It’s been some time since respect for Brazil and Argentina’s shirts has not been the same.
The green and yellow is the victim of political appropriation by Bolsonarism and of jokes by President Lula when referring to Neymar as a “home office player”. And Brazil is led by an Italian coach.
In Argentina, no one would dare do that; the blue and white shirt belongs to everyone (with some nuances, as you will see), the coach is Argentine and the president does not mock his players. It’s another thing for a streamer to kill Lionel Messi’s father; Yes, that is possible.
The euphoria and admiration that followed Messi’s debut and his hat-trick against Algeria were interrupted this Thursday (18) by a surprising incident.
Florencia Peña, an actress and comedian who presents a program on the streaming channel Luzu TV, announced the death of Jorge Messi, Lionel’s father, with an indifference, lightness and lack of rigor that will make the video excerpt become, for many years, a reference for everything that should not be done in the media.
With an important detail: you have to be a great actress for people to believe that you do things that badly. Or you have to be a bad person.
This gigantic fake news divided Argentines and affected, this time for real, the national team. There are those who defend Peña (“it can happen to anyone, it’s the producers’ fault”) and those who, behind the false death of Jorge Messi (who, in fact, is ill), see the hidden hand of the most recalcitrant sectors of Kirchnerism, of which Peña is a fervent sympathizer. What would that be like? The most ideologized and inflexible sectors of Kirchnerism, the last branch of Peronism, believe that the Argentine national team players are “disqualified” and that Messi, in particular, is a puppet of Donald Trump.
There is some truth to this: this team led by Lionel Scaloni is probably the least Peronist in recent decades.
It was common for most of the players to sympathize with the movement founded 80 years ago by Juan Perón. Today, in 2026, this is no longer the case: only two of the 26 called up play for Argentine clubs. Far from Argentina, influenced by other societies and experiences and with the ability to see the country from the outside, Peronism is no longer a valid reference for most of them. This was partially evident when the team arrived in Argentina in December 2022 with the world champion trophy and refused to visit the Casa Rosada and greet the then Peronist president, Alberto Fernández.
Today, Javier Milei, like any politician, tries to take advantage of the national team’s popularity, but the players keep their distance.
Messi did not keep his distance from Trump, whom he visited at the White House alongside the MLS champion team, Inter Miami, in March this year. Fourteen months earlier, he had snubbed Joe Biden when the then-president honored him with the Medal of Freedom. Messi neither attended nor sent a representative.
Is Messi a Trumpist? Open question with no clear answers. What is clear is that Florencia Peña is not a journalist nor does she want to be. And that, if the media believes that the path to salvation is to look less like a traditional outlet and more like Luzu TV, sooner or later it will also kill Messi’s father.
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