperature had been around 35 degrees. The players and the fans were hot and exhausted, and authorities decided to cut short the caravan and moved to an evacuation by helicopter plan. There would be no victory lap through the centre of the city, there would be no reception at the presidential palace. The presidential spokesperson said in a tweet that the explosion of joy made it impossible to continue the journey on the ground.

The city registered 31 people wounded and 9 arrests in crowds estimated at over five million people.

Federal Police informed through a communique that the police force’s lead H16 helicopter carried Messi and Rodrigo de Paul, and the cup and that they would be overflying the Obelisk, the avenues and freeways and then head back to AFA’s installations.

As the various helicopters carrying team members took the victory lap over the city, hands went up in the air as the fans below, some 10 per cent of the country’s population, saluted and thanked the team, and sent its collective hug to the team above.

City cisterns sprayed water, though authorities wanted it clear that it was to refresh them not to repress them. People remained in the streets long after team members left AFA’s airport installations in private planes to their home cities.

Messy arrived in his hometown of Rosario to huge throngs of fans and was driven home by his wife Antonella because of restrictions on after-hours helicopter landings in his gated Kentucky Country Club residence complex.

Chants of “Gracias Messi” accompanied the team captain to the gates of the country club.

As Argentina’s super idol headed to rest with his family, Argentinians were moved by words the man who lead and inspired the national team posted earlier in the day: “I dreamed it so many times, I wanted it so much that I still haven't touched ground, I can't believe it,” posted Messi on Instagram.“Thank you very much to my family, to all who support me and also to all who believed in us. We demonstrated once again that Argentines, when we fight together and unite, we are capable of achieving what we set out to do.

“The merit belongs to this group, which is above individualities, it is the strength of all fighting for the same dream that was also the dream of all Argentines... We did it!!!”

A viral note pinballing through the country and among Argentinians around the world, took the swelling pride and inspiration and put into words the wonderful complexities of sport and life together and how they are wrapped and driven by human endeavour.

“It is that at times it hurts us too much, but we have that superpower, and in order to feel it, you have to choose, to believe/ Or simply believe.

“Because when passion unites us - be it for us, for them or because we felt that he deserved it - we are champions again.

“It is not football, it is much more, it is Argentina. I wanted to explain it to you, but you would not understand.”